Application of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery Pathways in Patients Undergoing Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy With and Without Common Bile Duct Exploration: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Many researchers have implemented enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) pathways for laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) and found it effective over conventional care. This review investigates the efficacy and safety of such pathways compared to conventional practices. PubMed Central/Medline, Scopus, Ovid and clinicaltrials. gov were searched using relevant keywords to identify studies in which ERAS pathways for LC were compared to conventional pathways. The primary outcome was length of stay (LOS) from the day of surgery and the secondary outcomes were pain scores, postoperative nausea/vomiting (PONV), readmissions (within 30 days after surgery), complications (medical and surgical), time to first flatus and cost. Out of 590 articles identified, six studies (n = 1,489 patients) fulfilled the inclusion criteria and were used for qualitative and quantitative analysis. On pooled analysis, LOS, time to first flatus, PONV and pain scores were significantly less in the ERAS group than in the conventional one, while readmission and complications were comparable in both groups.