Assessment of nutritional status before surgical procedure

Nutritional treatment is a new branch of medicine rapidly developing especially since the 1980s. In many countries it is emerging as a new specialty or super-specialty of of medicine. The father and forerunner of this field is considered to be the American Professor Stanley Dudrick, who, on the basis of bold research work first on dogs, then in humans, he introduced parenteral nutrition via the central venous route since 1967. His articles from this period are read with bated breath [1]. The introduction of parenteral nutrition is now considered as one of the three greatest achievements of surgery in the 20th century (along with cardiac surgery and transplantation). It is also one of the four milestones in the history of all surgery (after the introduction of anesthesia, aseptics and antibiotics). One of the hospitals in Poland (the Specialized Hospital in Skawina) is named after S.Dudrick.

The article describes the case of a patient qualified for a major abdominal procedure due to a tumor of the pancreas. It discusses the principles of nutritional assessment and potential indications for implementing enteral or parenteral nutrition. Attention is drawn to the most common mistakes made at the stage of nutritional assessment.

Assessing nutritional status is a basic medical skill. Proper assessment requires a complete medical examination physician and consideration of nutritional assessment scales.