Nutritional Benefits of Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy.

Background/Aims For patients who need enteral feeding for more than 2 to 3 weeks, percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) is the most commonly used technique. Methods In this retrospective study, 151 patients underwent first PEG at Chungnam National University Hospital between January 2013 and December 2018 and were followed up for more than 3 weeks. All enrolled patients underwent the pull technique, and all techniques were performed by a gastroenterologist. Results There were 116 male patients in the enrolled study group. The mean age of the patients was 64.92 years with 74 patients aged older than 65 years. In total, 112 patients (74.2%) underwent PEG insertion due to neurologic disease, 34 (22.5%) due to malignancy, and five (3.3%) due to other problems. In the neurologic disease group, 34 patients (22.5%) had brain hemorrhage, 28 (18.5%) had stroke, 21 (13.9%) had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, nine (6.0%) had Parkinson disease, and seven (4.6%) had other neurologic diseases. In Table, a summary of pre-PEG and laboratory results between 3 weeks to 6 months after PEG insertion is shown. The average hemoglobin level increased from 11.52 to 11.96 g/dL (p=0.005), total protein level from 6.31 to 6.72 g/dL (p=0.000), albumin level from 3.16 to 3.5 g/dL (p=0.000), total cholesterol level from 144.53 to 151.67 mg/dL (p=0.009), and body mass index (BMI) from 18.95 to 19.3 kg/m² (p=0.23); these increases were all statistically significant. Conclusions Hemoglobin, total protein, albumin, and total cholesterol levels and BMI increased statistically significantly. These data can reflect the usefulness of PEG insertion in patients with poor nutritional condition and unavailable oral feeding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]