Home enteral nutrition in children: a one-year experience with 184 patients in Distrito Federal, Brazil

Abstract

There is little published evidence concerning home enteral nutrition therapy in children. The present work attempts to analyze the profile of pediatric patients undergoing this therapy in the Federal District, Brazil. This is a retrospective study of data of all patients younger than 18 y old enrolled in the Home Enteral Nutrition Therapy Program of the Brazilian Public Health Department, Federal District, from January to December 2005. The study covered 184 children and adolescents. The patients' median age at the beginning of treatment was 2.00 y (Q1-Q3: 1.00-7.00). Pathologies leading to home enteral nutrition therapy were digestive disorders (54.9%), neuromuscular disorders (21.2%), epidermolysis bullosa congenital (7.1%), congenital malformation (5.0%), cardiac disorders (4.3%), malignancies (0.5%) and miscellaneous causes (7.0%). The prevalence of the therapy was 81.23. The oral route was used in 70.7% of cases. Enteral feeding comprised mainly industrial pediatric formulas (44.9%) and hydrolyzed-protein formulas (20%). This study supports the fact that home enteral nutrition is necessary in special pediatric conditions, favoring a precocious hospital discharge and then lowering the risk of infectious processes, and stimulating the reinsertion of children in their homes, their safe environment. The need for further studies still remain, especially ones in national basis, so as to reinforce the importance of a national regulation which would benefit all Brazilian pediatric patients in need of such therapy.