Intervention: enteral versus parenteral nutrition
Trial outcomes: the trial reported clinically relevant outcomes. Overall mortality was the primary outcome for this meta-analysis. Where available, we extracted data regarding the primary mortality outcome reported as the principal outcome of the study, including ICU, hospital, 28-day mortality or other. Secondary outcomes were infections, ICU and hospital length of stay (LOS), and duration of mechanical ventilation with definitions of infections as defined in the original articles. As in previous meta-analyses conducted by our group, we excluded those trials that reported only nutritional, biochemical, metabolic, or immunologic outcomes.