Clinical trial NCT06398301: Surgical Prehabilitation on Autonomic Nervous System (TUNE)
Official title: The Effect of Surgical Prehabilitation on Autonomic Nervous System Regulation
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Thoracic Surgery
Keywords: Thoracic surgery
Prehabilitation
Multimodal prehabilitation program
Standard care treatment
Hospital stay
Functional walking
Nutrition
Diet
Exercise
Relaxation
Functional recovery
Anesthesiology
Lead sponsor: Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Giulia Veronesi
name: Katia Donadello
First posted: 2024-05-03
Enrollment: 100
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: PREVENTION

Brief summary: This study will be a multicenter interventional randomized trial evaluating the effect of a multimodal prehabilitation program on heart rate variability (HRV). In the same protocol the impact of HRV on hospital length of stay will be identified. One hundred patients aged 18 years or older scheduled for elective surgery will be eligible for enrolment, if they will not present any exclusion criteria. Patients will be randomized with a 1:1 allocation to receive either prehabilitation or standard of care.

Detailed description: There is a growing interest whether prehabilitation interventions can reduce length of hospital stay and perioperative morbidity after major surgery. The aim of prehabilitation is to improve patients' functional capacity to withstand the upcoming stress of surgery. Prehabilitation is defined as an active program of structured exercise over a period of weeks to improve preoperative cardiovascular, respiratory, and muscular conditioning. Exercise in preparation for surgery is known to be associated with reduced postoperative complications and rapid restoration of functional status. However, prehabilitation programs are not yet standardized and there is no consensus on which parameters can accurately evaluate their effectiveness.

Many elements of prehabilitation are analogous to athletes' training, and it seems straightforward to compare prehabilitation before surgery to athletic preparation before competitions. Traditionally, post training recovery and physiological reserve are assessed by tools considered expensive and challenging in everyday use. For this reason, the use of heart rate variability (HRV), the variability in the distance between the R-R waves of the electrocardiogram, has become a logical solution as it identifies major regulatory processes after exercise. HRV parameters are commonly used to analyze stress experienced by the body during training and they can predict physiological recovery after training. HRV is the most validated method to measure the activity of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Surgery is considered as a physical stress which the body responds to by means of sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system activities. While on one hand the sympathetic nervous system upregulates mechanisms of body response in stress situations, parasympathetic system is activated during relaxation through the vagus nerve. Among the effects of the sympathetic nervous system there are hyperglycemia, increased blood pressure and heart rate, activation of the inflammatory response, and increased myocardial oxygen consumption. Sympathetic nervous system activity tends to synchronize with the R-R intervals, reducing their variability. HRV measures the balance between parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems, and it seems to be associated to perioperative hypotension, nociception/anesthesia balance, and perioperative risk assessment. The reduction in the risk of coronary artery disease following physical activity may be due to increased HRV. Similarly, surgical prehabilitation could have beneficial effects on perioperative outcome through a possible increase in HRV.

Therefore, the aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of a multimodal program of prehabilitation on heart rate variability in patients undergoing thoracic surgery. Patients enrolled in this study will be randomized (ratio 1:1) and allocated either to the intervention group (Prehabilitation), or to the control group, which will be treated according to usual standard of care within Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) pathways. The hypothesis is that standard deviation of normal to normal index of heart rate variability from baseline to the days before surgery will increase in patients undergoing prehabilitation. The hypothesis is also to observe a reduction of length of hospital stays in patient with an elevated standard deviation of normal to normal index of heart rate variability.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Patients scheduled to undergo major thoracic surgery including lobectomy, bilobectomy, anatomical segmentectomy, and pneumonectomy with general anesthesia;
* Patients ≥18 years of age at the time of randomization;
* Patients who provide written informed consent to participate.

Exclusion Criteria:

* New York Heart Association classes 3-4;
* End-stage organ dysfunction;
* American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status classes 4-5;
* Disabling orthopedic, neuromuscular, and psychiatric diseases;
* Other medical conditions that preclude safe training.
* Atrial fibrillation or other arrhythmia (e.g. bigeminy, trigeminy) that preclude heart rate variability analysis.
* Unable to provide written informed consent to participate

