Therapeutics and Clinical Risk Management (Jan 2019)
A good first step for ERAS in otolaryngoiatric field, but not enough
Abstract
Massimiliano Pelli,1 Luigi Maggi,2 Monica Rocco1 1Department of Anesthesia and Intensive Care, La Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy; 2Department of Emergency, ASL Roma 5, Hospital Parodi Delfino of Colleferro, Colleferro, Italy We read thoroughly the article by Liao et al1 “Decreased hospital charges and postoperative pain in septoplasty by application of enhanced recovery after surgery” and we found it very interesting and innovative, given the low level of evidence about the application of the enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) protocol in otolaryngologic field. Nevertheless, there are some points that we have focused on since they remain unclear and decrease the scientific reliability of the results. First, we have noticed that the primary endpoint is not well defined, and this is reflected in the whole setting of the study: randomization method, allocation of the patients, statistical analysis, and results. Whilst perioperative management of the ERAS group is quite well described, however, the “common processing” of the control group remains undefined. In our opinion, for all these reasons, readers cannot fully understand the author’s objective, thus making this study difficult to reproduce. View the original paper by Liao and colleagues.
