Safety of early oral feeding after gastrointestinal anastomosis: a randomized clinical trial

Background: Different abdominal surgeries could benefit from early feeding. Aims: To compare early feeding with traditional postoperative dietary management for development of postoperative gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms. Settings and Design: A prospective randomized controlled study. Methods and Materials: This was a study of 110 patients who were randomly allocated to early feeding beginning with liquid diet, 8 h postoperatively; whereas those in the traditional feeding group were given a regular diet with normal bowel sounds. Statistical analysis used: Fisher exact test, P value less than 0.05 was significant. Results: There were no differences in patients’ demographics, surgical procedure, and anesthesia used. Complete data were available for 110 patients; 55 were allocated to the early feeding group and 55 to the late feeding group. The incidence of postoperative ileus did not differ between the two groups [early 1 (1%) vs late (1) 1%, P > 0.05 NS]. However, there was no significant difference in the rate of intraoperative complication such as, leakage of anastomosis, mesenteric embolus, wound infection, and wound dehiscence between groups [7.2% (4) vs 16.36% (9), respectively, P value = 0.093 NS]. Also, there were no significant differences in mortality between the two groups. Conclusion: Early feeding in GI anastomosis seems to be safe, well tolerated, and was not associated with increased postoperative GI complaints including ileus and postoperative complications such as wound dehiscence, infection, leakage, anastomosis, and mortality.