Limitations of the present study should be also considered. Theincidence of severe intestinal failure that necessitates HPN treatment is low, only 4e6 million per year in patients with benign primary diseases in Europe. Since HPN patients with an active immune-mediated disease were excluded, this resulted in a small group of patients that could be included in this study. 1 This limited power might therefore preclude the detection of very subtle changes in innate immune functions. However, our detailed analysis clearly rules out significant differences between these HPN patients and healthy controls.