| Summary: | Background: Radical surgery is the mainstream treatment for patients presenting with advanced primary or recurrent gastrointestinal cancers; however, the rate of postoperative complications is exceptionally high. The current evidence suggests that improving patients’ fitness during the preoperative period may enhance postoperative recovery. Thus, the primary aim of this study is to establish the effectiveness of prehabilitation with a progressive, individualised, preoperative exercise and education program compared to usual care alone in reducing the proportion of patients with postoperative in-hospital complications. The secondary aims are to investigate the effectiveness of the preoperative intervention on reducing the length of intensive care unit and hospital stay, improving quality of life and morbidity, and reducing costs. Methods: This is a multi-centre, assessor-blinded, pragmatic, comparative, randomised controlled trial. A total of 172 patients undergoing pelvic exenteration, cytoreductive surgery, oesophagectomy, hepatectomy, gastrectomy or pancreatectomy will be recruited. Participants will be randomly allocated to prehabilitation with a preoperative exercise and education program (intervention group), delivered over 4 to 8 weeks before surgery by community physiotherapists/exercise physiologists, or usual care alone (control group). The intervention will comprise 12 to 24 individualised, progressive exercise sessions (including aerobic/anaerobic, resistance, and respiratory exercises), recommendations of home exercises (16 to 32 sessions), and daily incidental physical activity advice. Outcome measures will be collected at baseline, the week prior to surgery, during the hospital stay, and on the day of discharge from hospital, and 1 month and 1 months postoperatively. The primary outcome will be the development of in-hospital complications. Secondary outcomes include the length of intensive care unit and hospital stay, quality of life, postoperative morbidity and costs. Discussion: The successful completion of this trial will provide robust and high-quality evidence on the efficacy of a preoperative community- and home-based exercise and education intervention on important postoperative outcomes of patients undergoing major gastrointestinal cancer surgery. Trial registration: This trial was registered prospectively with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12621000617864) on 24th May 2021. © 2022, The Author(s).
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