Importance of public-private partnerships for nutrition support research: An ASPEN Position Paper.

Parenteral and enteral nutrition support are key components of care for various medical and physiological conditions in infants, children, and adults. Nutrition support practices have advanced over time, driven by the goals of safe and sufficient delivery of needed nutrients and improved patient outcomes. These advances have been, and continue to be, dependent on research and development studies. Such studies address aspects of enteral and parenteral nutrition support: formulations, delivery devices, health outcomes, cost-effectiveness, and related metabolism. The studies are supported by public funding from the government and by private funding from foundations and from the nutrition support industry. To build public trust in nutrition support research findings, it is important to underscore ethical research conduct and reporting of results for all studies, including those with industry sponsors. In 2019, American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition's (ASPEN's) Board of Directors established a task force to ensure integrity in nutrition support research that is done as collaborative partnerships between the public (government and individuals) and private groups (foundations, academia, and industry). In this ASPEN Position Paper, the Task Force presents principles of ethical research to guide administrators, researchers, and funders. The Task Force identifies ways to curtail bias and to minimize actual or perceived conflict of interests, as related to funding sources and research conduct. Notably, this paper includes a Position Statement to describe the Task Force's guidance on Public-Private Partnerships for research and funding. This paper has been approved by the ASPEN Board of Directors.

A preliminary study of milk powder hydration using TEDSpiL continuous wave NMR.

Moisture content of foodstuffs are typically assessed by Titration or Near Infrared Spectroscopy, which are labour-intensive as a manual measurement or costly when automated. Magnetic resonance offers a method for moisture evaluation but is also normally costly. In this work, we revisit Look and Locker's "Tone Burst" experiment with a marginal oscillator to evaluate moisture content of powdered-skimmed milk subjected to increased humidity. We refer to this technique as the Transient Effect Determination of Spin-Lattice (TEDSpiL) relaxation times. Moisture content in the samples ranged from 0-12% as determined from the weight gained by the dry powder when re-suspended in water to reach a concentration of 40% w/v. The relaxation properties of re-hydrated samples were measured with a CW NMR sensor. Solutions made up from powders with a higher retained moisture content provided lower measured relaxation values providing a method of measuring the moisture content of the powder. This technique provides a moisture measurement in under 5∼s compared with several minutes for the equivalent pulsed method using low-field hardware.

Successful Identification of Anatomical Markers and Placement of Feeding Tubes in Critically Ill Patients via Camera-Assisted Technology with Real-Time Video Guidance.

BACKGROUND: Enteral feeding via feeding tube (FT) provides essential nutrition support to critically ill patients or those who cannot intake adequate nutrition via the oral route. Unfortunately, 1%-2% of FTs placed blindly at bedside enter the airway undetected (as confirmed by x-ray), where they could result in adverse events. Misplaced FTs can cause complications including pneumothorax, vocal cord injury, bronchopleural fistula, pneumonia, and death. X-ray is typically performed to confirm FT placement before feeding, but may delay nutrition intake, may not universally identify misplacement, and adds cost and radiation exposure. METHODS: A prospective case series was conducted to evaluate a novel FT with a camera to provide real-time visualization, guiding placement. The primary end point was the clinician's ability to identify anatomical markers in the gastrointestinal tract and/or airway using the camera. RESULTS: The Kangaroo Feeding Tube with IRIS Technology tube was placed in 45 subjects with 1 misplaced tube; 3 placements were postpyloric, with the remainder gastric. Clinicians correctly identified the stomach in 44 of 45 placements at a median depth of 60.0 cm (range 45.0-85.0 cm). A stomach image was obtained in 42 subjects (93.3%). Agreement between camera image and radiographic confirmation of placement was 93% (P = .014) with small deviations in recognizing stomach vs small bowel. No device-related adverse events occurred. CONCLUSIONS: Direct visualization of the stomach using a camera-equipped FT can assist with FT placement, help avoid misplacements, and with further studies to evaluate the safety of eliminating confirmatory x-ray before feeding, could potentially preclude the need for radiographic confirmation.