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Objective: Enhanced recovery after cardiac surgery is a multidisciplinary clinical care pathway that relies on a bundle of interventions, aiming to reduce the stress response to surgery and promote early recovery of organ function. In 2011, our institution introduced an institutional enhanced recovery after cardiac surgery program focusing on 9 central interventions, which have been expanded during the past decade by additional interventions now considered standard of care. After the recent publication of the enhanced recovery after cardiac surgery guidelines, we evaluated the relation between the compliance with these enhanced recovery after cardiac surgery guidelines and postoperative outcomes., Methods: All patients enrolled in our enhanced recovery after cardiac surgery program in 2019 were included in this retrospective single-center audit. The primary outcome was compliance with 23 enhanced recovery after cardiac surgery guidelines. Secondary outcomes included occurrence of at least 1 postoperative complication and hospital length of stay., Results: A total of 356 patients were included in this study. Compliance with the enhanced recovery after cardiac surgery guidelines was 64%. Postoperatively, 51% of the patients experienced at least 1 complication and had a median hospital length of stay of 6 days. Multivariable analysis showed that an increased compliance (per 10%) with the enhanced recovery after cardiac surgery guidelines was associated with a lower risk for any complication (odds ratio, 0.60; 95% confidence interval, 0.46-0.79; P = .0003) and a higher probability of earlier hospital discharge (hazard ratio, 1.25; 95% confidence interval, 1.10-1.43; P = .0008)., Conclusions: This audit revealed a correlation between increased compliance with enhanced recovery after cardiac surgery guidelines and a reduction of postoperative complications and hospital length of stay. Future trials are needed to establish evidence-based recommendations for each separate intervention of the enhanced recovery after cardiac surgery guidelines and to create a minimum core-set of enhanced recovery after cardiac surgery interventions., (Copyright © 2022 The American Association for Thoracic Surgery. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Study Objective: To investigate if an erector spinae plane (ESP) block decreases postoperative opioid consumption, pain and postoperative nausea and vomiting in patients undergoing minimally invasive mitral valve surgery (MIMVS)., Design: A single-center, double-blind, prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled trial., Setting: Postoperative period; operating room, post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) and hospital ward in a university hospital., Patients: Seventy-two patients undergoing video-assisted thoracoscopic MIMVS via right-sided mini-thoracotomy and enrolled in the institutional enhanced recovery after cardiac surgery program., Interventions: At the end of surgery, all patients received an ESP catheter at vertebra T5 under ultrasound guidance and were randomized to the administration of either ropivacaine 0.5% (loading of dose 30 ml and three additional doses of 20 ml with a 6 h interval) or normal saline 0.9% (with an identical administration scheme). In addition, patients received multimodal postoperative analgesia including dexamethasone, acetaminophen and patient-controlled intravenous analgesia with morphine. Following the final ESP bolus and before catheter removal, the position of the catheter was re-evaluated by ultrasound. Patients, investigators and medical personnel were blinded for the group allocation during the entire trial., Measurements: Primary outcome was cumulative morphine consumption during the first 24 h after extubation. Secondary outcomes included severity of pain, presence/extent of sensory block, duration of postoperative ventilation and hospital length of stay. Safety outcomes comprised the incidence of adverse events., Main Results: Median (IQR) 24-h morphine consumption was not different between the intervention- and control-group, 41 mg (30-55) versus 37 mg (29-50) (p = 0.70), respectively. Likewise, no differences were detected for secondary and safety endpoints., Conclusions: Following MIMVS, adding an ESP block to a standard multimodal analgesia regimen did not reduce opioid consumption and pain scores., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: An important cornerstone of the Enhanced Recovery After Cardiac Surgery initiative is a fast-track cardiac anesthesia management protocol. Fast-track failure has been described to have a detrimental impact on immediate postoperative outcomes. The authors here evaluated risk factors for short- and long-term effects of fast-track failure., Design: A retrospective cohort study., Setting: A single academic center., Participants: Adult cardiac surgery was performed on 7,064 patients between January 2013 and October 2019., Intervention: The inclusion criteria for the fast-track program at the postanesthesia care unit were met by 1,097 patients., Measurements and Main Results: Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to identify independent risk factors. Fast-track failure occurred in 69 (6.3%) patients. These were associated with significant increases in the incidences of coronary revascularization, cardiac