[Home parenteral feeding in advanced tumor diseases]

Twenty selected patients with advanced malignant tumour (11 women and 9 men; mean age 52.8 [17-83] years) were on home parenteral nutrition because of ileus and (or) shortintestine syndrome. Mean survival time after onset of total parenteral nutrition in hospital was 107 (23-467) days. Mean treatment period at home was 81 (13-376) days, in hospital 26 (3-91) days. The patients with the shortest survival time all had metastasizing gastric carcinoma. The most common complaint was physical fatigue. In one patient there was a treatment-related complication (catheter sepsis). The results document that total parenteral home nutrition of carefully selected patients with advanced malignant tumour makes it possible for the remaining period of life to be spent, in acceptable conditions, at home rather than in hospital.