Publication:

A prospective descriptive study to evaluate the impact of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy in patients who require nutritional support

Background Patients who are unable to consume orally often require some form of nutritional support. Enteral is always better than the parenteral route. Enteral feeds via traditional nasogastric tube or nasojejunal route have been used for short term feeding but for long term management of these patients percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy is a better option. It does not require an operating room and has less morbidity associated with it.

Methods We did a prospective descriptive study to look at the role of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) in providing nutritional support to patients and the morbidity associated with this procedure.

Results In this study, 83% of the patients needed PEG for head and neck cancers prior to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Most of our patients had no complications due to the procedure (70%). There was only one major complication of necrotizing fasciitis, the rest were all minor complications. The nutritional parameters checked at the beginning and at the end of the study were not statistically significant, for example weight, serum albumin and hemoglobin but all these parameters of the study patients were stable.

Conclusions Authors found that long-term enteral feeding via PEG is a safe, effective, easy-to-apply, and highly acceptable method with minimal complications.