Role of nutrition in orthopedic trauma and surgery-A prospective study

Introduction: Nutrition is an age-old issue of human civilization with approximately 40% undernourished hospitalized inpatients. This has effect on surgery as healthy individuals have better tolerance than malnourished patients.Objective : This study was designed to evaluate the effect of nutrition on patients who had undergone different types of Orthopedics surgeries.Materials and Methods: This prospective research involved 200 participants who received various orthopedic surgeries at a tertiary care facility. The evaluation of nutritional status involved measuring anthropometric (BMI) and biochemical markers (pre-albumin and transferrin) before, after, and three months after surgery for various age groups, genders, comorbidities like diabetes and hypertension, as well as for complications like urinary tract infections and surgical wound dehiscence. Version 16 of the SPSS statistical analysis program was used for the analysis. Chi Square and the repeated variable ANNOVA test were the tests employed.Results: 113 patients were followed up prospectively with 4.42% under nourishment rate. Nutritional markers were statistically significant values at pre,post and at 3 months of post op. Diabetes and age more than 40 years were two important parameters affecting nutrition of patients undergoing different orthopedic surgeries. Surgical wound infection was not related to nutritional status of the patient in this study. Pre albumin was found to be a better predictor of nutrition than transferrin.Conclusion: This study clearly showed that nutrition has tremendous impact on the outcome different orthopedics surgeries. But needs more extensive research with huge sample size to prove the same in a more accurate way.