Early Oral Feeding vs Traditional Post-operative Care In Emergency Abdominal Surgeries

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: Enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) protocols have been widely studied in elective abdominal surgeries and have shown better outcomes. However the utility of these protocols in emergency abdominal surgeries has not been widely investigated. OBJECTIVE: To study the outcomes of application of ERAS protocols in patients undergoing perforated duodenal ulcers repairs in emergency abdominal surgeries. METHODS: This randomized controlled trial was conducted in Surgical Unit 1 BBH from August 2018 to December 2019 with a total sample size of 36 patients with the diagnosis of perforated duodenal ulcer. Patients were randomly divided in two groups. Group A consisted of early oral feeding group and group B consisted of traditional postoperative care group. Outcome results studied were the length of hospital stay, duodenal repair site leak, severity of pain (VAS score) and duration of post-operative ileus. Results were analysed on SPSS version 20 and chi-square and independent t-test were applied. KEY WORDS: Perforated duodenal ulcer, ERAS protocol, randomized controlled trial, duodenal repair site leak, length of hospital stay, VAS score, post-operative ileus