P440 - ASSOCIATION OF PREBIOTICS WITH REDUCTION IN DIARRHEA IN CRITICALLY ILL NEUROSURGICAL PATIENTS

P440

ASSOCIATION OF PREBIOTICS WITH REDUCTION IN DIARRHEA IN CRITICALLY ILL NEUROSURGICAL PATIENTS

S. Hua^1,*, S. Ge¹

¹Clinical Nutrition, Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China

Rationale: Diarrhea is prevalent in critically ill patients, and prebiotics help reduce the incidence of diarrhea through mechanism such as immunomodulation, pathogen defense, and improvement of intestinal function. However, the preventive association of prebiotic therapy has not been identified in critically ill neurosurgical patients.

Methods: Neurosurgical patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) were included in this retrospective observational study. Patients receiving daily prebiotics (Prebiotics Group) were compared with patients who did not receive prebiotics (Control Group). The incidence of diarrhea was evaluated as clinical outcome. The confounding factors included age, gender, antibiotics and lengths of stay. 

Results: A total of 160 patients were included in this study, in which 64 patients received prebiotics and 96 patients did not receive prebiotics. It did not show a significantly decreased incidence of diarrhea in the Prebiotics Group (29.69% vs. 25.00%, P=0.51), although the adjusted odds ratio for the Prebiotics Group was 0.75 (95% CI 0.33 ~ 1.74, P=0.50) as compared with the controls.

Conclusion: This study was the first to explore the potential role of prebiotics on diarrhea in critically ill neurosurgical patients, although the results failed to demonstrate a significant decrease in diarrhea in patients with prebiotics therapy. Further studies with larger sample size and more details on the duration and severity of diarrhea are needed in the future.

Disclosure of Interest: None declared