ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Physiol.
Sec. Gastrointestinal Sciences
Effect of enteral nutrition support combined with prone position mechanical ventilation on respiratory function, nutritional status, and inflammatory response in patients with severe pneumonia
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Clinical Nutrition, First People’s Hospital of Linping District, Hangzhou, China
- 2Department of Critical Medicine, First People’s Hospital of Linping District, Hangzhou, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Objective: This study aims to investigate the efficacy of enteral nutrition support combined with prone position mechanical ventilation in patients with severe pneumonia. Methods: This retrospective cohort study included 55 patients with severe pneumonia, who were allocated to a control group (n = 35) receiving conventional mechanical ventilation combined with early enteral nutrition support, and an observation group (n = 20) receiving prone position mechanical ventilation combined with early enteral nutrition support. The intervention lasted for one week. Changes in blood gas indicators were compared before and after the intervention. Improvement in nutritional status and inflammatory indicators, including serum prealbumin (PAB), albumin (ALB), haemoglobin (HGB) and C-reactive protein (CRP), and procalcitonin (PCT), were assessed. The incidence of adverse events during the intervention was compared between groups. This study was approved by the Ethics Review Committee of our hospital, and written informed consent was obtained from all participants. Results: After the intervention, both groups showed increased PaO2, SpO2, and PaO2/FiO2 levels and decreased PaCO2 levels, with more pronounced improvement observed in the observation group. Nutritional indicators (PAB, ALB, and HGB) improved in the observation group. CRP and PCT levels were reduced in both groups, with the observation group demonstrating lower levels. The observation group showed a lower incidence of adverse events than the control group (15.00% vs. 42.86%). Conclusion: Enteral nutrition support combined with prone position mechanical ventilation reduces the incidence of adverse events, improves respiratory function and nutritional status, and alleviates inflammatory response in patients with severe pneumonia.
Keywords: adverse events, enteral nutrition support, Inflammation, Nutritional Status, Prone position mechanical ventilation, Severe pneumonia
Received: 05 Nov 2025; Accepted: 28 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Xu, Xie and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Li Xu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.