Essential Elements for Enhanced Recovery After Intra-Abdominal Surgery

Enhanced recovery pathways provide a framework outlining the best perioperative care for intra-abdominal surgical procedures. To date, no evidence-based umbrella guidelines exist for all intra-abdominal surgeries.

PubMed and worldwide web searches were performed with the keywords: "ERAS," "Enhanced Recovery After Surgery," +/- "protocol." Manuscripts addressing intra-abdominal procedures were selected with the date range 2012-2017. The enhanced recovery philosophy is based in the realization that a traditional hospital works in silos that need to be broken to ensure a care protocol that follows and optimizes the journey the patient makes during the perioperative care. Enhanced recovery interventions can be categorized into preoperative, perioperative, and postoperative interventions. By design each intervention is planned and coordinated by a multidisciplinary ERAS team. The interventions discussed in this manuscript should be applied to patients on an individual basis depending on their needs. In this review, the most common elements of ERAS protocols in intra-abdominal procedures are reviewed, particularly those which provided the best outcomes and are generalized to all intra-abdominal procedures.