Foreword to “Enhanced recovery after surgery”

The concept of “Fast-track surgery” or “Enhanced postoperative recovery programs”（ERP’s）was developed more than 2 decades years ago and representing a multimodal and multidisciplinary approach to improve postoperative outcomes. The clinical and economic benefits have been repeatedly confirmed around the World and led to establishment of several national and International ERP societies. Nevertheless，many surveys have shown a continuous “knowing-doing” gap from clinical research data to practical implementation，clearly arguing for publication of more updated guidelines and results from ERP’s. In addition，there is a continuous demand for new data to define procedure-specific high-quality data on which components of ERAS to be important to achieve the ultimate goal of a “pain and risk free operation”.

In recent years China has been in the forefront to develop and promote ERP’s across procedures and hopefully this book will further stimulate to this important process. Consequently，I will highly recommend the book and congratulate the Chinese contributions to ERAS with implications not only within China，but worldwide.