Acute gastrointestinal injury in the intensive care unit: diagnosis, severity assessment, and general approaches to correction

Introduction . Acute gastrointestinal injury is a polymorphic syndrome with many causes. The objective was to consider modern aspects of diagnosis and assessment of severity of acute gastrointestinal injury. Materials and methods . The literature search and analysis was performed in the medical information systems PubMed and eLibrary, using following keywords: acute gastrointestinal injury, intestinal fatty acid-binding protein (iFABP), D-lactate. Results . In this review, we present the scores for assessment of the severity of acute gastrointestinal tract injury, clinical symptoms, as well as new laboratory and instrumental diagnostic approaches. Conclusion . Early detection of this category of patients is vital to provide a personalized intensive therapy aimed at restoration of adequate function of the gastrointestinal tract.