[Nutritional support in liver transplantation]

Given the malnutrition present in patients suffering from advanced hepatic illness, as well as the implications of this in the post-hepatic transplant period, a study was made of various biochemical parameters (prealbumin, retinol-bound protein, zinc, magnesium, cholesterol and amino acid pattern) as indicators of the nutritional condition of a series of 15 patients who underwent hepatic transplants and required total parenteral nutrition (TPN) during the first 10 post-transplant days. Before the transplants were carried out, all the patients studied showed a decrease in all evaluated parameters. Ten days after the transplant, and having been fed parenterally during this time, the different parameters corrected themselves, with the exception of cholesterol. TPN, administered with enrichment of branched amino acids by 35%, practically normalized the plasma amino acid pattern.