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Six patients with carcinoma of the esophagus (proximal and middle one-third) underwent intravenous artificial nutrition (TPN) both during preoperative radiation therapy and during the periods preceding radical surgery. From admission on, their conditions were evaluated and followed according to an established pattern of assessment of the nutritional state. Besides a certain improvement of the nutritional state at the level both of the muscular and adipose tissues, the results showed the reliability and the reproducibility of the serial anthropometric indexes adopted. With regard to the biochemical indexes most commonly utilized for evaluating the nutritional state, the results confirmed the doubts already casted about the reliability of a great part of these indexes when applied to this specific kind of patients.

The effects of periodicity of eating on the acetyl-CoA carboxylase activity in the liver of meal-eating and nibbling rats have been studied. The meal-eater rats received the diet in 2 daily feedings via stomach tube. The results obtained have pointed out that in the meal-eaters, which show a higher fat content in the carcass, the liver acetyl-CoA carboxylase is already in its aggregate active form independently of the in vitro preincubation, differently from what happens in the nibblers.

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