Fast-Track in Bariatric Surgery: Safety, Quality, Teaching Aspects, Logistics and Cost-Efficacy in 8,000 Consecutive Cases

Optimizing the use of available resources is often termed “Fast-track”, a term more or less overlapping the term “Enhanced Recovery after Surgery” (ERAS). The obesity epidemic calls for increased use of surgery, since no other therapeutic modality can achieve massive and lasting weight loss. Good results can be expressed in terms of therapeutic success, patient safety as well as the optimum use of available resources. Careful analysis of available data is necessary to achieve good results. Since “learning by doing” has been shown to be inferior to using clinical guidelines and robust protocols, we analysed our own experience and that of the literature.