Continuous enteral feeding: a major cause of pneumonia among ventilated intensive care unit patients.

Continuous enteral feeding is widely practiced in intensive care units (ICU). We found that pneumonia developed in 54% of 24 ventilated patients on continuous enteral feeding for more than 3 days. This appeared to affect only patients with a persistently high morning (7:00 am) gastric pH, with 12 of 13 (92%) patients developing pneumonia. In 11 patients the causative organisms were cultured initially from the stomach, oropharynx and trachea before pneumonia supervened. This effect was distinct from that found with the prophylactic use of antacids or H2-receptor antagonists. The mortality (46%) of this group of patients was 1.6 times greater than the expected mortality predicted by the Apache II Severity of Disease Classification System.