Home | Academic research | Effect of goal-directed therapy on outcome after oesophageal surgery: A quality improvement study

Effect of goal-directed therapy on outcome after oesophageal surgery: A quality improvement study

Back to lobby

Gil Ben-Horin
Published: Mar 16, 2017

A Quality Improvement study performed at Academic Medical Center in The Netherlands investigated whether a stroke volume guided goal-directed therapy (GDT) improves the postoperative outcome of patients undergoing oesophageal surgery. The authors initiated a quality improvement program that used GDT as a new standard of care for all patients undergoing oesophagectomy at their institution. Patients’ characteristics, surgical outcome and oncologic results were prospectively collected from the MetaVision Patient Data Management System (PDMS). The authors found that the implementation of GDT during oesophagectomy did not reduce overall morbidity, mortality and hospital length of stay but pneumonia, mediastinal abscesses, the proportion of patients staying more than 48 hours in the ICU and fluid balance were lower in the GDT group. In light of this finding, they suggest that larger (randomised) studies are necessary to reveal possible benefits with a higher reliability, and point out that the economic impact of GDT remains to be determined.

Back to lobby