Enhanced Recovery After Surgery Society publishes guidelines on perioperative care, but these guidelines should be validated prospectively.
To evaluate the association between compliance with Enhanced Recovery After Surgery Gynecologic/Oncology guideline elements and postoperative outcomes in an international cohort.
The study comprised 2101 patients undergoing elective gynecologic/oncology surgery between January 2011 and November 2017 in 10 hospitals across Canada, the United States, and Europe. Patient demographics, surgical/anesthesia details, and Enhanced Recovery After Surgery protocol compliance elements (pre-, intra-, and postoperative phases) were entered into the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery Interactive Audit System. Surgical complexity was stratified according to the Aletti scoring system (low vs medium/high). The following covariates were accounted for in the analysis: age, body mass index, smoking status, presence of diabetes, American Society of Anesthesiologists class, International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage, preoperative chemotherapy, radiotherapy, operating time, surgical approach (open vs minimally invasive), intraoperative blood loss, hospital, and Enhanced Recovery After Surgery implementation status. The primary end points were primary hospital length of stay and complications. Negative binomial regression was used to model length of stay, and logistic regression to model complications, as a function of compliance score and covariates.
Patient demographics included a median age 56 years, 35.5% obese, 15% smokers, and 26.7% American Society of Anesthesiologists Class III-IV. Final diagnosis was malignant in 49% of patients. Laparotomy was used in 75.9% of cases, and the remainder minimally invasive surgery. The majority of cases (86%) were of low complexity (Aletti score ≤3). In patients with ovarian cancer, 69.5% had a medium/high complexity surgery (Aletti score 4-11). Median length of stay was 2 days in the low- and 5 days in the medium/high-complexity group. Every unit increase in Enhanced Recovery After Surgery guideline score was associated with 8% (IRR, 0.92; 95% confidence interval, 0.90-0.95; P<.001) decrease in days in hospital among low-complexity, and 12% (IRR, 0.88; 95% confidence interval, 0.82-0.93; P<.001) decrease among patients with medium/high-complexity scores. For every unit increase in Enhanced Recovery After Surgery guideline score, the odds of total complications were estimated to be 12% lower (P<.05) among low-complexity patients.
Audit of surgical practices demonstrates that improved compliance with Enhanced Recovery After Surgery Gynecologic/Oncology guidelines is associated with an improvement in clinical outcomes, including length of stay, highlighting the importance of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery implementation.