Abstract:

Objective To evaluate the effect of enteral nutrition on postoperative clinical outcomes and the quality of life of patients with esophageal neoplasms by a meta-analysis. Methods Randomized controlled trials on enteral nutrition support for postoperative patients with esophageal neoplasms were searched in the databases of Medline, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, BIOSIS Previews, Clinical trials.gov, CNKI, SinoMed, and WanFang Data database from January 2000 to December 2021. Two researchers were responsible for screening eligible literatures and extracting the data. The main outcomes, including the complication rate, the first time of postoperative anal exhaustion, length of stay, and hospitalization expenses, and the overall quality of life were extracted. Endnote X9 was used for literature screening and RevMan 5.3 was used for meta-analysis. Resultss A total of 759 studies were retrieved and ultimately 18 eligible studies with 1732 subjects were included. Meta-analysis results showed that after enteral nutrition support, patients in the intervention group had significantly lower rate of complications ( RR =0.50, 95% CI : 0.39, 0.64, P <0.01), shorter time of postoperative anal exhaustion ( MD =-33.32, 95% CI : -54.27, -12.36, P <0.01), and shorter length of stay than those of control group ( MD =-1.40, 95% CI : -2.25, -0.56, P <0.01). However, there were no significant differences in the overall quality of life ( MD =2.39, 95% CI : -2.02, 6.80, P =0.29) and hospitalization expenses ( MD =-0.16, 95% CI : -1.37, 1.06, P =0.80) between groups. Conclusion Current evidence shows that enteral nutrition support can help to improve the postoperative clinical outcome of patients with esophageal neoplasms, reduce the incidence of complications, promote the recovery of intestinal function, and shorten the length of stay.

Key words: esophageal neoplasms, enteral nutrition, elinical outcome, randomized controlled trial, meta-analysis