Prehabilitation in Thoracic Cancer Surgery: From Research to Standard of Care.

OBJECTIVE

To determine whether personalized, stepped prehabilitation care is a feasible, safe, and effective implementation strategy.

DESIGN

Quality improvement project. Data collected prospectively from August 2018 to December 2019 were analyzed retrospectively to describe the clinical implementation of a prehabilitation care program for elective lung cancer surgery.

SETTING

Single center, tertiary university hospital.

PARTICIPANTS

Eighty-one consecutive adult patients living in the metropolitan area of Montreal were included if an elective resection of suspected or confirmed lung cancer was planned.

INTERVENTIONS

At the earliest contemplation of surgery, the whole cohort was screened for impaired physical, nutritional, and/or psychological status. Patients screened at higher risk received dedicated assessment and personalized prehabilitation care upon specific needs.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS

Patients' specific needs and their access and flow through the different services were described. Prehabilitation effectiveness was evaluated using walking and exercise tests, and adverse events were monitored. Eighty-one patients were screened for functional impairments. Forty patients showed reduction of physical function, seven of them refused the specific assessment, one refused in-hospital exercise; 48 patients showed nutritional risk, eight of them refused or did not comply with nutritional therapy. Overall, 45 high-risk patients received a one-month personalized prehabilitation program: 16 partook in a trimodal program (exercise, nutrition, and psychological), and 22 received a program with both nutrition and exercise. No adverse events occurred during the study period. After prehabilitation, six-minute waking distance improved by 29.9 meters (standard deviation 47.3 m) (n = 35; p = 0.001) and the oxygen uptake at the anaerobic threshold improved by 1.6 (1.7) mL/kg/min (n = 13; p = 0.004). Length of hospital stay was two (interquartile range one-four) days in prehabilitated patients versus three (two-seven) days in the usual care group (p = 0.101).

CONCLUSIONS

A personalized, stepped prehabilitation program targeting high-risk patients undergoing elective lung cancer surgery was feasible, safe, and effective.