Research

Mixed

Enteral nutrition (EN) is superior to parenteral nutrition (PN) in reducing infective risks in the perioperative period.

For surgical patients, if the gut works, use it. Enteral feeding (tube feeding) is proven to be safer than IV feeding (parenteral) regarding infection risk.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
A meta-analysis comparing these methods of support concluded that enteral nutrition (EN) reduced infective risks by about one third.
Mike Stroud et al. · Gut · 2003

Why this rating

Based on a meta-analysis (Grade A evidence).

Source

Guidelines for enteral feeding in adult hospital patients

Mike Stroud et al. · Gut · 2003

DOI 10.1136/gut.52.suppl_7.vii1

clinical_guidelineCited 410×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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