Clinicians should consider starting a patient with gastrointestinal diseases on enteral nutrition as soon as there is a risk for malnutrition due to inadequate oral intake, according to gastroenterologist Matthew Bechtold, MD, co-chair of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition’s EN committee.
During a recent ASPEN webinar on EN in GI disease, Dr. Bechtold, a professor of clinical medicine, the director of endoscopy and the director of GI ambulatory services at the University of Missouri, in Columbia, focused on three primary GI diseases— inflammatory bowel disease, chronic liver disease and acute pancreatitis—and when to consider EN in each of these disease settings.