Leading article Evidence-based perioperative care is lost in translation

Evidence-based medicine is one of the most important tools used to improve the quality and efficiency of health-care. However, ensuring the practical impact of the wealth of clinical evi-dence that is available appears harder to realize than expected. The extent to which surgical practice remains impervious to the availability of high-quality clinical evidence is particu-larly apparent in perioperative care. Traditional approaches, designed to facilitate safe surgery rather than enhance recovery, remain widely used despite evidence that many compo