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Enhanced recovery after surgery in children undergoing abdominal surgery: meta-analysis
Bte Azahari Hidayah1,2,3, Zheng An Toh1,2,3, Ling Jie Cheng3,4
1Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
Insights
Enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) significantly improves outcomes in pediatric abdominal surgery. ERAS programs reduce hospital stays, speed recovery, and lower complication and readmission rates in children.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Surgery
- Surgical Outcomes
- Evidence-Based Medicine
Background:
- Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) is a multimodal perioperative approach designed to minimize surgical stress and optimize patient recovery.
- While ERAS protocols are established in adult surgery, their efficacy in pediatric abdominal surgery requires further investigation.
- Existing literature lacks a comprehensive review of ERAS program effectiveness in pediatric populations undergoing abdominal procedures.
Conclusions:
- Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) is an effective strategy for improving clinical outcomes in pediatric patients undergoing abdominal surgery.
- The implementation of ERAS protocols leads to shorter hospitalizations, faster recovery, and a significant decrease in postoperative complications and readmissions.
- ERAS demonstrates a positive impact on surgical recovery, supporting its wider adoption in pediatric surgical care.
Background:
Enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) is a multimodal approach that streamlines patient processes before, during, and after surgery. The goal is to reduce surgical stress responses and improve outcomes; however, the impact of ERAS programmes in paediatric abdominal surgery remains unclear. The authors aimed to review the effectiveness of ERAS on clinical outcomes in children undergoing abdominal surgery.
Method:
CINAHL, CENTRAL, Embase, ProQuest, PubMed, and Scopus were searched for relevant studies published from inception until January 2021. The length of hospital stay (LOS), time to oral intake, time to stool, complication rates, and 30-day readmissions were measured. Meta-analyses and subgroup analyses were conducted using RevMan 5.4 with a random-effects model.
Results:
Among 2371 records from the initial search, 111 articles were retrieved for full-text screening and 12 were included for analyses. The pooled mean difference (MD) demonstrated reduced LOS (MD -1.96; 95 per cent c.i. -2.75 to -1.17), time to oral intake (MD -3.37; 95 per cent c.i. -4.84 to -1.89), and time to stool (MD -4.19; 95 per cent c.i. -6.37 to -2.02). ERAS reduced postoperative complications by half and 30-day readmission by 36 per cent. Subgroup analyses for continuous outcomes suggested that ERAS was more effective in children than adolescents.
Conclusion:
ERAS was effective in improving clinical outcomes for paediatric patients undergoing abdominal surgery.
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