Clinical Study of Early Enteral Nutrition on Acute Gastrointestinal Injury and Sequential Organ Failure

This study was designed to investigate the effect of early enteral nutrition (EN) on the incidence of acute gastrointestinal injury (AGI). Study was conducted on 200 patients admitted to ICU and had no contraindications to EN. Patients were randomly divided into research and control group, 100 cases in each group. Research group received early EN support within 24 h being admitted to ICU, while the control group received EN support after 48 h of ICU treatment. The changes of nutrition and inflammation indexes, ICU days and whole hospitalization days were observed, and the incidence of AGI and SOFA were then evaluated. The nutritional indexes including serum albumin, hemoglobin and the rate of reaching the standard of seven day feeding in the research group were better than those in the control group, but there was no statistical significance (p > 0.05), while the levels of inflammatory indexes including PCT and CRP were lower than those in the control group, with statistical significance (p < 0.05). Moreover, the severity of AGI in the research group was lower and the duration was shorter. Meanwhile, the severity of SOFA (14.3 +/- 2.6) in the research group was also lower than that in the control group (30.4 +/- 4.3). The application of early EN to ICU patients may improve the nutritional status of patients and reduce the number of days in ICU. In addition, it can alleviate the inflammatory response of patients, and reduce the severity of AGI and SOFA.