Primary outcomes:
measure: Impact of prehabilitation on heart rate variability
timeFrame: 30 days after prehabilitation
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Lenght of hospital stay
timeFrame: 60 days follow up post surgery
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Milan
country: Italy
facility: IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute
city: Verona
country: Italy
facility: Università degli studi di Verona
Study officials:
References:
citation: Weinstein AS, Sigurdsson MI, Bader AM. Comparison of Preoperative Assessment of Patient's Metabolic Equivalents (METs) Estimated from History versus Measured by Exercise Cardiac Stress Testing. Anesthesiol Res Pract. 2018 Sep 3;2018:5912726. doi: 10.1155/2018/5912726. eCollection 2018.
citation: Pedziwiatr M, Mavrikis J, Witowski J, Adamos A, Major P, Nowakowski M, Budzynski A. Current status of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) protocol in gastrointestinal surgery. Med Oncol. 2018 May 9;35(6):95. doi: 10.1007/s12032-018-1153-0.
citation: Pedziwiatr M, Kisialeuski M, Wierdak M, Stanek M, Natkaniec M, Matlok M, Major P, Malczak P, Budzynski A. Early implementation of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS(R)) protocol - Compliance improves outcomes: A prospective cohort study. Int J Surg. 2015 Sep;21:75-81. doi: 10.1016/j.ijsu.2015.06.087. Epub 2015 Jul 29.
citation: Scheede-Bergdahl C, Minnella EM, Carli F. Multi-modal prehabilitation: addressing the why, when, what, how, who and where next? Anaesthesia. 2019 Jan;74 Suppl 1:20-26. doi: 10.1111/anae.14505.
citation: Carli F, Zavorsky GS. Optimizing functional exercise capacity in the elderly surgical population. Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2005 Jan;8(1):23-32. doi: 10.1097/00075197-200501000-00005.
citation: Wynter-Blyth V, Moorthy K. Prehabilitation: preparing patients for surgery. BMJ. 2017 Aug 8;358:j3702. doi: 10.1136/bmj.j3702. No abstract available.
citation: Orange ST, Northgraves MJ, Marshall P, Madden LA, Vince RV. Exercise prehabilitation in elective intra-cavity surgery: A role within the ERAS pathway? A narrative review. Int J Surg. 2018 Aug;56:328-333. doi: 10.1016/j.ijsu.2018.04.054. Epub 2018 May 3.
citation: Heart rate variability: standards of measurement, physiological interpretation and clinical use. Task Force of the European Society of Cardiology and the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology. Circulation. 1996 Mar 1;93(5):1043-65. No abstract available.
citation: Manou-Stathopoulou V, Korbonits M, Ackland GL. Redefining the perioperative stress response: a narrative review. Br J Anaesth. 2019 Nov;123(5):570-583. doi: 10.1016/j.bja.2019.08.011. Epub 2019 Sep 20.
citation: McCorry LK. Physiology of the autonomic nervous system. Am J Pharm Educ. 2007 Aug 15;71(4):78. doi: 10.5688/aj710478.
citation: Anderson TA. Heart rate variability: implications for perioperative anesthesia care. Curr Opin Anaesthesiol. 2017 Dec;30(6):691-697. doi: 10.1097/ACO.0000000000000530.
citation: Paris A, Tonner PH, Bein B, von Knobelsdorff G, Scholz J. [Heart rate variability in anesthesia]. Anaesthesiol Reanim. 2001;26(3):60-9. German.
citation: Aubert AE, Seps B, Beckers F. Heart rate variability in athletes. Sports Med. 2003;33(12):889-919. doi: 10.2165/00007256-200333120-00003.
citation: Bernardi L, Valle F, Coco M, Calciati A, Sleight P. Physical activity influences heart rate variability and very-low-frequency components in Holter electrocardiograms. Cardiovasc Res. 1996 Aug;32(2):234-7. doi: 10.1016/0008-6363(96)00081-8.
citation: Nunan D, Sandercock GR, Brodie DA. A quantitative systematic review of normal values for short-term heart rate variability in healthy adults. Pacing Clin Electrophysiol. 2010 Nov;33(11):1407-17. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-8159.2010.02841.x.
citation: Ljungqvist O, Scott M, Fearon KC. Enhanced Recovery After Surgery: A Review. JAMA Surg. 2017 Mar 1;152(3):292-298. doi: 10.1001/jamasurg.2016.4952.
citation: Tarvainen MP, Niskanen JP, Lipponen JA, Ranta-Aho PO, Karjalainen PA. Kubios HRV--heart rate variability analysis software. Comput Methods Programs Biomed. 2014;113(1):210-20. doi: 10.1016/j.cmpb.2013.07.024. Epub 2013 Aug 6.
citation: Carli F, Gillis C, Scheede-Bergdahl C. Promoting a culture of prehabilitation for the surgical cancer patient. Acta Oncol. 2017 Feb;56(2):128-133. doi: 10.1080/0284186X.2016.1266081. Epub 2017 Jan 9.
citation: Colado JC, Pedrosa FM, Juesas A, Gargallo P, Carrasco JJ, Flandez J, Chupel MU, Teixeira AM, Naclerio F. Concurrent validation of the OMNI-Resistance Exercise Scale of perceived exertion with elastic bands in the elderly. Exp Gerontol. 2018 Mar;103:11-16. doi: 10.1016/j.exger.2017.12.009. Epub 2017 Dec 17.