Alvimopan speeds gastrointestinal recovery and shortens hospital length of stay after radical cystectomy (RC), according to a recent report.
In a multicenter, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, the mean time to gastrointestinal recovery was 5.5 days among the 143 alvimopan-treated subjects compared with 6.8 days for the 137 placebo recipients, researchers reported online ahead of print in European Urology. The mean hospital length of stay was 7.4 days in the alvimopan group versus 10.1 days in the placebo arm. The alvimopan group also experienced fewer postoperative ileus-related episodes (8.4% vs. 29.1%). All of these differences between the groups were statistically significantly.
“Adding alvimopan to a standardized care pathway provides further meaningful improvements in early in-hospital postoperative outcomes for patients undergoing RC,” the authors concluded. “As such, alvimopan use represents an important advancement in surgical quality of care with the potential to reduce health care costs.”
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