PRIOR Fit for esophageal surgery | HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht

While patients with esophageal cancer often already have a reduced nutritional status and fitness level, esophageal surgery has a major impact on their physical fitness level too. The PRIOR-project focuses on improving fitness and nutritional status before surgery, to promote the recovery afterwards.

In this project, we have developed, together with healthcare providers, a prehabilitation program for esophageal cancer patients, scheduled for surgery. The aim of this program is to improve physical fitness, and to enhance a good recovery after surgery.

243 patients, from five hospitals in the Netherlands, followed the new program
It was feasible for patients to follow the physical training and nutrition program and to improve their physical fitness level.
Patients and healthcare providers were positive about the program.
The results of the study will be published in scientific articles and will be presented at congresses.

01 May 2017 - 31 December 2024

Together with dieticians and physiotherapists from the collaborating hospitals, we have developed the intervention, and implemented this is in the usual care pathway. Hospitals collaborated with a network of primary care (oncology specialized) physiotherapists, so that patients could train in their own environment. Using the collected treatment data on fitness and nutritional status, we will investigate to what extent patients recover after surgery, and which factors influence this recovery.