Effects of 3 Day Preoperative Immunonutrition in Well-nourished Patients With Gastrointestinal (GI) Cancer Undergoing Surgery

Major surgery is still associated with a high rate of postoperative morbidity despite improved techniques in surgical management. Surgery-induced alterations of the immune system are well described and may play a role in the genesis of postoperative complications. It has been shown by several large scale clinical trials, that the use of immunonutrition in postoperative cancer surgery, trauma and critically ill patients resulted in an improved immunocompetence and/or reduced postoperatively infectious morbidity and/or length of hospital stay.The pre-operative regimen was between 5 to 7 days of treatment. The aim of this trial is to evaluate if a shorter administration of 3 days pre-operatively would be beneficial as well.