The role of preoperative parenteral nutrition in cancer patients.

The observations that malnutrition frequently affects cancer patients, that it adversely affects postoperative prognosis, and that it is amenable to intensive nutrition therapy, lead logically to the hypothesis that preoperative parenteral nutrition should have a salutary effect on many patients undergoing oncologic surgery. Available studies evaluating this hypothesis suggest that adequate preoperative intravenous feedings improve the postoperative course of malnourished patients and patients initially well nourished but in whom oral nutrition may be interrupted prior to operation.