The effect of pre- and postoperative supplemental enteral nutrition in high-risk patiens undergoing elective cardiac surgery. A prospective randomized placebo controlled double blind multicenter trial.

Preoperative oral immune enhancing nutritional supplement reduces postoperative infectious morbidity and results in a more stable circulation; the addition of glycine does not result in any benificial effect over standard oral immune enhancing nutritional supplement.

To study the effects of a pre-operative supplemental enteral feeding with IMPACT® on the systemic inflammatory response to cardiopulmonary bypass and on immunological parameters will be examined.

N/A

All patients receive an oral nutritional supplement for at least 5 days with a maximum of 10 days before their operation in addition to their normal diet. One treatment group received a supplement that was enriched with arginine, omega-3 PUFAs and nucleotides compared to the control. The other
treatment group received a supplement that was further enriched with glycine
compared with the first treatment group. Patients that needed enteral nutrition postoperatively received a formula that was comparable with the preoperative supplement.