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Characteristics and current practice of parenteral nutrition in hospitalized patients

Paul E Wischmeyer1, Lindsay Weitzel, Katie Mercaldi

  • 1University of Colorado School of Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology, Denver, Colorado 80045., USA. paul.wischmeyer@ucdenver.edu

JPEN. Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition
|April 24, 2012
PubMed

Insights

Parenteral nutrition (PN) is vital for patients unable to eat. This study describes PN use in US hospitals, finding adult PN patients have higher infection risks, establishing a baseline for future research.

Area of Science:

  • Clinical Nutrition
  • Hospital Medicine
  • Patient Outcomes

Background:

  • Parenteral nutrition (PN) has been a critical therapy for 40 years for patients unable to receive oral or enteral nutrition.
  • Limited data exists on current PN practices and patient demographics in U.S. hospitals.
  • Understanding these characteristics is crucial for identifying at-risk patient groups and improving PN-related complication management.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To describe the characteristics of hospitalized patients receiving PN in 196 U.S. hospitals.
  • To establish a baseline understanding of who receives hospital-based PN.
  • To identify patient groups at risk for PN-related complications and inform future research.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized claims data from the Premier Perspective database (January 2005-December 2007).
  • Evaluated 106,374 patients receiving PN, including 68,984 adults, 34,307 infants, and 3083 pediatric patients.
  • Extracted key variables: admitting diagnosis, infection rates, in-hospital mortality, and costs.

Main Results:

  • Hospitalized PN patients are generally older, more often white, and more likely to have emergent admissions and higher illness severity than the general hospitalized population.
  • Bloodstream infection rates were significantly higher in adult PN patients (25.5%) compared to pediatric (14.7%) and neonatal (1.7%) patients.

Conclusions:

  • This study provides the first large-scale description of real-world, hospital-based PN practices in the United States.
  • These findings establish a crucial baseline for future research in parenteral nutrition.
  • The data highlights specific patient populations and risks associated with PN use in hospitalized settings.
Abstract

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