Prehabilitation in an ERAS program for endometrial cancer patients: impact on post-operative recovery.

OBJECTIVES: Enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) and prehabilitation programs are multidisciplinary care pathways that aim to reduce stress response and improve perioperative outcomes. However, literature is limited regarding the impact of ERAS and prehabilitation in gynecologic oncology surgery. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of implementing an ERAS and prehabilitation program on post-operative outcomes of endometrial cancer patients undergoing laparoscopic surgery. METHODS: We evaluated consecutive patients undergoing laparoscopy for endometrial cancer that followed ERAS and the prehabilitation program at a single center. A pre-intervention cohort that followed the ERAS program alone was identified. The primary outcome was length of stay, and secondary outcomes were normal oral diet restart, post-operative complications and readmissions. RESULTS: A total of 128 patients were included: 60 patients in the ERAS group and 68 patients in the prehabilitation group. The prehabilitation group had a shorter length of hospital stay of 1 day (p<0.001) and earlier normal oral diet restart of 3.6 hours (p=0.005) in comparison with the ERAS group. The rate of post-operative complications (5% in the ERAS group and 7.4% in the prehabilitation group, p=0.58) and readmissions (1.7% in the ERAS group and 2.9% in the prehabilitation group, p=0.63) were similar between groups. CONCLUSIONS: The integration of ERAS and a prehabilitation program in endometrial cancer patients undergoing laparoscopy significantly reduced hospital stay and time to first oral diet as compared with ERAS alone, without increasing overall complications or the readmissions rate.

COVID-19: gynecologic cancer surgery at a single center in Madrid.

OBJECTIVES: While numerous medical facilities have been forced to suspend oncological surgery due to system overload, debate has emerged on using non-surgical options on cancer cases during the pandemic. The goal of our study was to analyze, in a retrospective cohort study, the results of gynecological cancer surgery and evaluate postoperative complications in a single center in one of the most affected areas in Europe. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the records of patients who were referred between March 2020 and May 2020 for primary surgical treatment of breast, endometrial, ovarian, cervical, or vulvar cancer. RESULTS: The study included a total of 126 patients. Median age was 60 years (range 29-89). Patients were referred with breast (76/126, 60.3%), endometrial (29/126, 23%), ovarian (14/126, 11.1%), cervical (5/126, 4%), or vulvar cancer (2/126, 1.6%). Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test for detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) was only conducted in 50% of cases due to the low availability of tests during the first phase of our study, and was indicated only in suspected cases according to the healthcare authorities' protocol. Median hospital stay was 1 day (range 0-18). Excluding breast surgery, laparoscopy was the most used procedure (43/126, 34.1%). 15 patients had a postoperative complication (15/126, 11.9%); only in 2 patients (2/15 13.3%) were there reports of Clavien-Dindo grade 3 or 4 complications. 6 patients tested positive for COVID-19 following a PCR diagnostic test, and these surgeries were cancelled. CONCLUSIONS: Adequate protective measures in the setting of COVID-19 free institutions enabled the continuity of cancer surgery without significant compromise of the safety of patients or healthcare workers.