Epidemiology of home enteral and parenteral nutrition in adults: Comprehensive national data.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Although HEN and HPN are important parts of home healthcare, lack of information about the number of patients concerned is surprising. This educational paper presents a review of literature concerning published national data on epidemiology of both HEN and HPN, for different countries. It compares these publications with an exhaustive retrospective observational study on our national adult population for the year 2019. METHODS: Our presented retrospective observational national study was carried out on patients aged 20 and over, divided by sex and into three age groups: 20-39, 40-59, 60 years old and over. Open data from the National Health Insurance obtained the number of patients who started a HEN or HPN during 2019 (incidence), as well as those followed in HEN or HPN during this year (prevalence). Results are compared with a literature review compiling all available publications presenting national data on epidemiology of both HEN and HPN for a same country. RESULTS: This work covered an entire national population of 50.881 948 adults. The incidence and prevalence of HEN were respectively 37.4/100 000 inhab/year and 74.0/100 000 inhab, with significant gender and age differences. The incidence and overall prevalence of HPN were respectively 22.0/100 000 inhab/year and 25.3/100 000 inhab. The prevalence of HPN during over 12 weeks was 6.2/100 000 inhab. The HEN/HPN ratio was 3:1. A total of 37 657 and 12 859 adults respectively required HEN and HPN among 50 881 948 people aged 20 and over. Published papers to compare, aggregating national data for both HEN and HPN, are only few. They do not have exhaustive data, they are often carried out on limited populations and often indiscriminately affect adults and children. CONCLUSIONS: Epidemiology of HEN and HPN remains poorly described in the literature. We present here the first results to accurately assess the incidence and prevalence of HAN on a complete national adult population and for a same year. The completeness of our data may explain these results of incidence and prevalence significantly higher than almost all available information in the existing literature, but as close as possible to real data.

Better outcome of patients undergoing enteral tube feeding after myeloablative conditioning for allogeneic stem cell transplantation.

BACKGROUND: Parenteral nutrition (PN) is still widely preferred to enteral nutrition (EN) in malnourished patients undergoing allogeneic stem-cell transplantation (allo-SCT) after myeloablative conditioning (MAC). The purpose was to determine whether EN improves early outcome after MAC allo-SCT. METHODS: Early outcome was prospectively assessed in patients undergoing MAC allo-SCT. A total of 121 consecutive patients undergoing a first MAC allo-SCT for acute leukemia, myelodysplastic syndrome, or myeloproliferative syndrome were included. Patients who received cord blood were excluded. Enteral nutrition was systematically offered, although PN was provided when EN had been refused or was poorly tolerated. Among the patients, 94 received EN (EN group) and 27 did not (non-EN group). Overall survival (OS), cumulative incidence of engraftment and acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) within the first 100 days after transplantation were studied. Because EN and PN treatment assignments were not random, propensity score adjustments were performed on patient outcomes. RESULTS: Outcome was better in the EN group than in the non-EN group for OS (hazard ratio [HR], 0.12; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.04-0.42; P=0.0008), neutrophil (HR, 2.07; 95% CI, 1.26-3.39; P=0.004), and platelet (HR, 1.93; 95% CI, 1.004-3.70; P=0.049) engraftments and aGVHD development (HR, 0.12; 95% CI, 0.04-0.39; P=0.0004). In Cox model analysis, EN demonstrated a protective effect (HR, 0.20; 95% CI, 0.05-0.77; P=0.019) on OS, whereas demonstrated a detrimental impact (HR, 4.18; 95% CI, 1.02-17.12; P=0.047). Enteral nutrition was found to be an independent factor in neutrophil engraftment (HR, 2.17; 95% CI, 1.24-3.81; P=0.007), whereas PN delayed platelet engraftment (HR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.33-0.99; P=0.046). Enteral nutrition was the only factor that was protective against grades 3 to 4 aGVHD development (HR, 0.19; 95% CI, 0.05-0.72; P=0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Routine use of EN is preferable to upfront PN in these patients.