Comparison of post operative recovery in patients undergoing Elective gastrointestinal surgeries with and without ERAS Protocol A Randomised Controlled Study

Traditionally the management of patients in the postoperative period requires keeping them nil per oral with gastric decompression using a nasogastric tube for the first few days. Once the patient passes flatus/faeces, oral feeding is started, first with liquids and then gradually built up to semisolid and solid diet. It was considered that withholding the feed in early postoperative period provides gastro intestinal tract adequate time to heal. Many recent studies and trials do not support this notion.It has been seen that early feeding following surgery is feasible, and may improve the post operative outcome of the patients with early return to activities of daily living, early discharge and very few postoperative complications .

ERAS programmes are evidenced-based protocols designed to standardize and optimize perioperative and postoperative care in order to reduce surgical trauma, perioperative physiological stress, morbidity, total cost and duration of stay in hospital. It was published initially for colorectal surgery in 2005, but now well established for many other surgical conditions. There is already substantial evidence in the literature demonstrating the effectiveness of adopting ERAS based protocols in elective surgery, resulting in a change of clinical approach. ERAS could benefit elective surgery patients due to its design to allowing early postoperative feed and return functional status more efficiently.The aim of our study is to compare elective gastrointestinal surgeries with and without Enhanced Recovery After Surgery(ERAS) Protocol.