Early recovery after surgery provides patients with all means to counteract or minimize the deleterious effects of surgery. This concept is suitable for a surgical procedure (e.g., colorectal surgery) and comes in the form of a clinical pathway that covers three periods (pre-, intra- and postoperative).

The purpose of this Expert panel guideline is firstly to assess the impact of each parameter usually included in the rehabilitation programs on 6 foreseeable consequences of colorectal surgery:

surgical stress, postoperative ileus, water and energy imbalance, postoperative immobility, sleep alterations and postoperative complications; secondly, to validate the usefulness of each as criteria of efficiency criteria for success of rehabilitation programs.

Two main criteria were selected to evaluate the impact of each parameter:

the length of stay and frequency of postoperative complications. Lack of information in the literature forced experts to assess some parameters with criteria (duration of postoperative ileus or quality of analgesia) that mainly surrogate a positive impact for the implementation of an early recovery program. After literature analysis, 19 parameters were identified as potentially interfering with at least one of the foreseeable consequences of colorectal surgery. GRADE® methodology was applied to determine a level of evidence and strength of recommendation. After synthesis of the work of experts using GRADE® method on 19 parameters, 35 recommendations were produced by the organizing committee. The recommendations were submitted and amended by a group of reviewers. After three rounds of Delphi quotes, strong agreement was obtained for 28 recommendations (80%) and weak agreement for seven recommendations.

A consensus was reached among anesthesiologists and surgeons on a number of approaches that are likely not sufficiently applied for rehabilitation programs in colorectal surgery such as:

preoperative intake of carbohydrates; intraoperative hemodynamic optimization; oral feeding resume before ha24; gum chewing after surgery; patient out of bed and walking at D1.

The panel also clarified the value and place of such approaches such as:

patient information; preoperative immunonutrition; laparoscopic surgery; antibiotic prophylaxis; prevention of hypothermia; systematic prevention of nausea and vomiting; morphine-sparing analgesic techniques; indications and techniques for bladder catheterization.

The panel also confirmed the futility of approaches such as:

bowel preparation for colon surgery; maintain of the nasogastric tube; surgical drainage for colonic surgery.