Clinical takeawayRisk-stratify HEN patients using age, comorbidity burden, diagnosis type (neurological vs. oncological), functional status, and tube type to personalize counseling and monitoring intensity. High-risk patients (older, multiple comorbidities, male, nasogastric tube, oncological disease) warrant more intensive monitoring and family counseling regarding expected prognosis.
What it foundIn 1,000 adults receiving home enteral nutrition (median duration 153 days), shorter survival was predicted by older age, male sex, food-based diets, nasogastric tube use, and multiple comorbidities; longer survival and return to oral feeding were predicted by neurological diagnosis, preserved functional status, and mixed-diet use.
ContextThis descriptive cohort study from Brazil (2006-2015) confirms known associations between patient factors and survival in home enteral nutrition. The findings align with established understanding that older age, comorbidities, and poor functional status predict worse outcomes, while neurological (rather than oncological) diagnoses predict better outcomes in HEN.
No standard claimed for this paperEvery paper is compared to the standard governing its question. This one is not: either no standard in the corpus matches it, or the comparison did not hold up on review and was withdrawn rather than published unverified. Both are logged.