Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy for Elderly Patients; A Comparative Study with Nasogastric Feeding

Elderly patients who are unable to swallow due to disorders of the central nervous system and other disorders require parenteral alimentation for nutritional maintenance. Nasogastric feeding (NGF) which is widely employed for this purpose often causes problems such as the removal of the tube by the patient, difficulty of insertion or changing of the tube, and the induction of wheezing or even aspiration pneumonia. To avoid these difficulties, we performed a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) on 10 patients, aged 80.7±19.3 years, who had previously been managed by nasogastric feeding for an average period of 10.8±19.3 months. No severe complications occurred during or after the operation. A comparison between 10 patients receiving gastrostogavage (PEG) and another 20 on NGF also revealed that PEG resolved the problems associated with NGF and achieved alimentary effects similar to NFG in the serum levels of albumin and hemoglobin. The autopsies of two elderly PEG patients who died of cardiac disease demonstrated that the serosa of their stomach and anterior abdominal wall firmly adhered. Our observations suggest that PEG is a safe and beneficial means of feeding for certain aged patients.