A study looking at carbohydrate drinks after lung surgery to improve recovery (ThIRStY)

Cancer type:

Lung cancer

Status:

Results

Phase:

Other

This study looked at having carbohydrate drinks after lung surgery to help people get better sooner.

The study was open for people to join between 2016 and 2017. The team published the results in 2022.

More about this trial

Surgery to remove lung cancer is a big operation. It can take some time to get better afterwards. Weight loss and not eating enough of the right foods can lead to complications after surgery. Researchers were looking at ways to improve nutrition to reduce these complications.

We know from research that having carbohydrate and protein drinks before and after surgery can help people recover. This is after other types of major surgery. Researchers wanted to find out if these drinks could help people recover from major lung surgery.

Everyone taking part was put into a treatment group at random Open a glossary item :

half had the carbohydrate drinks before and after surgery
half didn’t have the carbohydrate drinks. They had water.

Those taking part had the carbohydrate drink or water:

4 times in the evening before surgery
at least twice on the day of surgery
twice a day for 2 weeks after surgery

This was a feasibility study. This type of study helps the team check the design before running a larger trial. The main aims were to find out:

how willing people are to take part
if it is possible to do the study

Summary of results

64 people took part in the study:

33 had the carbohydrate drinks
31 had water

The team had the results for 61 people. The main findings were that:

enough people were willing to take part
most people had all the carbohydrate drinks or water during the study
people found the trial design and carbohydrate drinks acceptable
people were willing to fill in the quality of life questionnaires and they didn’t find them too troublesome

Side effects
Most people had at least one side effect during the study. The team say none of these were caused by having the carbohydrate drinks.

Conclusion
The study team concluded that running a larger trial would be possible. This larger trial would look at whether the carbohydrate drinks improve people’s recovery after surgery.

The team used this research to plan a larger study called Fit 4 Surgery. The study will compare the usual care people have with an individual exercise and diet programme to prepare for lung cancer surgery.

More detailed information
There is more information about this research in the reference below.

Please note, the information we link to here is not in plain English. It has been written for healthcare professionals and researchers.

Feasibility study of a randomised controlled trial of preoperative and
postoperative nutritional supplementation in major lung surgery
A Kerr and others
BMJ Open, 2022. Volume 12, issue 6, e057498.

Where this information comes from
We have based this summary on the information in the article above. This has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed Open a glossary item ) and published in a medical journal. We have not analysed the data ourselves. As far as we are aware, the link we list above is active and the article is free and available to view.