Randomized Control Trial to Compare the Outcomes of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) Pathway and Standard Recovery Pathway After Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy

The Enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) pathway, initially introduced for colorectal surgery, is an evidence based perioperative pathway which has resulted in earlier recovery, less pain, and lower complication rates. Bariatric surgical patients, without severe co-morbidities, are good candidates for ERAS pathway, but the application of ERAS concepts has been limited in this field, specially, in Asia.

Although the current literature shows that 2 randomized clinical trials (RCT) have been performed for application of ERAS in bariatric surgery, data is still scarce as per outcomes with respect to postoperative pain and analgesic usage. One of the RCTs has compared with historical controls and both the RCTs have not clearly defined their conventional standard pathways. In this study, the investigators have clearly defined both ERAS pathway and standard pathway leaving no ambiguity.

This study is a prospective, randomized, parallel group trial comparing ERAS pathway and standard pathway after laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy in relation to the hospital stay, postoperative pain, complications and other perioperative parameters.

This is a single institute based trial, being conducted at GEM hospital and research centre, Coimbatore, TN, India. The trial has been approved by the GEM Hospital ethical committee.

In this trial, the investigators are planning to enroll participants with morbid obesity planned to undergo laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy. After full assessment, informed consent, these participants will be randomised using computer generated random numbers either into ERAS pathway group or into Standard pathway group.