Complications of feeding jejunostomy placement: a single-institution experience

Feeding jejunostomy is an alternative route of enteral nutrition in patients undergoing major gastrointestinal operations when a feeding gastrostomy is not suitable.

A single institution review of patients who underwent open or laparoscopic jejunostomy tube (JT) placement between 2009 and 2019 was performed. Data collected included demographics, preoperative serum albumin, surgery indication, concomitancy of procedure, size of JT tube and time to its removal. JT complications were analyzed in the early postoperative period (< 30 days) and in a long-term follow-up (> 30 days). The Chi-square test was used to compare rates of complications according to tube size.

Seventy-three patients underwent JT placement, and gastroesophageal cancer (n = 48, 65.7%) was the most common indication. The JT was most frequently placed concomitantly (n = 56, 76.7%) to the primary operation and through a laparoscopic approach (n = 66, 90.4%). A total of 14 patients (19.1%) had early complications and 15 had late complications (20.5%). The reasons for early complications were clogged JT (n = 8, 10.9%), JT dislodgement (n = 3, 4.1%), leakage (n = 2, 2.7%), small bowel obstruction adjacent to the site of the jejunostomy tube (n = 2, 2.7%), JT site infection (n = 1, 1.3%), and intraperitoneal JT displacement (n = 1, 1.3%). The reasons for late complications were clogged JT (n = 6, 8.2%), JT dislodgement (n = 6, 8.2%), JT site infection (n = 3, 4.1%), and JT leakage (n = 1, 1.3%). There was no procedure-related mortality in this series. However, 12 patients (16.4%) died due to their baseline disease. The mean time to tube removal was 83.4 ± 93.6 days. The most frequently used JT size was 14 French (n = 39, 53.4%) but in nine patients the tube size was not reported. No statistical significance (p = 0.75) was found when comparing the two most commonly used sizes to rates of complications.

The rate of JT complications in our study is comparable to other published reports in literature. As an alternative route for nutritional status optimization, the procedure appears to be safe despite the number of complications.