[Experience and complications in the management of parenteral nutrition]

We inform the experience of the Parenteral Alimentation Service of the Hospital de Especialidades of the Instituto Mexicano del Serguro Social in Puebla, México, between February lst., 1980 and Marc, 31, 1981 is summarized. There were 124 patients in whom parenteral nutrition treatments were performed, 73 were males and 53 females. The majority was in the decade of the sixties. A catheter was placed in a central vein through a cut dawn of the cefalic vein in the shoulder in 104 and the rest had an internal jugular or subclavian veins punctured. The most frequent indication for parenteral nutrition was the presence of an external intestinal fistula. The most frequent complication was hyperglycemia (15.3%) and catheter sepsis (6%). Mortality was 33.3%, but of this only in one (0.75%) was the death caused directly by the procedure of parenteral Nutrition. The authors insist that the procedure is very usefull and with an acceptable risk if it is done with strict rules and protocols.