A Case Report of the Nutrition Support for a Patient with HELLP Syndrome

ABSTRACT

A 30-year-old female patient, 18 weeks gestational age, with no prior medical history was admitted to hospital complaining severe right upper quadrant pain. The patient was admitted to intensive care unit (ICU) after emergency surgery to treat intraperitoneal hemorrhage caused by rupture of liver hematoma. Despite the absence of high blood pressure, the patient was diagnosed with hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, and low platelet count (HELLP) syndrome on the basis of abnormal levels of blood aspartate aminotransferase/alanine aminotransferase, lactate dehydrogenase, total bilirubin, direct bilirubin, C-reactive protein (CRP) and platelet along with liver damage and proteinuria. While in ICU, the patient was given total parenteral nutrition (TPN) and enteral nutrition (EN) for –20 days because oral feeding was impractical. In the early stage, TPN supply was not sufficient to meet the elevated nutritional demand induced by disease and surgery. Nevertheless, continuous care of nutrition support team enabled satisfactory EN and, subsequently, oral feeding which led to improvement in patient outcome.