A comparison of the effects of intermittent and continuous nasogastric feeding on the oxygen consumption and nitrogen balance of patients after major head and neck surgery

Ten patients were fed by nasogastric tube for 5 days after major surgery of the head and neck. Five were fed by continuous infusion 24 h/day using an enteral nutrition pump and five were fed comparable quantities by 2-h bolus administration between 0600 and 2200 h. Those fed by bolus had lower resting oxygen consumption on the 4th and 5th postoperative days and better cumulative nitrogen balance over the 5 days than the continuously fed group. It appears that metabolically it may be better to use an intermittent feeding regimen than a continuous one when feeding patients postoperatively via a nasogastric tube.