Early Ambulation is Associated with Improved Outcomes Following Colorectal Surgery

BACKGROUND: The Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) society lists early mobilization as one of their recommendations for improving patient outcomes following colorectal surgery. The level of supporting evidence, however, is relatively weak, and furthermore, the ERAS guidelines do not clearly define early mobilization. In this study, we define mobilization in terms of time to first ambulation after surgery and develop an outcome-based cutoff for early mobilization. METHODS: This is a retrospective cohort study comprised of 291 patients who underwent colorectal operations at a large, academic medical center from June to December 2019. Three cutoffs (12 hours, 24 hours, and 48 hours) were used to divide patients into early and late ambulation groups for each cutoff, and statistical analysis was performed to determine differences in postoperative outcomes between the corresponding groups. RESULTS: Multivariate analysis showed no difference between the early and late ambulation groups for the 12-hour and 48-hour cutoffs; however, ambulation before 24 hours was associated with a decreased rate of severe complications as well as fewer adverse events overall. Patients who ambulated within 24 hours had a 4.1% rate of severe complications and a 22.1% rate of experiencing some adverse event (complication, return to the emergency department, and/or readmission). In comparison, 11.8% of patients who ambulated later experienced a severe complication ( = 0.026), while 36.1% of patients experienced some adverse event ( = 0.011). CONCLUSIONS: Ambulation within 24 hours after colorectal surgery is associated with improved postoperative outcomes, particularly a decreased rate of severe complications

How Many Nodes Need to be Removed to Make Esophagectomy an Adequate Cancer Operation, and Does the Number Change When a Patient has Chemoradiotherapy Before Surgery?

INTRODUCTION AND DESIGN: Node dissection during esophagectomy is an important aspect of esophageal cancer staging. Controversy remains as to how many nodes need to be resected in order to properly stage a patient and whether the removal of more nodes carries a stage-independent survival benefit. A review of the literature performed by a group of experts in the subject may help define a minimum accepted number of lymph nodes to be resected in both primary surgery and post-induction therapy scenarios. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The existing evidence generally supports the goal of obtaining a minimum of 15 lymph nodes for pathological examination in both primary surgery and post-induction therapy scenarios