[Patients before and after surgery: starvation or adequate nutrition]

The complete or partial starvation is the state often observed in surgical patients, especially before and after large surgical interventions on the organs of the digestion system. The inadequate nutrition is often thought to be the leading risk factor of postoperative complications and lethality. Of principal significance in prognosis and outcome of the disease in surgical patients is the timely and valuable nutritional maintenance (peroral, enteral, parenteral). At the present time about 100 medicines are used for enteral and parenteral nutrition of the patients.