NEEDLE-CATHETER JEJUNOSTOMY IN GASTRIC CANCER SURGERY

Relevance: The European Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition recommends enteral feeding as a preferred route of ad-ministration of nutrients. Still, nasogastric intubation after operations on the digestive system is accompanied by discomfort in the stomach, an increase in the frequency of wound infection, insolvency of anastomotic sutures, pulmonary complications, and length of hospitalization.The study aimed to assess the possibilities of catheter jejunostomy for postoperative enteral feeding of patients with gastric can-cer.Methods: This study is based on clinical evaluation and surgical treatment results of 71 patients who received enteral nutrition following gastrectomy and gastric resection due to malignancy. Enteral nutrition was administered via a nasojejunal tube in 36 pa-tients (control group) and through a percutaneous catheter enterostomy in 35 patients (experimental group). The principles of enter-al nutrition were standardized across both groups.Results: The studies have shown that using various enteral nutrition products in the control and main groups affected patients’ quality of life differently. During the entire follow-up period, the greatest discomfort in both groups was associated with transnasal probes. At the same time, the quality of life in the control group was the lowest. In the main group, during the entire follow-up peri-od, the effect of catheter enterostomies on patients’ quality of life was minimal, while 14 (40%) patients did not experience any dis-comfort. This indicates that patients tolerate this method of providing enteral nutrition well. There were no requests to remove the enterostome or cases of self-removal during the entire observation period. In addition, no complications from either the abdominal cavity or the anterior abdominal wall were noted in the main group during the period of its functioning, as well as after its extrac-tion.Conclusion: Catheter jejunostomy provides the possibility of reliable enteral nutrition for patients with gastric cancer after sur-gical treatment for a long time. The advantages of this treatment method are high safety and good patient tolerance.