Effectiveness of exercise-based prehabilitation on pre and postoperative outcomes of patients undergoing cardiac surgery-An umbrella review of systematic reviews.

Shrikant Ramkrishna Sahu; Lakshman Chandrashekhar Iyer; Guruprasad Rai; Ramachandran Padmakumar; Abraham Samuel Babu

doi:10.1093/eurjcn/zvag117

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Effectiveness of exercise-based prehabilitation on pre and postoperative outcomes of patients undergoing cardiac surgery-An umbrella review of systematic reviews.

Shrikant Ramkrishna Sahu·Lakshman Chandrashekhar Iyer·Guruprasad Rai·Ramachandran Padmakumar·Abraham Samuel Babu

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Abstract

AIMS: Individuals undergoing cardiac surgery are becoming older, frailer, and less mobile. Prehabilitation has shown to improve postoperative outcomes by optimizing preoperative physical function. This umbrella review aims to pool the systematic reviews assessing the effectiveness of exercise-based prehabilitation in cardiac surgery. METHODS AND RESULTS: The review followed the PRIOR checklist. PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, Cochrane library, Scopus, Web of science, ProQuest NAHD, ProQuest HMC, Open Grey and MedNar were searched using relevant keywords from inception to 16th December, 2024. Two reviewers screened and extracted data from the included reviews and assessed primary study overlap with the corrected covered area. Methodological quality of the reviews was evaluated with the A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews-2 scale. Certainty of evidence was assessed using a previously developed criteria for overview of reviews. Six systematic reviews with 30 unique trials and 6705 participants were included. The interventions assessed included breathing exercises, inspiratory muscle training, and exercise training. Prehabilitation reduced length of hospital stay, postoperative pulmonary complications, and clinically improved functional capacity with a very low to moderate certainty of evidence. However, there was uncertainty regarding the effects pertaining to adverse events and quality of life. The methodological quality of all reviews was critically low. The primary trials scored poorly in the domains of selection and detection bias. CONCLUSION: Exercise-based prehabilitation might reduce length of hospital stay and postoperative complications, and improve functional capacity. However, the quality of evidence is poor, and individual discretion is required before implementing them into practice. REGISTRATION: PROSPERO: CRD42023480100.

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Humans Cardiac Surgical Procedures Preoperative Exercise Systematic Reviews as Topic Postoperative Complications Cardiac rehabilitation Cardiac surgical procedures Certainty of evidence Length of stay Systematic review Journal Article Systematic Review

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Shrikant Ramkrishna Sahu, Lakshman Chandrashekhar Iyer, Guruprasad Rai, Ramachandran Padmakumar, Abraham Samuel Babu. 2026-09-08. Effectiveness of exercise-based prehabilitation on pre and postoperative outcomes of patients undergoing cardiac surgery-An umbrella review of systematic reviews.. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurjcn%2Fzvag117

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Journal Article; Systematic Review resource Humans subject Journal Article subject Length of Stay subject Postoperative Complications subject Systematic reviews study

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