[The application in cancerology of continuous pump-tube enteric alimentation (author's transl)]

Malnutrition and cachexia are major consequences of neoplastic diseases. When a response to one or more forms of oncologic therapy is expected, simultaneous application of artificial nutrition is often needed. Continuous pump-tube enteric alimentation is an efficient, well tolerated method which is easy to perform in a medical ward. We fed 29 patients with this technique during a mean of 43,6 days and a daily intake of more than 3500 Kcal. We noticed the following observations: -- when out of the impact of any therapy directed against the tumor the 21 patients with advanced cancers demonstrated an ability to gain weight and to achieve a positive nitrogen balance equivalent to that performed by the 8 non tumor-bearing patients; -- radiation therapy, administered to the head, neck and thorax resulted in an increase of energetic expenditure; -- chemotherapy impairs for a few days the benefits of the enteric alimentation. This paper underlines the possibility of nutritional rehabilitation of patients with a cancer cachexia. The metabolic injury produced by chemotherapy and radiation therapy increases the need for an afficient treatment of the malnutrition in cancer.