Prospective registry of predictors of enteral autonomy in paediatric intestinal failure

Led by Papiha Joharapurkar, our 4th year Bachelor’s of Health Sciences student, we recently developed a prospective registry for patients followed through McMaster Children’s Hospital’s Paediatric Intestinal Rehabilitation Program. This specialized population includes patients who are dependent on home parenteral nutrition (intravenous nutrition) due to intestinal failure. Dr. Nikhil Pai is the medical lead of this specialized clinic through the Division of Paediatric Gastroenterology & Nutrition.

Determinants of “enteral autonomy,” or the ability to wean off home parenteral nutrition, are an important goal for these patients. There are numerous factors, from residual bowel length, to home parenteral nutrition composition, and understanding the factors that lead to enteral autonomy has major implications clinically, and for our patients’ quality of life.

This registry features a novel machine learning algorithm that was developed by Papiha, which allows data to be mined through artificial intelligence techniques to identify patterns. This important work will support ours, and other intestinal rehabilitation programs internationally in “mining” complex, highly variable data to identify clinical practices that support our patients.