Survival following gastrostomy insertion: are there differences in mortality according to referral indication?

Decision Making for Enteral Nutrition in Adult Patients with Dysphagia – A Guide for Health Care Professionals

“…Blomberg et al, (2011) noted the link between low albumin levels pre-insertion of PEG and a high mortality rate post insertion. This link confirms that hypo-albuminaemia is a risk factor that should be considered in all patients being medically worked up for PEG placement [45,56,59,77,84]. Co morbidities like diabetes and cardiac disease were also noted to be significant risk factors for high mortality in patients post PEG placement [19,56,59,70,82].…”

“…The reasons for high mortality rates include poor patient selection. Patients with risk factors for mortality have been recommended for a PEG resulting in poor outcomes that are being linked to the PEG procedure, when in fact these patients were at risk of death regardless of PEG placement [59][60]. There is strong evidence linking certain underlying medical conditions to higher mortality post PEG [5, 15, 36, 55-56, 59, 61-63].…”