Should perioperative immunonutrition for elective surgery be the current standard of care?

Postoperative infectious complications are independently associated with increased hospital length of stay (LOS) and cost and contribute to significant inpatient morbidity. Many strategies such as avoidance of long periods of preoperative fasting, re-establishment of oral feeding as early as possible after surgery, metabolic control and early mobilization have been used to either prevent or reduce the incidence of postoperative infections. Despite these efforts, it remains a big challenge to our current healthcare system to mitigate the cost of postoperative morbidity. Furthermore, preoperative nutritional status has also been implicated as an independent risk factor for postoperative morbidity. Perioperative nutritional support using enteral and parenteral routes has been shown to decrease postoperative morbidity, especially in high-risk patients. Recently, the role of immunonutrition (IMN) in postoperative infectious complications has been studied extensively. These substrates have been found to positively modulate postsurgical immunosuppression and inflammatory responses. They have also been shown to be cost-effective by decreasing both tpostoperative infectious complications and hospital LOS. In this review, we discuss the postoperative positive outcomes associated with the use of perioperative IMN, their cost-effectiveness, current guidelines and future clinical implications.