Impact of Nutritional Deficit in Emergency Surgery (INDIcatES)

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Impact of Nutritional Deficit in Emergency Surgery (INDIcatES)

• IRAS ID

  268734

• Contact name

  Timothy O'Connor

• Contact email

  timothy.o'connor@nhs.net

• Sponsor organisation

  Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 0 months, 31 days

• Research summary

  This study looks at the problem of whether patients who are having emergency surgery on their abdomen (tummy) get adequate nutrition around the time of their operation. We know from previous research that not getting enough calories in this period is linked with a higher risk of problems after the operation, including delayed healing, infection (both at the operation site and elsewhere in the body) and cardiac events.

  Most of the research on nutrition and abdominal surgery has however been done on patients who are in intensive care units (where they can be monitored closely) or for operations that are elective (planned). There has been a lack of research on how nutrition affects outcomes in emergency abdominal surgery. This is important because people with serious, sudden abdominal problems are often unable to receive any normal intake for at least a short period because of their illness.

  We would like to undertake a trial of early parenteral nutrition (feeding into the blood through a drip) nutrition in this area to see if this improves outcomes in patients who are at the highest risk of perioperative malnutrition, and postoperative complications. First however we require more information about the relationship between malnutrition and outcomes, and which nutrition risk assessment tool most accurately identifies patients at risk of suffering perioperative malnutrition and postoperative complications. We propose an observational study open to patients aged 18 or over undergoing emergency laparotomy. We will collect data on quality of life, the length of time patients spend without nutrition around their surgery date, and clinical outcomes, and how nutrition risk tools relate to these. We will also determine how successful we have been in collecting this information as it will allow us to estimate how many patients we would need to recruit in the subsequent clinical trial.

• REC name

  London - Bromley Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  19/LO/1807

• Date of REC Opinion

  11 Nov 2019

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion