Intensive care medicine
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Intensive care medicine · Dec 2009
Meta AnalysisEarly enteral nutrition, provided within 24 h of injury or intensive care unit admission, significantly reduces mortality in critically ill patients: a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.
To determine whether the provision of early standard enteral nutrition (EN) confers treatment benefits to critically ill patients. ⋯ Although the detection of a statistically significant reduction in mortality is promising, overall trial quality was low, trial size was small, and the findings may be restricted to the patient groups enrolled into included trials. The results of this meta-analysis should be confirmed by the conduct of a large multi-centre trial enrolling diverse critically ill patient groups.