Topic Brief

Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) protocols are interventions that aim to improve recovery after surgical procedures. The objective of the topic brief is to identify and categorize the existing effectiveness and comparative effectiveness ERAS literature for vascular surgery to determine whether there is sufficient literature to warrant a systematic review on the topic.

In a scoping search in July 2019, we identified 947 completed or ongoing empirical studies addressing aspects of ERAS that varied in their applicability to vascular surgery. Only 115 studies focused exclusively on vascular surgery patients and evaluated an aspect of ERAS.

Although the evidence base on vascular surgery is still growing, a systematic review of the available literature appears to be feasible. For individual aspects of ERAS protocols, evidence from vascular surgery may need to be combined with mixed samples and ERAS protocol research applicable to vascular surgery. The results of the topic brief are only an estimate of the available literature.