Effects of different postoperative nutrition methods on cellular immunity of elder patients with esophageal cancer

To investigate the effects of different postoperative nutrition methods on cellular immunity of elder patients with esophageal cancer,seventy-two elder patients with esophageal cancer patients were randomly divided into enteral nutrition(EN) group and parenteral nutrition(PN) group.The patients in EN group received supportan enteral nutrition from postoperative day 1 to 8,while the patients in PN group received total parenteral nutrition.C3,C4,IgA,IgM,IgG,CD3+,CD4+,CD4+/CD8+ were detected on the day before the operation and the postoperative days 1 and 8.Results showed that all the levels of C3,C4,IgA,IgM,IgG,CD3+,CD4+,CD4+/CD8+ in two groups were decreased at postoperative day 1 as compared with the day before the operation.Until postoperative day 8,the levels of the indicators in the PN group had no significant change(P 0.05),but in the EN group were significantly improved(P 0.05),and demonstrated significantly different as compared with the PN group(P 0.05).In conclusion,early enteral nutrition can improve the immunologic function after operation in patients with esophageal cancer,and can decrease the infection rate.