[Clinical observation on short term nutritional support in the treatment of advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary...

Twenty five patients with advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) having malnutrition were randomly assigned to parenteral nutrition (PN) group (12 cases) and control group (13 cases). Patients in the PN group received 10% Intralipid and 5% Nutrisol-S. Body weight, blood lymphocyte, serum albumin, transferrin, prealbumin, fibronectin and serum free fatty acids (FFA) and serum free amino acids (AA) were monitored. The results showed that parenteral nutritional support for 10-20 days improved the nutritional status, significantly increased the body weight and the serum albumin, prealbumin, fibronectin, transferrin (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01) and some kinds of serum free amino acids: PaCO2 also decreased. Serum FFA remained under the normal level whether nutritional support was given (P < 0.01). It is suggested that nutritional support may promote synthesis of protein in COPD patients with malnutrition. Intralipid infusion would preserve nitrogen and diminish the carbohydrate metabolism and might be beneficial to correct the hypercapnea in COPD.