[Enteral nutrition; direct costs in a tertiary care hospital]

The studies in which the direct costs generated by enteral nutrition have been analyzed in hospitals of our country are limited. The objective of our study has been the analysis of costs incurred by this treatment in our center.

A total of 449 consecutive patients who received nutritional support and that were hospitalized in the Hospital Río Ortega (Valladolid) since January 1999 to June 2001 has been studied. In this study only the direct costs were analyzed.

The nutritional support was effective in the complete group with an improvement in the serum levels of albumin, prealbumin, and transferrin. In the analysis of direct costs generated by enteral nutrition the total median cost was of 598.4 +/- 761 euros/total treatment/patient, which represents a daily median cost of 36.3 +/- 8.8 euros/day/patient. In the analysis of costs by paragraphs, the expendable equipment constituted 36% of the total, representing the tubes 3%, the lines of nutrition 12%, the containers 21% and the nutritional preparations 64%. A cost analysis was also carried out in relation to the different groups of pathologies, and in this way the patients with hematological tumors and the patients with higher aereodigestive tract tumors showed some greater costs, due to their higher median hospital stay. The patients who received nutrition through a gastrostomy probe showed also higher costs, in addition due to a greater hospital stay.

The costs of the nutritional support were superior in the group of patients with hematological tumors and with higher aereodigestive tract, due to their greatest hospital stay. A greater cost in the patients whose access route was the gastrostomy was also observed.