Early postoperative enteral nutrition compared with parenteral nutrition in patients with liver cirrhosis after hepatectomy LAI Jia-ming*, LIANG Li-jian,HUA Yu-peng, et al. *Department of Hepatobiliar Surgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China Corresponding author: LIANG Li-jian, E-mail：LiangLJ@medmail.com.cn Abstract Objective To evaluate the impact of early enteral nutrition over parenteral nutrition in patients with liver cirrhosis after hepatectomy. Methods Thrity -five patients with liver cirrhosis undergoing liver resection were study: EEN group, received early enteral nutrition (n=16); PN group, received parenteral nutrition (n=19). The two groups were received nutritional formulas with isocaloric and isonitrogenous 24 hours after operation, and they were ended at postoperative day 7. The general conditions, liver function tests, clinic complications, clinic nutritional variables on three time point that included preoperative phase, postoperative day 1 (POD 1) and postoperative day 8 (POD8) were observed respectively. Results No significant difference was found in length of hospital stay, liver function,and clinic nutritional variables between the two groups. In the EEN group, the serum prealbumin and albumin level neared the preoperative level on POD8. Nutritional complication rate of EEN group was increased signiflcanly ，but mild than the PN group respectively .The time of gut function recover was shorter than PN group.The costs of nutritional drugs showed a signiflcant decrease in the EEN group. Conclusion Early enteral nutrition is safe, rational and effective in patients with liver cirrhosis after hepatectomy.