Enteral nutrition via PEG tube is not always superior to nasogastric tube in the postoperative period of patients with cancer in the head and neck region

Background: In head and neck surgery artificial enteral tube feeding is of great importance. Excluding the operation area from direct contact with food helps proper healing of the surgical wound. For these purposes nasogastric (NG) or percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) tubes might be used. Depending of localisation of the tumour different types of surgery are done. Nowadays PEG is widespread and NG tube is perhaps unfairly forgotten. Materials and methods: We examined 96 NG and 75 PEG tube fed patients who were operated for head and neck cancer (HNC). Based on type of surgery we divided our patients in fo…