tamponade or bleeding requiring surgical intervention, new-onset atrial fibrillation, pneumonia, delirium, and sepsis. Likewise, the postoperative length of stay, and up to 5-year mortality, were significantly higher in the fast-track failure than the nonfailure group. The European System for Cardiac Operative Risk Evaluation II and transfusion of any blood product could be identified as independent risk factors for fast-track failure, with only limited discriminative ability (area under the curve = 0.676; 95% confidence interval, 0.611-0.741)., Conclusion: Fast-track failure is associated with increases in morbidity and long-term mortality, but remains difficult to predict., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interests None., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: In the context of enhanced recovery after cardiac surgery, surgical techniques for mitral valve surgery have witnessed substantial modifications, from approaching the heart using open approaches with traditional sternotomy to thoracoscopic access via minithoracotomy. After cardiac surgery, acute postoperative pain is frequent and caused by surgical incision and retraction. Perioperative analgesia in cardiac surgery still relies mainly on opioids. Although neuraxial techniques could be a valuable non-opioid-based analgesia regimen, they can be associated with devastating complications in situations with (iatrogenic) coagulation abnormalities. Only two randomised clinical trials describe the erector spinae plane (ESP) block to provide sufficient postoperative analgesia following cardiac surgery with median sternotomy. Regarding postoperative analgesia after cardiac surgery with a minithoracotomy approach, adequately designed trials are still lacking. We, therefore, designed a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to prove the hypothesis that the ESP block reduces opioid consumption in patients undergoing minimally invasive mitral valve surgery (MIMVS)., Methods and Analysis: Sixty-four patients undergoing MIMVS will be included in this double-blind, prospective, placebo-controlled trial. Patients will be randomised to receive an ESP block with a catheter with either intermittent ropivacaine 0.5% (ropi group) or normal saline 0.9% (placebo group). Both groups will receive patient-controlled intravenous analgesia with morphine following extubation. Primary endpoint is the 24-hour cumulative morphine consumption after extubation. Multiple secondary endpoints will be evaluated., Ethics and Dissemination: The study is approved by the ethics committee of the University Hospitals Leuven, the Clinical Trials Centre of the University Hospitals Leuven and the 'Federaal Agentschap voor Geneesmiddelen en Gezondheidsproducten'. Dissemination of the study results will be via scientific papers., Trial Registration Number: EudraCT identifier: 2019-001125-27., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

To investigate if an erector spinae plane (ESP) block decreases postoperative opioid consumption, pain and postoperative nausea and vomiting in patients undergoing robotically-assisted minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass surgery (RAMIDCAB). A single-center, double-blind, prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Postoperative period; operating room, post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) and hospital ward in a university hospital. Sixty-four patients undergoing RAMIDCAB surgery via left-sided mini-thoracotomy and enrolled in the institutional enhanced recovery after cardiac surgery program. At the end of surgery, patients received an ESP catheter at vertebra T5 under ultrasound guidance and were randomized to the administration of either ropivacaine 0.5% (loading dose of 30 ml and three additional doses of 20 ml each, interspersed with a 6 h interval) or normal saline 0.9% (with an identical administration scheme). In addition, patients received multimodal analgesia including acetaminophen, dexamethasone and patient-controlled analgesia with morphine. Following the final ESP bolus and before catheter removal, the position of the catheter was re-evaluated by ultrasound. Patients, investigators and medical personnel were blinded for the group allocation during the entire trial. Primary outcome was cumulative morphine consumption during the first 24 h after extubation. Secondary outcomes included location and severity of pain, presence/extent of sensory block, duration of postoperative ventilation and hospital length of stay. Safety outcomes comprised the incidence of adverse events. Median (IQR) 24-h morphine consumption was not different between the intervention- and control-groups, 67 mg (35–84) versus 71 mg (52–90) (p = 0.25), respectively. Likewise, no differences were detected in secondary and safety endpoints. Following RAMIDCAB surgery, adding an ESP block to a standard multimodal analgesia regimen did not reduce opioid consumption and pain scores. • Randomized and placebo-controlled trial for unilateral ESP block in cardiac surgery. • Further research into dosing regimens for unilateral ESP block is required. • Postoperative pain following MIDCAB surgery is not reduced with ESP block. • ESP block did not reduce opioid consumption following MIDCAB surgery. • Multimodal analgesia without ESP was sufficient following MIDCAB surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]