Early postoperative oral feeding shortens first time of bowel evacuation and prevents long term hospital stay in patients undergoing elective small intestine anastomosis

AIM: This study was conducted to compare outcome of early oral feeding (EOF) versus traditional oral feeding (TOF) in patients undergoing elective small intestine anastomosis. BACKGROUND: Appropriate nutritional support after major surgeries is a real medical concern. As traditional surgical techniques have been replaced by novel methods, postoperative care should be revised as well. Early postoperative oral feeding was studied in trauma and burn. However, there are few trials among patients after major surgeries. METHODS: This randomized single-blinded controlled trial was performed on 108 patients who had small intestine anastomosis at Imam Hossein Medical Centre in 2012. The patients were randomly assigned to schedule EOF (with starting oral feeding on the first day after surgery and complete return of the Gag reflex) or TOF (with delaying oral feeding till first passage of flatus and bowel movement). We compared overall prevalence of postoperative complication, length of hospital stay and outcome of surgery in two groups. RESULTS: The time of the first passage of stool was shorter in EOF group than in TOF group (3.2 ± 0.59 days versus 3.6 ± 0.66 days (p= 0.006). The mean length of hospital stay in EOF group was also shorter than in TOF group (3.8 ± 1.06 days versus 6.3 ± 1.0 days, p= 0.001). The length of hospital stay shorter than 4 days was found in 75.9% of patients in EOF group and 11.1% of those patients in TOF group (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: The use of EOF in patients undergoing small intestine anastomosis can shorten time of the first passage of stool as well as reduce length of hospital stay.