Parenteral nutrition (pn) is a complex treatment modality providing intravenous nutrition to patients who cannot be federally and/or who are unable to meet their caloric requirements via the enteral route ln these patients malnutrition is a frequent phenomenon with an overall prevalence of 25% and up 50% in specific cohorts such as oncology and geriatric patients (12) pn is invasive cosly and associated with potentially serious and harmful complications a recent review of nutritional support teams highlighted the risks associated with pn including infectious complications fluid overload hyperglycemia refeedding syndrome hyperlipidemia azotemia hepatic dysfunction and respiratory failure on one hand caloric overload may worser underlying diseases and give rise to nutrition-related complications such as acute pancreatitis liver failure or refeeding syndrome on the other hand hospitalized patients lose weight and undernutrition worsens during hospital admission in the absence of adequate nutritional therapy pn has been shown to reduce morbidity in severely malnourished surgical patients regardless of it related infectious complications moreover there is comulating evidence that treating malnutrition in these patients is also economically beneficial ln this context it needs to be stressed that the majority of physicians and surgeons