An unblinded randomised controlled trial of preoperative oral supplements in colorectal cancer patients

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p><jats:bold>Background: </jats:bold> Perioperative oral supplementation has been shown to reduce post‐operative complications. However, the use of preoperative standard oral supplements in a cohort of colorectal cancer patients has not been evaluated. The present study examined whether preoperative supplements are beneficial in this group.</jats:p><jats:p><jats:bold>Methods: </jats:bold> In a randomised controlled trial, patients were assigned to receive 400 mL of oral supplement and dietary advice or dietary advice alone. Primary outcome was the number of post‐operative complications. One hundred and twenty‐five patients were recruited (59 randomised to the intervention group and 66 to the control group) and nine were excluded.</jats:p><jats:p><jats:bold>Results: </jats:bold> In the intervention group, 24 (44%) patients had a complication compared to 26 (42%) in the control group (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> = 0.780). In the intervention and control groups, there were eight (15%) and 16 (25%) surgical site infections, respectively (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> = 0.140) and seven (13%) and 11 (17%) chest infections, respectively (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> = 0.470). Subgroup analysis for hypothesis generation included 83 (71%) weight‐losing patients, where there was a significant reduction in surgical site infections using the Buzby definition (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> = 0.034), although this was not the case for the Centre for Disease Control definition (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> = 0.052).</jats:p><jats:p><jats:bold>Conclusions: </jats:bold> There was no evidence that preoperative supplements were beneficial in reducing the number of complications, although there may be some benefit for surgical site infections in selected weight‐losing preoperative patients.</jats:p>