Meta-Analysis of Intermittent vs. Continuous Enteral Nutrition in Critically Ill Patients

An updated systematic review and meta-analysis of 22 randomized controlled trials comprising 1,662 critically ill patients, published on figshare in 2026. The document compares the efficacy and safety of intermittent versus continuous enteral nutrition, focusing on outcomes like mortality, gastrointestinal complications, and ICU length of stay. It was authored by Shu Zhang and includes pooled risk ratios and mean differences from literature searched through December 2025.

Use Cases

• Comparing mortality outcomes between feeding strategies based on the meta-analysis of ICU mortality.
• Analyzing gastrointestinal complication rates based on reported incidences of diarrhea, constipation, and abdominal distension.
• Evaluating the impact on ICU length of stay based on the reported mean difference of 0.91 days.
• Investigating subgroup effects based on the analysis of mechanically ventilated versus non-ventilated patients.

Strengths

• Includes data from 22 randomized controlled trials, a substantial evidence base.
• Analyzes 1,662 patient records, providing a meaningful sample size.
• Reports specific statistical measures, including risk ratios and mean differences with 95% confidence intervals.
• Conducts subgroup analyses, such as by mechanical ventilation status.

Limitations

• The dataset is a 17.0 KB DOCX document, which is a summary report rather than raw trial data.
• Row count and column-level documentation for underlying trial data are unknown.
• Freshness should be verified as the underlying literature search ended in December 2025.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials identified from PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and the Cochrane Library.

Time Range

Literature search from database inception through December 10, 2025.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-21 04:23:00