A death resulting from inadvertent intravenous infusion of enteral feed.

A female patient suffering from the after-effects of an intracerebral hemorrhage, inadvertently received approximately 50 ml of enteral feed containing high molecular weight dextrin intravenously and died 6 h later despite intensive emergency resuscitation attempts. The total quantity of enteral feed received was calculated from the amounts of dextrin measured in the blood. This is the first report describing how the total quantity of enteral feed administered intravenously was determined using biochemical analysis.