Preoperative oral immunonutrition versus standard preoperative oral diet in well nourished patients undergoing pancreaticoduodenectomy

•Immunonutrition in surgical patients.•Preoperative oral immunonutrition and pancreatic surgery.•Perioperative Nutrition in well nourished patients undergoing pancreatic surgery.•Postoperative complications after pancreatic surgery.

BackgroundPancreaticoduodenectomy is still associated to high morbility, especially due to pancreatic surgery related and infectious complications: many risk factors have already been advocated. Aim of this study is to evaluate the role of preoperative oral immunonutrition in well nourished patients scheduled for pancreaticoduodenectomy.MethodsFrom February 2014 to June 2015, 54 well nourished patients undergoing pancreaticoduodenectomy were enrolled for 5 days preoperative oral immunonutrition. A series of consecutive patients submitted to the same intervention in the same department, with preoperative standard oral diet, was matched 1:1. For analysis demographic, pathological and surgical variables were considered. Mortality rate, overall postoperative morbility, pancreatic fistula, post pancreatectomy haemorrhage, delayed gastric emptying, infectious complications and length of hospital stay were described for each groups. Chi squared test, Fisher's Exact test and Student's T test were used for comparison. Differences were considered statistically significant at p < 0.05. Statistics was performed using a freeware Microsoft Excel ® based program and SPSS v 10.00.ResultsNo statistical differences in term of mortality (2.1% in each groups) and overall morbility rate (41.6% vs 47.9%) occurred between the groups as well as for pancreatic surgery related complications. Conversely, statistical differences were found for infectious complications (22.9% vs 43.7%, p = 0.034) and length of hospital stay (18.3 ± 6.8 days vs 21.7 ± 8.3, p = 0.035) in immunonutrition group.ConclusionPreoperative oral immunonutrition is effective for well nourished patients scheduled for pancreaticoduodenectomy; it helps to reduce the risk of postoperative infectious complications and length of hospital stays.