What is it about?
People with advanced cancer in the abdomen may develop blocked bowels and be unable to absorb food normally. Feeding directly into a vein, known as parenteral nutrition, is a way they can receive nutrition. We investigated whether parenteral nutrition lengthened people’s lives or improved the quality of their lives by looking at all the current research in this area.
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Why is it important?
Parenteral nutrition for people with advanced cancer and blocked bowels is controversial. It may have benefits in terms of survival, but it is burdensome for people with a limited life span. We are uncertain if parenteral nutrition improves survival or quality of life for people with blocked bowels caused by advanced cancer because there was insufficient high quality evidence available. This means that further research studies are required.
Perspectives
Writing a Cochrane systematic review was a lengthy process, although I enjoyed collaborating with my co-authors. I hope that high quality research studies will be undertaken which will be able to answer the question for patients of whether parenteral nutrition will improve their survival or quality of life if they have blocked bowels caused by advanced cancer
Dr Anne Marie Sowerbutts
University of Manchester
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Home parenteral nutrition for people with inoperable malignant bowel obstruction, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, October 2017, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/14651858.cd012812.
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