Parenteral nutrition for management of malignant bowel obstruction

Purpose of Review This review article focuses on the practice of providing parenteral nutrition in cases of malignant bowel obstruction (MBO) where the enteral route of feeding is unavailable. Recent Findings Parenteral nutrition is an option in patients with MBO in whom enteral nutrition cannot be provided. However, its use is associated with complications that should lead to careful patient selection in determining who will benefit from its use. MBO often represents the end stage of the disease process, and not all patient pre-sentations will benefit from parental nutrition (PN). Recent research does indicate that certain subsets of patients (e.g., chemotherapy naïve patients, patients with good functional status) will experience longer, better quality of life with administration of PN. Summary Those patients with expected survival on the order of weeks to months, as well as those able to undergo surgical therapies to relieve the obstruction, benefit most from administration of PN, in addition to their cancer-specific treatment.