Enhanced recovery after bariatric surgery and postoperative outcomes: A narrative review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62827/fb.v27i9.1344Keywords:
Obesity; Length of Stay; Patient Readmission; Patient Discharge; Patient Safety.Abstract
Protocols of enhanced recovery after surgery combine multimodal perioperative measures to attenuate the surgical stress response and support safe discharge. This narrative review synthesized the components of these protocols and the associations and results described in the literature for length of stay, nausea and vomiting, complications, readmission, and reoperation after bariatric surgery. PubMed was searched on September 29, 2026 (publications from January 2020 to September 2026, plus fundamental earlier studies), and the recommendations of the international enhanced recovery society were consulted, prioritizing guidelines, meta-analyses, and clinical studies; the domains of a quality scale for narrative reviews guided reporting. In bariatric-specific meta-analyses, enhanced recovery was associated with shorter hospital stay (mean differences from −0.42 to −1.5 days) and, in some of them, less nausea and vomiting, without an increase in readmission or reoperation. Effects on complications were heterogeneous, and a relevant part of the evidence is observational. Benefits appear to depend on adherence to a multimodal pathway, from preoperative optimization to objective discharge criteria. The evidence is favorable regarding safety and care efficiency, but cannot be generalized to all outcomes and procedures. Implementation should be standardized, auditable, and risk-adjusted, without treating early discharge as an isolated goal.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Luiza Rocha Pinto Coelho, Pedro Araújo Lucas , Ian Reis Damasceno, Lucas Wendell da Cruz (Autor)
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