Critical care nutrition: Routes of feeding

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Nutrition is an integral part of the management of the critically ill patient. Nutritional support can be provided by either parenteral or enteral routes. Whenever possible, enteral nutrition is the method of choice, as it reduces complication rates and improves outcome. Potential choices for enteral feeding include nasoesophageal, esophagostomy, gastrostomy, jejunostomy, and transpyloric feeding tubes. The modes of parenteral and enteral nutrition are reviewed individually, including indications and selection of appropriate routes of feeding, methods of tube placement, and benefits and risks associated with each feeding approach.