Principles of intravenous nutrition.

In my view intravenous feeding represents a substantial advance in the management of critically ill patients. It is no longer tenable that patients should die as a result of complications of malnutrition simply because they cannot or are unable to take adequate oral nutrition. Intravenous feeding is a challenge both in concept and application. With it, however, the outcome for many patients, who formerly would have died, has considerably improved.