The advent of any new and effective therapy is soon followed by large numbers of publications in which the indications and benefits are explored critically. It is not unexpected, therefore, that within five years of the first Bermuda Symposium on advances in parenteral nutrition that a second Symposium was considered appropriate to review progress and explore new areas of investigation, as well as enlarging the scope of the meeting to include enteral nutrition. The rate of progress can be judged by the number of subjects which were not discussed at the first Symposium. For example, home...

Parenteral nutrition has been one of the most significant therapeutic advances of the past twenty years. Many patients have survived very serious illness only because of intravenous nutrition for either short or very long periods of time. The indications for parenteral nutrition are simple and can be summarised as the inability to ingest necessary nutrients for a significant time during increased metabolic demands. Many problems in the preparation of energy sources and amino acid solutions have been solved so that the time is opportune to review what has been achieved and discuss recent...