Long-term Result of Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy

From September 1995 through December 2000, percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) was performed in 104 patients, aged 37 to 98 (average 77.9). PEG was successfully performed in all patients. And then 93 patients (89.4%) were discharged, and 45 patients of them were cared for at home after discharge. Four patients (3.8%) became able to take all the required diet orally, facilitating removal of PEG. Gastric perforation or panperitonitis, which can be major complication of PEG, did not occur. Fever was the most frequent (36.5%) complication in the postsurgical acute stage, and pneumonia was the next (13.5%). Bumper buried syndrome and selfremoval of tubes were occurred in three patients in the chronic stage. The survival rate of the all patients was 61.0% for 1 year and 43.4% for 2 years, respectively, and was higher than other reports. There were 7 dead cases until 30 days after PEG, and 5 patients of them were dead by pneumonia. In conclusion, PEG was a safe and useful treatment in improving quality of life of patients who were unable to swallow. But careful consideration and management were necessary for the prevention of pneumonia in the acute stage