Chinese 中文Enhanced recovery in patients having free tissue transfer for head and neck cancer: does it make a difference?
ERAS for Head and Neck Surgery
Enhanced recovery in patients having free tissue transfer for head and neck cancer: does it make a difference?
What is already known:
Head and neck surgery is one of the newest specialities to embrace ERAS, but at present there are very few studies published in this area. Despite this the ERAS society have published consensus guidelines available here, based mostly on extrapolation from other surgical specialities.
What this paper adds:
This is one of the first papers to specifically describe an ERAS programme for head and neck surgery and compare it to a traditional care model. They compared 100 consecutive patients undergoing their ERAS programme and compared with 40 from a historical control group. Overall they demonstrated a 4 day reduction in length of stay (10 vs 14 days, p=0.003), with no change in morbidity or readmission rates. Suggesting that ERAS is safe and effective for this group of patients.
Chris Jones, Guildford.