Complications of percutaneous endoscopic and radiologic gastrostomy tube insertion: a KASID (Korean Association for the Study of Intestinal Diseases) study

Abstract

Background Gastrostomy tube insertion is beneficial to selected patients, and percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) and percutaneous radiological gastrostomy (PRG) are two of the frequently used methods in gastrostomy. This study aimed to investigate the indications and complications of both PEG and PRG.

Methods This was a retrospective multicenter cohort study. Patients who underwent initial PEG or PRG tube insertion for nutritional purpose between January 2010 and December 2015 at five university hospitals were included in the study. We analyzed the indications and all complications related to gastrostomy, which were divided into the major (systemic or lifethreatening) and minor (local and non-life-threatening) categories.

Results A total of 418 patients who underwent PEG (n = 324) and PRG (n = 94) were reviewed. The indications for gastrostomy tube insertion were different and included mainly neurological disease (n = 240, 74.1%) such as cerebrovascular accident in the PEG group (n = 119, 36.7%) and mainly surgical disease (n = 28, 29.8%) such as head and neck cancer (n = 16, 17.0%) in the PRG group (p = 0.05). There were no differences in the minor (16.4% vs. 19.1%, p = 0.52) and major (12.3% vs. 14.9%, p = 0.51) complication rates between the PEG and PRG groups. The risk factors for complications were age [yearly increments; odds ratio (OR) 1.03, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.01–1.06], tube diameter (1-Fr increments; OR 1.26, 95% CI 1.01–1.58), insertion time (1-min increments; OR 1.07, 95% CI 1.01–1.13), and neurological disease as the gastrostomy indication (vs. surgical disease; OR 4.61 95% CI 1.47–14.42).

Conclusions In our study, both PEG and PRG provided a safe route for nutrition delivery despite their different indications. Our data suggest that PEG might be the procedure of choice for patients with medical or neurological disease and PRG for patients with surgical disease in whom PEG is technically difficult or contraindicated.