Optimizing the Thoracic Perioperative Pathway: From Prehabilitation to Patient-Centered Outcomes

Thoracic surgery outcomes are shaped as much by the perioperative pathway as by the operation itself. Advances in prehabilitation, enhanced recovery protocols, and lung-protective anesthesia have shifted focus toward optimizing patients before, during, and after resection, while emerging tools in risk modeling and artificial intelligence are beginning to reshape how clinical decisions are made across this pathway. At the same time, the field continues to grapple with how “success” is defined, moving beyond traditional morbidity and mortality metrics toward composite and patient-centered measures of recovery and quality of life.This Research Topic aims to bring together clinical, methodological, and technological perspectives on the full perioperative arc of thoracic surgery. We welcome original research, reviews, and clinical perspectives that advance the understanding of perioperative optimization strategies and how their impact on patients is measured and interpreted.We invite submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:• Prehabilitation and preoperative optimization before thoracic resection• Enhanced recovery pathways, opioid-sparing analgesia, and regional anesthetic techniques• Airway management, one-lung ventilation, and lung-protective ventilatory strategies• Postoperative delirium and neurocognitive recovery• Risk modeling and AI-assisted perioperative decision support• Measuring perioperative success: patient-centered and composite outcome metricsBy connecting established physiologic and technical themes with methodological innovation in outcomes measurement and decision support, this Research Topic seeks to advance a more integrated, patient-centered approach to thoracic perioperative care. Topic editors: Dimitrios E. Magouliotis, VASILIKI ANDROUTSOPOULOU Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/83603/optimizing-the-thoracic-perioperative-pathway-from-prehabilitation-to-patient-centered-outcomes