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Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews Review - Intervention

Medically assisted nutrition for palliative care in adult patients

Authors' declarations of interest

Version published: 08 October 2008 Version history

https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD006274.pub2

This is not the most recent version

view the current version 23 April 2014

Abstract

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Background

Many palliative care patients have a reduced oral intake during their illness. The management of this can include the provision of medically assisted nutrition with the aim of prolonging the length of life of a patient, improving their quality of life, or both.

Objectives

To determine the effect of medically assisted nutrition on the quality and length of life of palliative care patients.

Search methods

Studies were identified from searching The Cochrane Library, MEDLINE (1966 to 2008), EMBASE (1980 to 2008), CINAHL, CANCERLIT, Caresearch, Dissertation abstracts, SCIENCE CITATION INDEX and the reference lists of all eligible trials, key textbooks, and previous systematic reviews. The date of the latest search was July 2008.

Selection criteria

All relevant randomised controlled trials (RCTs) or prospective controlled trials (if no RCTs were found).

Data collection and analysis

There were no RCTs or prospectively controlled trials found that met the inclusion criteria.

Main results

There were four prospective non‐controlled trials (including one qualitative study) that studied medically assisted nutrition in palliative care participants, and one Cochrane systematic review (on Motor Neurone disease), but no RCTs or prospective controlled studies.

Authors' conclusions

There are insufficient good quality trials to make any recommendations for practice with regards to the use of medically assisted nutrition in palliative care patients.

PICOs

Population
Intervention
Comparison
Outcome

The PICO model is widely used and taught in evidence-based health care as a strategy for formulating questions and search strategies and for characterizing clinical studies or meta-analyses. PICO stands for four different potential components of a clinical question: Patient, Population or Problem; Intervention; Comparison; Outcome.

See more on using PICO in the Cochrane Handbook.

Plain language summary

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Medically assisted nutrition to assist palliative care patients

It is common for palliative care patients to have reduced oral intake during their illness. Management of this condition includes discussion with the patient, family and staff involved and may include giving nutrition with medical assistance. This can be done either via a plastic tube inserted into a vein directly or into the stomach or other parts of the gastrointestinal tract. It is unknown whether this treatment helps people to feel better or live longer. A search of the international literature was only able to find a small number of studies looking at this issue. As a result, it is not possible to clearly define the benefits and harms of this treatment.

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