The concept of fast-track surgery and later enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) was first imputed in 1990s. Since then, ERAS protocols have been successfully adopted in many surgical fields, often with dramatic benefits for the patients. Length of hospital stay is one of the main questions addressed in many ERAS studies, as it by a simple approach address many of the complications encountered by the patients or the case flow in the perioperative period. Why patients have prolonged hospital stay after surgery has been investigated by Husted et al. in 2011 after hip and knee arthroplasty and P. Munk-Madsen et al. in 2019 after laparoscopic colorectal surgery. Both studies could isolate dominating factors prolonging hospital stay, some of them preventable. Existing length of stay studies on tumor craniotomy patients have focused on specific variables affecting hospital duration, but never explored the true cause of prolonged hospitalization.
The aim of this prospective observational study is to identify the specific reasons that prolong a hospital stay after elective tumor craniotomy. Optimal postoperative in-hospital stay is considered to be two days from surgery to discharge from the neurosurgical ward. However, a variable length of stay at a neurological department for follow-up of late recognized deficits of neurological consequences of the surgical procedure are common.