Objective: To characterize the structural organization of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) component implementation in gynecologic oncology and determine whether ERAS elements operate as an interconnected perioperative system during early pathway integration. Methods: This study represents a secondary analysis of the prospective multicenter Enhanced Recovery in Gynecologic Oncology (ERGO) cohort, including the first 300 consecutive patients undergoing surgery for gynecologic malignancy across five tertiary institutions. Components with prevalence between 5% and 95% were included in a regularized Ising network model to estimate conditional dependencies between pathway elements. Node-level centrality metrics and global network characteristics were calculated to identify structurally influential ERAS components and to describe the overall implementation architecture. Results: Thirteen central ERAS components met the predefined prevalence criterion (5–95%) and were included in the conditional dependency network. The estimated network demonstrated substantial inter-component connectivity, indicating that ERAS practices were frequently implemented in coordinated patterns rather than as isolated interventions. Centrality analysis identified postoperative laxatives or chewing gum, tranexamic acid administration, perioperative intravenous fluid management, and avoidance of drain placement as highly connected elements within the network. Early nutritional advancement and postoperative bowel stimulation measures also demonstrated relatively central positions within the recovery-related component cluster. Community detection analysis revealed distinct modules of co-adopted ERAS practices spanning multiple perioperative phases. Conclusions: ERAS implementation in gynecologic oncology appears to follow a structured architecture characterized by interconnected perioperative practices rather than independent protocol elements. Understanding these implementation structures may help guide targeted quality-improvement strategies aimed at optimizing ERAS integration in routine clinical practice.
Pergialiotis et al. (Tue,) studied this question.