Profile, recommendation criteria, and outcome of gastrostomy tube insertions in a pediatric teaching hospital

Objective: To describe the profile of patients undergoing a gastrostomy, the recommendations and outcome of this insertion in a Pediatric Teaching Hospital. Method: This was a retrospective, quantitative, and descriptive study that researched the records of patients who underwent a gastrostomy between January 2010 and December 2012. Results: The diseases and conditions most frequent were chronic infantile encephalopathy (77.5%), pneumonia (67.5%), seizures (57.5%), and malnutrition (42.5%). Although most patients presented a history of dysphagia (62.5%), oral feeding was observed most frequently as the most common form of nutrition, before the gastrostomy insertion (42.5%), followed by nasoenteric tube (40%). The introduction of nutrition by gastrostomy was successful and occurred an average of 2.82 (± 1.19) days after insertion. Six months after their gastrostomy, 80% of patients continued feeding only through this access tube and only 2.5% had removed the gastrostomy; 45% of the participants had gastrostomy complications, with extravasation of gastric material (15%) and local inflammation (15%) being the most frequent. Conclusion: The profile of patients undergoing gastrostomy is mostly of individuals with neurological and respiratory diseases, without respiratory support, of the male gender, and feeding by oral cavity or nasoenteric tube for a prolonged period. The main recommendation criteria were dysphagia and neurological diseases. Regarding the outcome, the introduction of nutrition by gastrostomy was successful; most individuals remained with this long-term nutritional support and the most common complications were gastric material extravasation and local inflammations