Postoperative Enteral Immunonutrition for Patients Undergoing Surgery for Gastric Cancer: A Meta Analysis

Objective To evaluate the clinical efficacy and safty of postoperative enteral immunonutrition in patients undergoing surgery for gastric cancer. Methods We searched the electronic bibliographic databases, including the Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, CBM, CNKI, VIP database and Wanfang database to assemble the randomized controlled trials （RCTs） of postoperative enteral immunonutrition in patients undergoing surgery for gastric cancer. The deadline of the retrieval time was October 2011. Data were extracted and evaluated by two reviewers independently with a designed extraction form. The RevMan 5.0 software was used for meta-analysis on homogeneous studies. Results Seventeen RCTs involving 812 patients were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that there were significant differences in CD3WMD=5.81,95%CI（2.64,8.99）,CD4WMD=6.10,95%CI（4.39,7.81）, IgGWMD=1.33,95%CI（0.70,1.96）, IgM WMD=0.16,95%CI（0.06,0.26） and IL-2, IL-6 levels between the two groups of patients. Conclusion Enteral immunonutrition is effective to improve immunity, reduce stress and inflammatory reaction for postgastrectomy patients as compared with the control group. Limited to the study, more higher-quality RCTs are required to evaluate the effects.