Strategies of Anesthesia and Perioperative Recovery to Enhance the Gastrointestinal Function

The concept of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) is to optimize a series of perioperative measures to relieve surgical stress, reduce postoperative complications, shorten hospital stays, and finally accelerate the recovery. Gastroenterology is still the most studied and most successful field in the present research status of ERAS. However, many improperly implemented strategies of ERAS, like unresolved preoperative malnutrition, long fasting, perioperative hypervolemia, and overuse of opioid analgesics, could all damage the gastrointestinal function, and the impaired gastrointestinal function could impede the progress of ERAS by increasing postoperative complications and delaying hospital stays. Thus, it is critical to standardize the strategies of anesthesia and perioperative ERAS related to the gastrointestinal function in order to improve patient outcomes.