Nutritional Optimization of the Surgical Patient: A Narrative Review

An increasing body of literature supports the clinical benefit of nutritional assessment and optimization in surgical patients; however, this data has yet to be consolidated in a practical fashion for use by surgeons. In this narrative review, we concisely aggregate emerging data to highlight the role of nutritional optimization as a promising, practical perioperative intervention to reduce complications and improve outcomes in surgical patients. This review of the surgical nutrition literature was conducted via large database review. There were no distinct inclusion/exclusion criteria for this review; however, we focused on adult populations using up-to-date literature from high-quality systematic reviews or randomized controlled trials when available. Current perioperative management focuses on the mitigation of intraoperative and immediate postoperative complications. Well-defined risk calculators attempt to stratify patient surgical risk preoperatively to reduce adverse events directly related to surgical procedures, such as hemorrhage, cardiopulmonary compromise, or infection. However, there is a lack of standardization of prognostic tools, nutritional protocols, and guidelines governing the assessment, composition, and administration of nutritional supplementation. Substantial data exist demonstrating the clinical benefit in the operative setting. In this work, we provide a fundamental primer for surgeons to understand the clinical importance of nutritional optimization along with practical prognostic tools and recommendations for use in their practice. While the extent to which nutritional optimization improves patient outcomes is debatable, the evidence clearly demonstrates a clinically meaningful benefit. Evaluating nutritional status differs based on disease severity and etiology of presentation, thus surgeons must select the appropriate prognostic tools to assess their patients during the perioperative period. This information will catalyze subsequent work with a multidisciplinary team to provide personalized dietary plans for patients and spark research to establish protocols for specific presentations.