Objective To summarize the application of enteral nutrition support in hospitalized patients. Methods The related literatures about enteral nutrition support in recent years were reviewed. Results The rates of malnutrition and nutritional risk were still high in patients. Enteral nutrition support could improve the condition and result of these cases in better clinical outcome, such as shorten hospitalization time and reduced the cost of hospital expenditure. Enteral nutritional support included both oral supplementation and tube-feeding techniques. Artificial nutrition may be provided by nasal tube (nasogastric or nasojejunal tube) or surgically placed tube (gastrostomy, jejunostomy, percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy or percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy-jejunostomy). More attention should be paid to the issues relating to feeding intolerance, including abdominal distension, diarrhea, reflux, and aspiration, especially for postoperative patients with early enteral nutrition support. Conclusion Enteral nutrition support requires highly individually and specialized tailored management.
Malnutrition is associated with many adverse clinical outcomes, including increased deaths and complications in perioperative period. The immunonutrition support plays an important role in the recovery process of patients with nutritional risk. Reasonable support can efficiently improve the condition of these cases and strongly suppress the inflammatory response. The immuno-nutrients include glutamine, ω-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, arginine, nucleotides and so on. More and more evidences show that different kinds of immuno-nutrients play a regulatory role in metabolism and inflammatory response in patients with different disease stages and courses, and affect clinical outcomes and prognosis. Nowadays, there is an urgent need to standardize immunonutrition support in clinical work. In this paper, the related literatures about immunonutrition in recent years were reviewed. Our goal is to reduce the number of irregularities in the nutrition support practice, and to help nutritional risk patients achieve better clinical outcomes.