Preoperative nutritional management - compliance with current guidelines

Major surgery poses a significant stress to the patient. The nutritional status is one of crucial factors that have a substantial impact on the final outcome of the surgery. Preoperatively established malnutrition or an increased nutritional risk in this group of patients requires a maximum effort to minimize this negative impact as soon as the operation is scheduled. The aim of this retrospective study was to assess compliance with guidelines focused on preoperative nutrition management at our site.

Our retrospective descriptive observation was focused on the period from January 1, 2017 to June 30, 2020. All patients scheduled for major surgery were screened for nutritional status using a nutritional questionnaire, and an appropriate type of nutritional intervention was indicated based on the achieved score.

Two hundred and forty gastrointestinal operations were performed during the study period. In total, 208 (87%) of patients were screened at the time of counselling. Diet adjustments with an increased protein intake were recommended to all 125 (100%) patients with normal nutrition status. In total, 95 patients were at nutritional risk and sipping was prescribed to all of them (100%) in the outpatient setting. All 20 malnourished patients (100%) underwent preoperative nutritional optimization as inpatients.

Nutritional status of patients before major surgery is considered a predictive indicator of potential postoperative complications. Compliance with recent ERAS guidelines concerning preoperative screening and nutritional support is high in our department.