Pancreatic Secretory Responses to Intravenous Hyperalimentation and Intraduodenal Elemental and Full Liquid Diets

Intravenous hyperalimentation and enteral elemental diets have both been advocated for the nutritional support of patients with acute pancreatitis, pancreatic fistula, and proximal small bowel fistula. The exocrine pancreatic responses to these nutrients compared to one another and to full liquid diet have been inadequately studied. Therefore, pancreatic protein, volume, and bicarbonate responses to graded doses of (1) intravenous hyperalimentation, (2) intraduodenal elemental diet, and (3) intraduodenal full liquid diet were compared in duplicate experiments in five dogs with chronic pancreatic fistulas. Both intraduodenal elemental and full liquid diets caused comparable and significant dose-related increases in pancreatic protein, volume, and bicarbonate outputs over basal levels (p less than 0.05). In contrast, there was no stimulation of pancreatic secretion by intravenous hyperalimentation. It therefore appears that of the methods studied, only intravenous hyperalimentation can provide full nutritional support while maintaining the pancreas at rest.