Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) Pathway in Esophagectomy: Is a Reasonable Prediction of Hospital Stay Possible?

Abstract

To assess whether perioperative variables or deviation from enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) items could be associated with delayed discharge after esophagectomy, and to convert them into a scoring system to predict it. ERAS perioperative pathways have been recently applied to esophageal resections. However, low adherence to ERAS items and high rates of protocol deviations are often reported. All patients who underwent esophagectomy between April 2012 and March 2017 were managed with a standardized perioperative pathway according to ERAS principles. The target length of stay was set at eighth postoperative day (POD). All significant variables at bivariate analysis were entered into a logistic regression to produce a predictive score. An initial validation of the score accuracy was carried out on a separate patient sample. Two hundred eighty-six patients were included in the study. Multivariate regression analysis showed that American Society of Anesthesiology score ≥ 3, surgery duration > 255 min, "nonhybrid" esophagectomy, and failure to mobilize patients within 24 h from surgery were associated with delayed discharge. The logistic regression model was statistically significant (P < 0.001) and correctly classified 81.9% of cases. The sensitivity was 96.6%, and the specificity was 17.6%. The prediction score applied to 23 patients correctly identified 100% of those discharged after eighth POD. The results of this study seem to be clinically meaningful and in line with those from other studies. The initial validation revealed good predictive properties.