Faculty Bibliography

This guideline will inform physicians, nurses, dieticians, pharmacists, caregivers and other home parenteral nutrition (HPN) providers, as well as healthcare administrators and policy makers, about appropriate and safe HPN provision. This guideline will also inform patients requiring HPN. The guideline is based on previous published guidelines and provides an update of current evidence and expert opinion; it consists of 71 recommendations that address the indications for HPN, central venous access device (CVAD) and infusion pump, infusion line and CVAD site care, nutritional admixtures, program monitoring and management. Meta-analyses, systematic reviews and single clinical trials based on clinical questions were searched according to the PICO format. The evidence was evaluated and used to develop clinical recommendations implementing Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network methodology. The guideline was commissioned and financially supported by ESPEN and members of the guideline group were selected by ESPEN.

The protein and energy requirements of critically ill patients treated in intensive care units (ICUs) have been actively discussed recently. Currently published clinical recommendations and reviews suggest significant increases of protein provision to 2-2.5 g/kg/d in some populations of ICU patients. However, a detailed analysis of the main sources of these recommendations reveals a number of serious contradictions, as well as an absence of obvious evidence supporting the allotment of high doses of protein. We went through these recommendations and reviewed cited articles and other studies, and we have separated our arguments against excessive protein provision into sections.

In the last several weeks we have been witnessing the exponentially progressing pandemic SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. As the number of people infected with SARS-CoV2 escalates, the problem of surgical management of patients requiring urgent surgery is increasing. Patients infected with SARS-CoV2 virus but with negative test results will appear in general hospitals and may pose a risk to other patients and hospital staff. Health care workers constitutes nearly 17% of infected population in Poland, therefore early identification of infected people becomes a priority to protect human resources and to ensure continuity of the access to a surgical care. Both surgical operations, and endoscopic procedures are considered as interventions with an increased risk of infection. Therefore, determining the algorithm becomes crucial for qualifying patients for surgical treatment, but also to stratify the risk of personnel being infected during surgery and to adequately protect staff. Each hospital should be logistically prepared for the need to perform urgent surgery on a patient with suspected or confirmed infection, including personal protective equipment. Limited availability of the equipment, working under pressure and staff shortages in addition to a highly contagious pathogen necessitate a pragmatic management of human resources in health care. Instant synchronized action is needed, and clear uniform guidelines are essential for the healthcare system to provide citizens with the necessary surgical care while protecting both patients, and staff. This document presents current recommendations regarding surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland.

BACKGROUND & AIMS:Recently, a parameter called "Fragility index" (FI) has been proposed, which measures how many events the statistical significance relies on. The lower the FI the more "fragile" the results, and thus more care should be taken when interpreting the results. Our aim in this study was to check FI of nutritional trials. METHODS:We conducted a systematic review of human clinical nutrition RCTs that report statistically significant dichotomous primary outcomes. We searched the EMBASE, MEDLINE, and Scopus databases. The FI of primary outcomes using the Fisher exact test was calculated and checked the correlations of FI with the number of randomised trials, the p-value of primary outcomes, the publication date, the journal impact factor and the number of patients lost to follow-up. RESULTS:The initial database search revealed 5790 articles, 37 of which were included in qualitative synthesis. The median (IQR) FI for all studies was 1 (1-3). 28 studies (75.7%) had an FI lower or equal to 2, and in 12 (32.43%) articles, the FI was lower than the number of patients lost to follow-up. No correlations were found between FI and the study characteristics (number of randomized patients, p value of primary outcome, event ratio in experimental group, event ratio in control group, publication date, journal impact factor, lost to follow-up). CONCLUSION:The results of RCTs in nutritional research often rely on a small number of events or patients. The number of patients lost to follow-up is frequently higher than the FI calculation. Formulating recommendations based on RCTs should be done with caution and FI may be used as auxiliary parameter when assessing the robustness of their findings.

BACKGROUND:The 2018 Lipids in Parenteral Nutrition summit involved a panel of experts in clinical nutrition, lipid metabolism, and pharmacology, to assess the current state of knowledge and develop expert consensus statements regarding the use of intravenous lipid emulsions in various patient populations and clinical settings. The main purpose of the consensus statements is to assist healthcare professionals by providing practical guidance on common clinical questions related to the provision of lipid emulsions as part of parenteral nutrition (PN). METHODS:The summit was designed to allow interactive discussion and consensus development. The resulting consensus statements represent the collective opinion of the members of the expert panel, which was informed and supported by scientific evidence and clinical experience. RESULTS:The current article summarizes the key discussion topics from the summit and provides a set of consensus statements designed to complement existing evidence-based guidelines. Lipid emulsions are a major component of PN, serving as a condensed source of energy and essential fatty acids. In addition, lipids modulate a variety of biologic functions, including inflammatory and immune responses, coagulation, and cell signaling. A growing body of evidence suggests that lipid emulsions containing ω-3 fatty acids from fish oil confer important clinical benefits via suppression of inflammatory mediators and activation of pathways involved in the resolution of inflammation. CONCLUSIONS:This article provides a set of expert consensus statements to complement formal PN guideline recommendations.

A number of topics important to the handling of intravenous lipid emulsions (ILEs) were discussed at the international summit. ILE handling includes the preparation and the administration steps in the typical use of parenteral nutrition (PN). The discussion and consensus statements addressed several issues, including standardization of the PN process, use of commercially available multi-chamber PN or compounded PN bags, the supervision by a pharmacist with expertise, limiting ILE repackaging, and infusion duration.

The inclusion of ω-3 fatty acids as part of parenteral nutrition is associated with clinical benefits such as a reduced likelihood of infectious complications and shorter hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) stays. As healthcare resources are limited, pharmacoeconomic analyses have been performed, typically modeling studies, using cost and outcomes data to investigate the cost-effectiveness of parenteral nutrition regimens including ω-3 fatty acids from fish oil compared with standard parenteral nutrition without such ω-3 fatty acids. This review covers pharmacoeconomic studies encompassing Italian, French, German, and UK hospitals for ICU and non-ICU hospitalized patients, and for ICU patients in China. The results show that the use of parenteral nutrition including ω-3 fatty acids more than offsets any additional acquisition costs in all national scenarios investigated to date, indicating that parenteral nutrition including ω-3 fatty acids is a clinically and economically beneficial strategy compared with standard parenteral nutrition.