Postoperative nutritional support using needle catheter feeding jejunostomy.

Needle catheter jejunostomy was used as an adjunctive surgical procedure in 110 patients. In 19 patients (or 17%) the jejunostomy was of value for the administration of post-operative nutritional support using an elemental diet and it may serve as an alternative route for the administration of supplementing fluids and electrolytes if intestinal function is intact. The clinical experience with the catheter jejunostomy establishes it as a satisfactory technique for postoperative nutritional support in patients requiring esophageal and proximal gastric resection and repair, and gastric surgery in the elderly and debilitated. It is also useful in patients undergoing complicated biliary, pancreatic, and duodenal surgery in whom anastomotic difficulties are anticipated.