Nutrition in abdominal aortic repair

Abstract

Typically patients after acute or elective surgical or endovascular repair of the abdominal aorta are admitted to the intensive care unit. Due to the nature of the disease and potential comorbidities involved, many patients have risk factors for poor nutritional status at intensive care unit admission. In addition, the surgical and anesthesiological procedures applied may impact on postoperative gastrointestinal function and interfere with essential nutritional interventions initiated during intensive care unit stay. This chapter provides details on preoperative, perioperative, and postoperative factors that affect gastrointestinal function in patients undergoing abdominal aortic repair. These factors provide potential targets to influence and improve nutritional status and outcome of these patients. Combining targets in multimodal strategies may help to reduce postoperative gastrointestinal dysfunction, facilitate nutritional interventions in the postoperative period, and increase the odds for the best performance with respect to patient outcome.