Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Research
Nasal unsedated seated percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (nuPEG): a safe and effective technique for percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy placement in high-risk candidates
  1. Adam McCulloch1,
  2. Ovishek Roy2,
  3. Dunecan Massey1,
  4. Rachel Hedges1,
  5. Serena Skerratt1,
  6. Nicola Wilson1,
  7. Jeremy Woodward1
  1. 1 Cambridge Intestinal Failure and Transplant, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, UK
  2. 2 Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust, Colchester, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Jeremy Woodward, Cambridge Intestinal Failure and Transplant, AddenbrookesHospital, Cambridge CB2 0QQ, UK; jeremy.woodward{at}addenbrookes.nhs.uk

Abstract

Objective Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) tube placement is associated with a high risk of cardiorespiratory complications in patients with significant respiratory compromise. This study reports a case series of high-risk patients undergoing PEG placement using a modified technique—nasal unsedated seated PEG (nuPEG) placement.

Design Retrospective review of 67 patients at high risk of complications undergoing PEG placement between September 2012 and December 2016.

Setting UK specialist tertiary centre for clinical nutrition support.

Interventions Patients underwent ‘push’ PEG placement using nasal endoscopy without sedation in a seated position.

Main outcome measures Procedural success and tolerability, short term (within 24 hours), medium term (24 hours to 30 days) complications and survival were recorded.

Results 67 patients underwent 68 nuPEG placements. The majority had motor neuron disease (46/67). One patient developed a lower respiratory tract infection the following day. Two patients experienced accidental displacement of their PEG within 2 weeks. One patient died within 30 days of nuPEG insertion due to reasons unrelated to the procedure. Endoscopic comfort scores of 1 or 2 (98.0%) indicated good tolerance. A failure rate of 10.5% was attributed to intrathoracic displacement of the stomach, almost certainly due to the advanced stage of the neurological disease and associated diaphragmatic weakness.

Conclusions Our experience with the nuPEG technique suggests that it is safe and well tolerated in high-risk patients. As a result, it has now entirely supplanted radiologically inserted gastrostomy insertion in our institution and we recommend it as the method of choice for gastrostomy tube insertion in such patients.

  • artificial nutrition support
  • enteral nutrition
  • endoscopy
  • endoscopic gastrostomy

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Footnotes

  • Contributors AM and RH collected the data and drafted the article. DM and JMW carried out the procedures with the assistance of OR and AM. SS and NW provided nursing care. JMW devised the technique and revised the draft. All authors read and revised the manuscript.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.