BACKGROUND: Severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) as a common acute abdomen due to complicated causes is characterized by lots of morbidities, difficult treatment, and high mortality. This study was designed to investigate the role of individually staged nutritional support (ISNS) in the treatment of SAP.
METHODS: One hundred patients with SAP admitted to our hospital from January 1997 to October 2002 were randomly divided into total parenteral nutrition group (TPN group, 50 patients) and individually staged nutrition group (individualized group, 50 patients), between which the therapeutic outcome and the incidence of complications were carefully analyzed.
RESULTS: Compared with the TPN group, the individualized group had less complications (62 vs 94 patients) including incubation related complications (2% vs 16%), superinfections (8% vs 30%), hepatic functional insufficiency (4% vs 24%) and intra-peritoneal infections (4% vs 12%), in addition to a sooner restoring of oral nutrition (18.5 vs 24.8 days, P<0.05), a shorter hospital stay (24.5 vs 30.2 days) and a lower hospital cost (4.1 vs 5.8 10 000 yuan, P<0.05).
CONCLUSION: ISNS, which provides SAP patients with sufficient energy and nutrients according to their true pathological status, is an ideal nutrition planning with lowered incidence of complications, shortened hospital stay and lightened financial burden.