Now days, the use of specialized nutrition support has become a standard tool in the care of patients. With the development of specialized nutrition support, an interdisciplinary approach was essential to archive a goal. Fortunately, Nutritional support team (NST) consultation fee has been reimbursed under the national health insurance system since 2014. Overall, it might be true that there has been some progress in the NST’s activities. However, it is still questionable whether there was a positive effect in terms of quality or cost effectiveness compared to quantitative improvements. Before taking into consideration of the future of NST, we are going to look at the status of nutritional support practice and utility of NST in Korea. Upon this background, we hope to make constructive suggestions for a better future of NST.

Sarcopenia refers to reduced muscle mass in the elderly population, and this malady is of great interest in clinical course, including postoperative complications and mortality when treating major cancer in the elderly. The definition of sarcopenia varies according to the method of measuring muscle mass, and the skeletal muscle index (SMI) tends to be extensively used in retrospective studies. In many reports, sarcopenia has been reported to be a poor prognostic factor after gastrectomy, colectomy, pancreatectomy and liver transplantation, with regards to complications and the length of the hospital stay. Additionally, patients suffering from sarcopenia have a higher medical burden due to their poor clinical outcome after surgery. To overcome these difficulties, nutritional support and exercise training to improve sarcopenia before surgery is helpful, and so further studies that focus on these treatments need to be conducted.

Pediatric patients have characteristics such as a low capacity for storing energy/nutrients and high energy metabolism as compared those of adults. Because of the inherent characteristics that they are continually growing, supplying both rapid and adequate nutrition is of the utmost importance. In the case of children undergoing surgery (and particularly gastrointestinal surgery), there is a high possibility of a restricted supply of nutrition, and so active intervention to supply sufficient nutrition must be carried out. Of course, enteral nutrition is preferred, but continuous monitoring of nutrition is of paramount importance; thus, parenteral nutrition should be provided when necessary. Nutritional support requires continuous monitoring when and if complications arise. The complications of parenteral nutrition have yet to be overcome, so further research on this topic is certainly warranted.