Update on guidelines and recommendations for enhanced recovery after thoracic surgery.

Purpose of review: Enhanced recovery after thoracic surgery (ERATS) has continued its growth in popularity over the past few years, and evidence for its utility is catching up to other specialties. This review will present and examine some of that accumulated evidence since guidelines sponsored by the Enhanced Recovery after Surgery (ERAS) Society and the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS) were first published in 2019.

Recent findings: The ERAS/ESTS guidelines published in 2019 have not been updated, but new studies have been done and new data has been published regarding some of the individual components of the guidelines as they relate to thoracic and lung resection surgery. While there is still not a consensus on many of these issues, the volume of available evidence is becoming more robust, some of which will be incorporated into this review.

Summary: The continued accumulation of data and evidence for the benefits of enhanced recovery techniques in thoracic and lung resection surgery will provide the thoracic anesthesiologist with guidance on how to best care for these patients before, during, and after surgery. The data from these studies will also help to elucidate which components of ERAS protocols are the most beneficial, and which components perhaps do not provide as much benefit as previously thought.