The role of intravenous hyperalimentation in intestinal disease.

This article has dealt briefly with intravenous nutrition in intestinal disorders. The indications for its use and techniques of nutritional assessment have been stressed. The use of intravenous hyperalimentation in a few of the more common diseases of the small bowel and colon has been discussed. Every patient with disease of the small or large intestine has some degree of dysfunction in the gastrointestinal tract. In many instances, this functional impairment interferes with normal ingestion or absorption of nutrients and predisposes the patient to malnutrition. The presence of malnutrition increases the morbidity and mortality of surgery and can be reversed by using intravenous hyperalimentation. Those patients with extreme short bowel syndrome secondary to intestinal disease or its parenteral nutrition at home. We stress the importance of a team approach to hyperalimentation. The evolution of a team of nutritional experts will improve the care of the patient and the education of the patient and physician and make nutritional support more readily available to those medical and surgical patients in need.