The Study
Identifying Patients with Colorectal Cancer Likely to Benefit from a Trimodal Prehabilitation Prior to Surgery
This study watched what happened to people who got extra training and nutrition before surgery and compared them to people who didn’t — but it didn’t randomly assign them, so we can’t say the training caused better results. It just shows that people with fatty muscles seemed to do better with the training, but we don’t know why.
Analysis score
Maximum 72 for a cohort study.
Where the score came from
Before having colon cancer surgery, some patients did 3–6 weeks of exercise, eating better, and stress training. Others only got standard care. The study checked if the extra prep helped them recover faster or have fewer problems after surgery.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 570 / 100
Quality score
Groups of people are followed over time to see who develops an outcome. Strong for identifying risk factors and associations, but cannot prove causation as firmly as RCTs.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Yes—patients with fatty muscles (myosteatosis) had much higher complication rates without prehabilitation, but prehabilitation brought their risk down to match healthier patients.
- 2This suggests targeting prehabilitation to those with fatty muscles could save resources and improve outcomes.
- 3Patients who did prehabilitation could walk 121% farther and breathe 114% better before surgery—but those gains disappeared by 8 weeks after surgery.
- 4Overall, both groups had the same number of complications.
- 5But if patients had fatty muscles (seen on CT scan), prehabilitation cut their 7-day complications in half—from 28% down to 10%.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
Nutrients
Year
2026
Authors
N. Suszták, A. Fülöp, Lóránd Lakatos, Dominic Herovi, Junghyun Cho, Petra Tímár, József Golub, Izabella Mihály, József Marton, Attila Szijarto, B. Bánky
Related Content
Claims (5)
In patients with low muscle quality detected by CT scan, a combination of pre-surgery exercise, nutrition, and psychological support reduces the rate of complications within seven days after surgery compared to standard recovery care, but this benefit does not occur in patients with normal muscle quality.
In adults having elective colorectal cancer surgery, adding trimodal prehabilitation to enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) does not result in lower rates of complications, death, hospital readmission, or longer hospital stays within 7 or 30 days after surgery compared to ERAS alone.
Patients with higher frailty scores before colorectal cancer surgery have a higher rate of serious complications within 7 and 30 days after surgery, whether or not they received prehabilitation or enhanced recovery protocols.
Patients undergoing colorectal cancer surgery who receive enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) and have low muscle density on CT scans (indicating myosteatosis) experience three to four times higher rates of complications within 7 and 30 days after surgery compared to those without low muscle density.
Adults preparing for colorectal cancer surgery who complete 3 to 6 weeks of combined nutrition, exercise, and psychological training walk 121% farther in six minutes and breathe 114% more air during spirometry tests before surgery, but these improvements disappear by eight weeks after surgery.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.