Home enteral nutrition. Epidemiology and legislation in Europe.

Enteral nutrition is the preferred way of feeding patients who cannot maintain sufficient oral intake but have a functioning gastrointestinal tract. Enteral feeding has been used for several decades for hospitalized patients, but for the last 20 years home enteral nutrition (HEN) has been expanding in home care in many industrialized countries throughout the world. Despite the fact that the number of patients on HEN is now much higher than patients on home parenteral nutrition (HPN), scientific interest and medical concern were initially much higher for HPN [1–3]. The number of scientific publications on the use of HEN is quite weak. In many European countries, legislation on HEN has only quite recently come into effect or is lacking. There are no real guidelines on the correct use of HEN while guidelines for enteral nutrition in hospitalized patients have recently been published [4]. In this chapter, we have tried to collect data on epidemiology, legislation and the current use of HEN throughout Europe.