New systems and methods of patient management, such as total intravenous feeding, give rise to their own unique complications as they are used extensively. The advantages of the method must be weighed against the hazards of the complications, and either be discarded or accepted in light of the overall benefit to the patient. Although the benefits of intravenous hyperalimentation in infants as introduced in the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia1,2 far outweigh the dangers of the method, there are problems with hyperalimentation which this paper will discuss. Hyperalimentation has been used in 18 patients over a 20-month period for a total of 391 patient days of treatment (Table 1). (This excludes the patient initially reported in March of 1968 who has now been on hyperalimentation for 20 months.) The duration of hyperalimentation ranged from 3 to 91 days (average 22 days). A complication of this technic is defined as an event or circumstance which caused the catheter to be removed before 14 days of therapy, or an event which was related to the IV catheter and which threatened the continuation of hyperalimentation in a patient to whom it was vitally important (Table 2). © 1969.
