Impact of Nutritional Management on Survival of Critically Ill Malnourished Patients with Refeeding Hypophosphatemia

Early nutritional therapy may aggravate hypophosphatemia in critically ill patients.To investigate the influence of the type nutritional therapy on the survival of critically-ill malnourished patients at refeeding hypophosphatemia risk.Retrospective cohort study including malnourished, critically-ill adults, admitted from June 2014-December 2017 in an intensive care unit (ICU) at a tertiary hospital. Refeeding hypophosphatemia risk was defined as low serum phosphorus levels (<2.5 mg/dL) seen at two timepoints: before the initiation and at day 4 of the nutritional therapy. Patients receiving enteral nutrition (EN) were compared with those receiving supplemental parenteral nutrition (SPN-EN plus parenteral nutrition). Primary outcome was 60 d survival. Secondary endpoint was the incidence of refeeding hypophosphatemia risk.We included 468-321 patients (68.6%) received EN and 147 (31.4%) received SPN. The mortality rate was 36.3% (n = 170). Refeeding hypophosphatemia risk was found in 116 (24.8%) patients before and in 177 (37.8%) at day 4 of nutritional therapy. The 60 d mean survival probability was greater for patients receiving SPN both before (42.4 vs. 22.4%, p = 0.005) and at day 4 (37.4 vs. 25.8%, p = 0.014) vs. patients receiving EN at the same timepoints. Cox regression showed a hazard ratio of 3.3 and 2.4 for patients at refeeding hypophosphatemia risk before and at day 4 of EN, respectively, compared to the SPN group at the same timepoints.Refeeding hypophosphatemia risk was frequent in malnourished ICU patients and the survival for patients receiving SPN seemed associated with better survival than EN only.