Pre-operative peroral zinc supplementation.

37 adult surgical patients were given peroral pre-operative zinc supplementation and changes in serum zinc concentration were followed for the first five post-operative days. The serum zinc level increased from 15.5 +/- 2.2 mumol/l to 18.7 +/- 2.9 mumol/l (p less than 0.001) after preoperative zinc treatment. It was found that the magnitude of the post-operative fall in serum zinc did not decrease, but that the mean serum zinc concentration post-operatively did not fall below the pre-operative serum zinc level in the average population. The effect of pre-operative supplementation was less pronounced in elderly patients, expecially after transvesical prostatectomy.