Application of point-of-care ultrasound in patients receiving enteral nutrition

Abstract

Objective: Enteral nutrition (EN) is the first-choice nutritional support, as it is more in line with normal physiological processes. During EN, the major goals to achieve include accurate confirmation of the feeding tube position, monitoring the gastric residual volume, assessing gastrointestinal motility, and monitoring the nutritional status of patients. With rapid development in technology, point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has become a more convenient and effective technical tool for monitoring critically ill patients receiving EN. In this review, we have summarized and discussed the value of POCUS in the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of EN therapy to provide a reference for nutritional support of critically ill patients in critical care settings.

Materials and methods: This is a narrative review. A literature search for Scopus-indexed articles was performed randomly using PubMed and MEDLINE databases as the primary sources. No specific term was used for the search.

Results: POCUS can be used for positioning of nasogastric and nasointestinal tubes, evaluation of gastric residuals and gastrointestinal motility as well as monitoring of nutritional status.

Conclusions: POCUS is a real-time, highly repeatable, radiation-free, and non-invasive visual inspection technique, with high application value in assessing the nutritional status of patients receiving EN and guiding the development of further nutritional treatment plans. It is an important diagnostic and monitoring tool that can be used by the clinicians in the ICU.