Enhanced Recovery After Surgery Promotes Recovery in Sleeve Gastrectomy: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Introduction: The most popular approach for treating obesity is laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG). The enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) protocol aims to reduce the patient's surgical stress response, optimize their physiological function, and facilitate recovery. The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy and safety of the ERAS protocol in patients who have undergone LSG. Methods: Between January 2020 and March 2021, a single-center randomized controlled study with patients undergoing LSG was planned. Patient demographics, duration of surgery and anesthetic induction, postoperative nausea–vomiting (PONV) and pain scores, length of hospital stay, and emergency room readmissions within the first 30 days were also documented. Patients were divided into two groups: those who followed the ERAS protocol and those who did not. The senior surgeon was blinded for the preoperative and postoperative period, whereas the other surgeon was not. The groups were compared in terms of length of hospital stay, duration of surgery, visual analog scale (VAS) scores, PONV effect scores, and emergency service admissions within the first 30 days after surgery. Results: A total of 96 patients were included in this study. Of these, 49 were in the ERAS protocol group and 47 were in the traditional treatment group. The mean age of the patients in the ERAS and traditional treatment groups were 37.47 ± 10.11 years and 35.77 ± 9.62 years, respectively. While the ERAS group patients were hospitalized for a mean of 30.46 ± 11.26 hours, the traditional group patients were hospitalized for 52.02 ± 6.63 hours (P: .001). There was no difference between the groups in terms of the first 30-day readmission to the emergency department (P: .498). Both VAS and PONV effect scores at the 2nd and 12th hours of the ERAS group patients were lower (P: .001, .002, .001, .001, respectively). Conclusions: When compared with the conventional method, the ERAS protocol reduced patient hospitalization time, decreased postoperative nausea, vomiting, and pain scores, and did not vary in postoperative emergency department readmissions. In patients receiving LSG, the ERAS protocol can be employed safely and successfully. Clinical Trial Registration number: NCT04442568.