Vascular Surgery: the ERAS Protocol presented at the Congress of European Society

From 25 to 28 September Valencia hosted the XXXII Congress of the European Society of Vascular Surgery (ESVS).

Humanitas has also contributed with its excellence in research and experimentation in vascular surgery by presenting, in plenary session, the ERAS protocol for aortic aneurysm surgery. The experience of Humanitas has aroused great interest in the auditorium, and there have been numerous expressions of appreciation and requests for collaboration obtained in the context of conferences.

“Traditional abdominal aortic surgery allows complete recovery from the disease, at the price of an intervention with a high impact on the patient, characterized by prolonged hospitalization times and post-operative functional recovery,” said Giorgio Luca Poletto, Aid of the Operative Unit of Vascular Surgery I of Humanitas, directed by Prof. Efrem Civilini.

 

The ERAS Protocol: multidisciplinary and multi-modal

Since 2007, Humanitas has been studying methods that can “reduce surgical invasiveness, maintaining a reduced rate of complications and allow a faster recovery for the patient,” explained Poletto.

“Since 2015, on the basis of similar experiences carried out in Humanitas, above all by the Operative Units of Colorectal and Bariatric Surgery, we have implemented a path, called ERAS (acronym for Enhanced Recovery After Surgery), which allows, thanks to a multidisciplinary approach, to overcome the limits of traditional aortic surgery”.

Since very few centers in the world have decided to adopt such a protocol, “we had to ‘invent’ the revolutionary ERAS path for aortic surgery, but helped the collaborative structure of Humanitas for the optimization of resources,” Poletto explained.

A process that has shown active cooperation between surgeons, anesthetists, physiatrists, physiotherapists and nurses.

Applying the ERAS protocol means involving the patient from the very first diagnosis: “first of all it is aimed at modifying the risk factors in view of the operation, and then at minimizing intra- and post-operative surgical stress. All this has allowed us to reduce the rate of post-operative complications, at the same time increasing the degree of patient satisfaction and halving the time of hospitalization,” concluded Poletto.