Enhanced recovery after surgery protocols: clinical pathways focusing on anesthesiology tailored for obese patients undergoing bariatric surgery

The concept of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) has evolved continuously over the past two decades.It originated from the practice of colorectal surgery, and the technique that was developed has been adopted by numerous surgical subspecialties.This perioperative multimodal and multidisciplinary protocol, which involves optimizing the pre, intra, and postoperative phases of clinical management, has resulted in fewer complications, lower mortality, and shorter hospitalizations.Recently, several individual ERAS components have been introduced in bariatric surgery, but ERAS protocols in the setting of bariatric surgery are still in an initial stage and have not yet been standardized.Accordingly, we propose the ERAS protocol of clinical pathways tailored for obese patients undergoing bariatric surgery considering the various perioperative stages, focusing on anesthesiology.