Impact of early enteral nutrition therapy on morbimortality reduction in a pediatric intensive care unit: a systematic review.

Objective: To assess the impact of early introduction of enteral nutrition therapy in reducing morbidity and mortality in pediatric intensive care unit.

Methods: Search in the literature of the last 10 years, in English and the target population of individuals aged 1 month to 18 years admitted to pediatric intensive care units in the databases PubMed, Lilacs and Embase using the keywords: Critical Care, Nutritional Support and Nutrition Disorders or Malnutrition.

Results: Despite advances in the quality of clinical care, the prevalence of malnutrition in hospitalized children remains unchanged in the last 20 years (15-30%) and has implications for the time of admission, course of illness and morbidity.