“Gastrostomy is a method of tube feeding for patients incapable of oral intake. Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) is performed in many hospitals in Japan. However, reports of postoperative bleeding or early postoperative death after PEG are limited.
Compared with nasogastric tube feeding, gastrostomy feeding has a favorable outcome, decreases treatment failure, decreases the frequency of gastrointestinal bleeding, and leads to increased serum albumin levels. However, as PEG is an invasive procedure, adverse events such as bleeding, local infection, peritonitis, and pulmonary aspiration may occur, thus worsening patient prognosis. Aspiration pneumonia has long been recognized as the
most common cause of death after PEG. However, there are no recent large-scale studies investigating the association between postoperative adverse events and early postoperative death in PEG.”