Impact of Prehabilitation Components on Oxygen Uptake of People Undergoing Major Abdominal and Cardiothoracic Surgery: A Network Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Description

Fitness before major surgery predicts how well patients recover, and the sharpest fitness measure is how much oxygen the body can use at peak effort. Susana Priego-Jiménez and co-authors pooled randomized trials to ask which parts of prehabilitation (preparation programs before surgery) raise that measure most. Programs can mix exercise, nutrition advice, and counseling. Using a network method that compares treatments both directly and indirectly, they combined fourteen trials in people facing major abdominal or chest surgery.

Exercise came out on top against no preparation. Within exercise, high intensity interval training gave the largest gain. The authors recommend interval training as the most effective single strategy for raising exercise capacity before such surgery. Since oxygen capacity forecasts complications and death after surgery, they argue that building fitness beforehand deserves a firm place in surgical planning.

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Source: https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC12786905