Techniques for the provision of parenteral nutrition.

Parenteral nutrition should be provided by a regularly trained nutrition team. The objectives of nutritional support should be decided by considering both the prognosis of the disease to be treated and the risk-to-benefit ratio of parenteral nutrition. Only when other nutritional therapy has failed should the costly and complicated protocol of parenteral nutrition be implemented. Although patients' consent to artificial nutrition is usually implicit, the goals and modalities of parenteral nutrition should be explicit. This approach avoids misunderstanding and may allow patients to participate in their own care, thus decreasing the likelihood of complications, especially those of a technical type, and possibly increasing the quality and efficacy of parenteral nutrition.