The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of enteral nutrition on early outcome of patients after myeloablative allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT). From January 2001 to January 2003, 22 patients agreed to receive enteral nutrition via a nasogastric feeding tube; the remaining 23 patients received parenteral nutrition (n=22) or standard oral feeding (n=1). Early complications and factors influencing 100-day overall survival (OS) were investigated. Patients who received enteral nutrition developed less often acute-grade III/IV graft-versus-host disease (18%) than those who did not (35%) (P=0.011). In addition, this group showed lower mortality from infection during the first 100 days after transplantation. In multivariate analyses, only the absence of enteral nutrition was found to adversely influence 100-day OS with a hazard ratio of 8.3. Enteral nutrition is a safe and effective method for feeding allo-SCT patients. A randomized trial is warranted to confirm its advantage on early patient outcome.