Gupta: Nasal feeding tube usually temporary
 |  CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta |
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|  VIDEO |
 Pope John Paul II appears after Easter Mass.
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(CNN) -- After two hospitalizations and a tracheotomy for respiratory difficulties, Pope John Paul II is being fed by a tube inserted though his nose, a Vatican spokesman said Wednesday. (Full story)
CNN anchor Bill Hemmer talked to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN senior medical correspondent, about the procedure:
HEMMER: How unusual is this?
GUPTA: Not unusual, Bill. ... [It's] something that's usually an adjunct to feeding -- a really important distinction when you're talking about this type of feeding tube.
The proper name for it is Dobhoff feeding tube. ... It goes from the nose directly into the stomach. It's not a surgical procedure to put this in. It is usually considered a temporary thing in someone who can take in some calories but isn't taking [in] quite enough. And it's important to make that distinction.
It's not [for] somebody who can't swallow at all, but rather someone who just isn't feeling as much hunger and therefore not taking [in] as many calories. That's what the feeding tube is designed to do. [It's] very different than the gastric feeding tube that we've been talking so much about with Terri Schiavo. That was put in by a surgical procedure.
HEMMER: How does this fit into his condition?
GUPTA: Well, you know, this is considered something to help him scoot through an area, a time when he is still recovering ... from his first operation. Getting enough calories, getting enough nutrition [is] a very important part of that recovery process. He apparently is not getting that right now.
... People have heard of Ensure. That's a type of calorie supplementation. Sometimes you literally give that same sort of feeding directly into the Dobhoff tube and then directly into the stomach. Again, this is a tube that goes from the nose into the stomach. ...
Unlike the tracheotomy tube, unlike a gastric feeding tube, that we've been talking about, this is a tube that we will be able to see if we do see pictures of the pope after this. This will actually be a little tube that's coming out of his nose and again going directly down his esophagus into his stomach.
