Perioperative enhanced recovery programmes for gynaecological cancer patients

Gynaecological malignancies contribute to 10 to 15% of cancers in women internationally. In recent years, a trend towards new perioperative care strategies has been documented as "Fast Track (FT) surgery", or "Enhanced Recovery Programmes" to replace some traditional approaches in surgical care. The FT multimodal programmes may enhance the postoperative recovery by means of reducing surgical stress. This systematic review aims to fully assess the beneficial and harmful effects of FT programmes in gynaecological cancer care.

To evaluate the beneficial and harmful effects of FT programmes in gynaecological cancer care.

We searched the following databases, The Cochrane Gynaecological Cancer Collaborative Review Group's Trial Register, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) Issue 4, 2009, MEDLINE and EMBASE to November 2009. In addition, all reference lists of included trials were searched and experts in the gynaecological oncology community were contacted in an attempt to locate trials.

All randomised controlled trials (RCTs) comparing any type of FT programmes for surgery in gynaecological cancer to conventional recovery strategies were included.

Two review authors independently screened studies for inclusion. Since no RCTs were identified, data collection and analysis could not be performed.

No studies were found that met the inclusion criteria.

We currently have no evidence from high quality studies to support or refute the use of perioperative enhanced recovery programmes for gynaecological cancer patients. Further well-designed RCTs with standard FT programmes are needed.