Title: The Role of Exercise-based Prehabilitation in Enhancing Surgical Outcomes for Patients
with Digestive System Cancers: A Meta-Analysis
Version: 1 Date: 12 Nov 2024
Reviewer's report:
This meta-analysis addresses an important part of peri-operative care and ERAS pathways by
assessing the impact of pre-habilitation on post-operative outcomes in GI surgery.
Overall, the meta-analysis demonstrates what has been shown consistently in the literature –
improvement in peri-operative care. I am not clear what this meta-analysis provides in terms of
new information given the available literature in the area. Refer to Nature 2024 “Multimodal
prehabilitation and postoperative outcomes in abdominal surgery: a systematic review and meta-
analysis” as an example.
Additional feedback:
The introduction is very dense with two long paragraphs with minimal flow within. I would
suggest making it more concise illustrating the epidemiology of digestive malignancies, impacts
of surgery in these patients and potential importance of pre-habilitation. Lastly, statement of
objectives of the meta-analysis needs to be made more clear. The authors could also discuss how
their planned meta-analysis would be unique as quite a lot of research has been done in ERAS
programs which includes pre-habilitation.
In the methods the authors should be more specific with MeSH terms used in their systematic
literature search. Which authors were involved in identification of papers and the 3rd
adjudicating author should be highlighted.
Could the authors described in more detail how their data was stored? Is stated “in standardized
format” but I think needs to be more explicitly (e.g. excel spreadsheet, RedCaps)
Title: The Role of Exercise-based Prehabilitation in Enhancing Surgical Outcomes for Patients
with Digestive System Cancers: A Meta-Analysis
Version: 1 Date: 12 Nov 2024
Reviewer's report:
This meta-analysis addresses an important part of peri-operative care and ERAS pathways by
assessing the impact of pre-habilitation on post-operative outcomes in GI surgery.
Overall, the meta-analysis demonstrates what has been shown consistently in the literature –
improvement in peri-operative care. I am not clear what this meta-analysis provides in terms of
new information given the available literature in the area. Refer to Nature 2024 “Multimodal
prehabilitation and postoperative outcomes in abdominal surgery: a systematic review and meta-
analysis” as an example.
Additional feedback:
The introduction is very dense with two long paragraphs with minimal flow within. I would
suggest making it more concise illustrating the epidemiology of digestive malignancies, impacts
of surgery in these patients and potential importance of pre-habilitation. Lastly, statement of
objectives of the meta-analysis needs to be made more clear. The authors could also discuss how
their planned meta-analysis would be unique as quite a lot of research has been done in ERAS
programs which includes pre-habilitation.
In the methods the authors should be more specific with MeSH terms used in their systematic
literature search. Which authors were involved in identification of papers and the 3rd
adjudicating author should be highlighted.
Could the authors described in more detail how their data was stored? Is stated “in standardized
format” but I think needs to be more explicitly (e.g. excel spreadsheet, RedCaps)
Please review this paper.
user
Title: The Role of Exercise-based Prehabilitation in Enhancing Surgical Outcomes for Patients
with Digestive System Cancers: A Meta-Analysis
Version: 1 Date: 12 Nov 2024
Reviewer's report:
This meta-analysis addresses an important part of peri-operative care and ERAS pathways by
assessing the impact of pre-habilitation on post-operative outcomes in GI surgery.
Overall, the meta-analysis demonstrates what has been shown consistently in the literature –
improvement in peri-operative care. I am not clear what this meta-analysis provides in terms of
new information given the available literature in the area. Refer to Nature 2024 “Multimodal
prehabilitation and postoperative outcomes in abdominal surgery: a systematic review and meta-
analysis” as an example.
Additional feedback:
The introduction is very dense with two long paragraphs with minimal flow within. I would
suggest making it more concise illustrating the epidemiology of digestive malignancies, impacts
of surgery in these patients and potential importance of pre-habilitation. Lastly, statement of
objectives of the meta-analysis needs to be made more clear. The authors could also discuss how
their planned meta-analysis would be unique as quite a lot of research has been done in ERAS
programs which includes pre-habilitation.
In the methods the authors should be more specific with MeSH terms used in their systematic
literature search. Which authors were involved in identification of papers and the 3rd
adjudicating author should be highlighted.
Could the authors described in more detail how their data was stored? Is stated “in standardized
format” but I think needs to be more explicitly (e.g. excel spreadsheet, RedCaps)
assistant