Aspirated Nasogastric Feeding Solution Detected by Glucose Strips

Excerpt

Formula feeding solutions administered through small bore nasogastric tubes are a commonly used, inexpensive, and seemingly safe source of nutrition for critically ill patients (1). We used glucose oxidase reagent strips to monitor for the aspiration of glucose rich formulas into the tracheobronchial tree. The results in 20 critically ill patients show aspiration of formula feeding to be a common occurrence.

Thirteen standard brands of formula feeding solution were tested. Each was reconstituted according to the manufacturers instructions and the glucose content measured by the o-toluidine procedure on auto-analyzer 1 units (2). All measurements were done twice and the results