Experience with early postoperative feeding after abdominal aortic surgery.

BACKGROUND Abdominal aortic surgery is a form of major vascular surgery, which traditionally involves long hospital stays and significant postoperative morbidity. Experiences with transit ileus are often encountered after the aortic surgery. Thus traditional postoperative care involves delayed oral feeding until the patients regain their normal bowel activities. This report examines the feasibility of early postoperative feeding after abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) open-repair. METHODS From May 2002 through May 2003, 10 consecutive patients with infrarenal AAA who underwent elective surgical open-repair by the same surgeon in our department were reviewed. All of them had been operated upon and cared for according to the early feeding postoperative care protocol, which comprised of adjuvant epidural anesthesia, postoperative patient controlled analgesia, early postoperative feeding and early rehabilitation. The postoperative recovery and length of hospital stay were reviewed and analyzed. RESULTS All patients were able to sip water within 1 day postoperatively without trouble (Average; 12.4 hours postoperatively). All but one patient was put on regular diet within 3 days postoperatively (Average; 2.2 days postoperatively). The average postoperative length of stay in hospital was 5.8 days. No patient died or had major morbidity. CONCLUSIONS Early postoperative feeding after open repair of abdominal aorta is safe and feasible. The postoperative recovery could be improved and the length of stay reduced by simply using adjuvant epidural anesthesia during surgery, postoperative epidural patient-controlled analgesia, early feeding, early ambulation, and early rehabilitation. The initial success of our postoperative recovery program of aortic repair was demonstrated.