Unsuitability of sump tubes for delivery of enteral nutrition and medications to intensive care unit patients.

16 Fr Salem Sump™ tubes have special features to facilitate suction drainage of the stomach, including a second lumen for air venting. These tubes are also commonly used to deliver enteral nutrition and medications to intensive care unit (ICU) patients, but we found no previous research to justify this practice. Because of the unused air vent, these tubes have a large external diameter and a small bore infusion channel (no larger than that of a single lumen 12 Fr feeding tube).

Deaths associated with insertion of nasogastric tubes for enteral nutrition in the medical intensive care unit: Clinical and autopsy findings.

It is generally assumed that blind insertion of nasogastric tubes for enteral nutrition in patients admitted to medical intensive care units is safe; that is, does not result in life-threatening injury. If death occurs in temporal association with insertion of a nasogastric tube, caregivers typically attribute it to underlying diseases, with little or no consideration of iatrogenic death due to tube insertion. The clinical and autopsy results in three recent cases at Baylor University Medical Center challenge the validity of these notions.

Is achlorhydria a cause of iron deficiency anemia?

We re-evaluated the old hypothesis that gastritis-induced achlorhydria is a cause of iron deficiency anemia (IDA) in humans. First, we analyzed the currently available research on the association between achlorhydria and IDA. When gastric acid secretion was measured after maximal stimulation, the frequency of achlorhydria (or severe hypochlorhydria) was 44% in patients with idiopathic IDA and 1.

Gastroenterology's editors-in-chief: historical and personal perspectives of their editorships.

Fourteen editors-in-chiefs have steered Gastroenterologyto success since its inception in 1943. Five (Alvarez, Ivy, Aaron, Grossman, and Donaldson) are no longer with us. Their personalities and editorships, along with those of Marvin Sleisenger, are presented by their admirers.

Intestinal perforation caused by insertion of a nasogastric tube late after gastric bypass.

A 57-year-old woman, who had undergone Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery 9 years earlier, was admitted to the intensive care unit because of pneumonia. Despite antibiotic therapy, she died 40 days later, apparently because of sepsis and organ failure related to the pneumonia. However, the patient's family requested an autopsy, which revealed that her death was due to perforation of the Roux limb of her gastric bypass, which had resulted in severe peritonitis.

The practical value of comprehensive stool analysis in detecting the cause of idiopathic chronic diarrhea.

The practical diagnostic value of fecal analysis in the evaluation of patients with chronic nonbloody diarrhea is controversial. It is possible that variations in its value depend on how it is done and how the results are interpreted rather than on its intrinsic value. In the authors' city, stool analysis has been made easily accessible, with a commitment to quality assurance and interpretation.

Defining hypercalciuria in nephrolithiasis.

The classic definition of hypercalciuria, an upper normal limit of 200  mg/day, is based on a constant diet restricted in calcium, sodium, and animal protein; however, random diet data challenge this. Here our retrospective study determined the validity of the classic definition of hypercalciuria by comparing data from 39 publications analyzing urinary calcium excretion on a constant restricted diet and testing whether hypercalciuria could be defined when extraneous dietary influences were controlled. These papers encompassed 300 non-stone-forming patients, 208 patients with absorptive hypercalciuria type I (presumed due to high intestinal calcium absorption), and 234 stone formers without absorptive hypercalciuria; all evaluated on a constant restricted diet.

The contribution of malabsorption to the reduction in net energy absorption after long-limb Roux-en-Y gastric bypass.

Background: Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) restricts food intake, and when the Roux limb is elongated to 150 cm, the procedure is believed to induce malabsorption.

Objective: Our objective was to measure total reduction in intestinal absorption of combustible energy after RYGB and the extent to which this was due to restriction of food intake or malabsorption of ingested macronutrients.

Design: Long-limb RYGB was performed in 9 severely obese patients.

Intestinal and renal effects of low-volume phosphate and sulfate cathartic solutions designed for cleansing the colon: pathophysiological studies in five normal subjects.

Objectives: Ingestion of a concentrated low-volume phosphate solution produces copious diarrhea, which cleanses the colon, but it occasionally causes renal failure due to calcium phosphate precipitation in renal tubules. We hypothesized that a concentrated low-volume sulfate solution would be an equally effective cathartic, and that urine produced after sulfate would have less tendency to precipitate calcium salts than urine produced after phosphate.

Methods: Hydrated subjects ingested 75 ml of phosphosoda or an equimolar dose of sulfate salts in a small volume of solution.

Factitious disease: clinical lessons from case studies at Baylor University Medical Center.

Factitious disease is defined as the intentional production (or feigning) of disease in oneself to relieve emotional distress by assuming the role of a sick person. Although the self-induction of disease is a conscious act, the underlying motivation is usually unconscious. It has been estimated that 3% to 5% of physician-patient encounters involve factitious disease.

Factitious diarrhea induced by stimulant laxatives: accuracy of diagnosis by a clinical reference laboratory using thin layer chromatography.

Background: Surreptitious ingestion of laxatives can lead to serious factitious diseases that are difficult to diagnose. Most cases involve ingestion of bisacodyl or senna. Thin layer chromatography (TLC) of urine or stool is the only commercially available test for these laxatives.

Colitis due to Clostridium difficile toxins: underdiagnosed, highly virulent, and nosocomial.

Clostridium difficile colitis is a major complication of antibiotic therapy. Antibiotics cause a reduction in bacteria that normally reside in the colon. If an antibiotic-treated patient ingests C.

Stimulated active potassium secretion in a patient with colonic pseudo-obstruction: a new mechanism of secretory diarrhea.

Background & Aims: Secretory diarrhea is caused by inhibition of intestinal active sodium absorption and stimulation of active chloride secretion. The resulting increase in fecal sodium salts causes an isotonic increase in fecal water output. Abnormalities in potassium transport are not known to be a cause of secretory diarrhea.

Inhibition of neutral sodium absorption by a prostaglandin analogue in patients with cystic fibrosis.

Background & Aims: In normal intestine, cyclic nucleotides (adenosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate [cAMP], guanosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate) and Ca(2+) inhibit neutral sodium absorption. In contrast, in the jejunum of a knockout mouse model of cystic fibrosis (CF), agents that elevate intracellular cAMP levels did not inhibit neutral sodium absorption, suggesting that the antiabsorptive effect of cAMP is dependent on the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). The aim of the present study was to determine if a prostaglandin E(1) analogue, which causes elevation of intracellular cAMP and Ca(2+) levels, inhibits neutral sodium absorption in patients with CF in vivo.

Rapid intestinal transit as a primary cause of severe chronic diarrhea in patients with amyloidosis.

Objective: The cause of severe diarrhea in patients with systemic amyloidosis is obscure. We therefore performed pathophysiological studies in three such patients in an effort to determine the mechanism of amyloid diarrhea.

Methods: Epithelial cell absorption rate of electrolytes was measured during steady state GI perfusion of a saline-mannitol solution.

Abnormal passive chloride absorption in cystic fibrosis jejunum functionally opposes the classic chloride secretory defect.

Due to genetic defects in apical membrane chloride channels, the cystic fibrosis (CF) intestine does not secrete chloride normally. Depressed chloride secretion leaves CF intestinal absorptive processes unopposed, which results in net fluid hyperabsorption, dehydration of intestinal contents, and a propensity to inspissated intestinal obstruction. This theory is based primarily on in vitro studies of jejunal mucosa.