The effect of transpyloric enteral nutrition on inflammatory response and prognosis for patients with Corona Virus Disease-19 in intensive care unit: A STROBE compliant study

To investigate the effect of transpyloric enteral nutrition (TEN) on NLRP1, inflammatory response and prognosis for patients with Corona Virus Disease-19 (COVID-19) in intensive care unit (ICU). The present prospective observational study included 29 cases of COVID-19 patients in ICU who admitted to our hospital during February 2020 to March 2020. All the patients were divided into gastrogavage groups (n = 16) and TEN group (n = 13) according to route of enteral nutrition. Serum levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-1 β (IL-1β), interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and NLRP1 (NLR family pyrin domain containing 1) was detected by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Serum levels of lymphocyte, albumin and hemoglobin was detected using an automatic biochemical analyzer. Patients’ demographic and clinical characteristics were collected and analyzed. Kaplan–Meier (K-M) curve was conducted for survival analysis and receiver operating characteristic curve was used for the analysis of diagnostic value of biomarkers. All the patients were followed-up for 3 months. This study found that the survival group had higher rate of TEN therapies than the deceased. COVID-19 patients in ICU on TEN had lower APACHE II scores, frequency of feeding suspension and mortality, however, with higher content of albumin was found at 5th day. The incidence of nutritional intolerance including abdominal distension and gastric retention in patients on TEN was notably lower than those on gastrogavage. The serum levels of NLRP1, CRP, IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α decreased in a time-dependent manner, but patients on TEN had lower levels of NLRP1, CRP and IL-1β than patients on gastrogavage. A positive correlation was found among NLRP1 and inflammatory factors, and COVID-19 patients with lower NLRP1 had longer survival time. Serum NLRP1 also exhibited diagnostic value for the death of COVID-19 patients. TEN decreased inflammatory response and improved the prognosis for COVID-19 patients in ICU.