ClinicalTrials.gg
Status unknownNCT05778487Updated Mar 21, 2023

Carbohydrate Loading and Elderly Patients Undergoing Spine Surgery

An interventional study of Gatorade Thirst Quencher in Diet, Carbohydrate Loading, sponsored by Horizon Health Network. Status unknown at 1 site in Canada. Open to participants aged 65 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2023-03-21.

Sponsored by Horizon Health Network · Not applicable, Interventional, and Supportive care

The sponsor has not verified this record recently (last verified Mar 2023), so the status shown — last known as Recruiting — may be out of date.
Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
128
Allocation
Non-randomized
Ages
65 Years and older
Sex
All
01

Study summary

Carbohydrate loading, the consumption of carbohydrates prior to surgery, is an example of preoperative nutrition that has provided many benefits to surgical patients. Elderly patients (65 years of age and older) represent a large number of spine surgery recipients and due to the unique aspects of aging, proper preoperative nutrition is essential for this patient demographic. The goal of this research study is to determine if preoperative carbohydrate loading provides benefits to elderly patients through decreasing length of stay (LOS) in hospital and reducing perioperative patient adverse events, when undergoing orthopaedic spine surgeries. It is expected that preoperative carbohydrate loading in elderly patients receiving an orthopaedic spine surgery (fusion, decompression, or discectomy) will lead to greater outcomes through decreasing LOS in hospital and reducing perioperative patient adverse events compared to patients who did not receive preoperative carbohydrate loading.

Read the detailed description

Carbohydrate loading, the consumption of carbohydrates prior to surgery, is an example of preoperative nutrition that has provided many benefits to surgical patients. Because of this, preoperative carbohydrate loading has been included in the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) and Enhanced Recovery Canada (ERC) guidelines across a variety of surgical specialities; however, a gap in the literature remains within the field of orthopaedic surgery, specifically in cervical and thoracolumbar spine surgeries. Elderly patients (65 years of age and older) represent a large number of spine surgery recipients and due to the unique aspects of aging, proper preoperative nutrition is essential for this patient demographic. The goal of this research study is to determine if preoperative carbohydrate loading provides benefits to elderly patients through decreasing length of stay (LOS) in hospital and reducing perioperative patient adverse events, when undergoing orthopaedic spine surgeries. This is an ambispective research study including elderly patients from the Canadian Spine Outcomes and Research Network (CSORN) registry, who have either recently undergone, or are scheduled to undergo, an orthopaedic cervical or thoracolumbar spine surgery (fusion, decompression, or discectomy). The control group will include retrospectively recruited patients, and the carbohydrate (CHO) group will include prospectively recruited patients, who will consume a carbohydrate drink up to 2 hours prior to surgery. Groups will also be matched based on various patient demographic and surgical variables. LOS in hospital and perioperative patient adverse events are the outcome measurements of interest. Patient and surgical variables will also be collected for comparison. It is expected that preoperative carbohydrate loading in elderly patients receiving an orthopaedic spine surgery (fusion, decompression, or discectomy) will lead to greater outcomes through decreasing LOS in hospital and reducing perioperative patient adverse events compared to patients who did not receive preoperative carbohydrate loading.

02

Conditions studied

  • Diet, Carbohydrate Loading

Keywords

  • Carbohydrate Loading
  • Orthopaedics
  • Elderly
  • Spine
  • Cervical
  • Thoracolumbar
  • Fusion
  • Decompression
  • Discectomy
  • Gatorade
03

In context

Lead sponsor

Horizon Health Network is the lead sponsor of 15 studies on the registry; 4 are open to participants now.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
65 Years and older
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  • Patients must meet the age requirement,
  • Have either recently undergone, or are scheduled to undergo an elective cervical or thoracolumbar spine surgery, including fusion, decompression, and discectomy procedures.

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Potential participants will be excluded if they do not meet the age requirements,
  • Have had, or will be having, cervical or thoracolumbar fusion, decompression or discectomy revision surgery,
  • Are not able to consume the selected carbohydrate drink,
  • Do not consent to participation in the research study,
  • Or have diabetes.
05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Supportive care
Allocation
Non-randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
128 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • No intervention
    Control Group

    Standard of care for dietary instructions only. The control group will consist of retrospectively recruited participants who have recently undergone a successful elective spine surgery, and followed the preoperative nutrition standards for their surgery, as outlined by the research institution's fasting dietary guidelines. Recruitment will include the most recent spine surgeries that meet the inclusion criteria and match prospective patient demographics.

  • Experimental
    Carbohydrate Group

    Standard of care for dietary instructions + carbohydrate loading. The carbohydrate (CHO) group will consist of prospectively recruited patients scheduled to undergo an elective spine surgery. These participants will also follow the preoperative nutrition standards, however, in addition, they will be instructed to consume 710ml of a simple, commercial carbohydrate sports drink on the day of their procedure up to 2 hours prior to surgery.

    Dietary Supplement: Gatorade Thirst Quencher

Interventions

  • Dietary supplementGatorade Thirst Quencher

    Gatorade Thirst Quencher, 710ml (45g of carbohydrates, 6.3% carbohydrates, 25.4kcal/100ml)

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Length of Stay (LOS) in Hospital

    How long (hours) are the patients staying in hospital for?

    Time frame: From the time the patient is admitted to hospital until they are released postoperatively, 0-Maximum hours required.

Secondary outcomes

  1. Perioperative Patient Adverse Events

    Do the patients experience any adverse events in hospital such as pain, nausea, vomiting?

    Time frame: From the time the patient is admitted to hospital until they are released postoperatively, 0-Maximum hours required.

07

Study locations

1 of 1 sites recruiting
  • Canada East Spine Centre at Saint John Regional Hospital
    Saint John, New Brunswick E2L 4L2, Canada
    Recruiting
08

References and documents

Publications

  • Kratzing C. Pre-operative nutrition and carbohydrate loading. Proc Nutr Soc. 2011 Aug;70(3):311-5. doi: 10.1017/S0029665111000450. PubMed 21781358 ↗
  • Yang R, Wolfson M, Lewis MC. Unique Aspects of the Elderly Surgical Population: An Anesthesiologist's Perspective. Geriatr Orthop Surg Rehabil. 2011 Mar;2(2):56-64. doi: 10.1177/2151458510394606. PubMed 23569671 ↗
  • Altman AD, Helpman L, McGee J, Samouelian V, Auclair MH, Brar H, Nelson GS; Society of Gynecologic Oncology of Canada's Communities of Practice in ERAS and Venous Thromboembolism. Enhanced recovery after surgery: implementing a new standard of surgical care. CMAJ. 2019 Apr 29;191(17):E469-E475. doi: 10.1503/cmaj.180635. No abstract available. PubMed 31036609 ↗
  • Harsten A, Hjartarson H, Toksvig-Larsen S. Total hip arthroplasty and perioperative oral carbohydrate treatment: a randomised, double-blind, controlled trial. Eur J Anaesthesiol. 2012 Jun;29(6):271-4. doi: 10.1097/EJA.0b013e3283525ba9. PubMed 22450530 ↗
  • Wainwright TW et al. Consensus statement for perioperative care in total hip replacement and total knee replacement surgery: Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS(R)) Society recommendations. Acta Orthop. 2020 Jun;91(3):363. doi: 10.1080/17453674.2020.1724674. Epub 2020 Feb 14. No abstract available. PubMed 32056486 ↗
  • Debono B, Wainwright TW, Wang MY, Sigmundsson FG, Yang MMH, Smid-Nanninga H, Bonnal A, Le Huec JC, Fawcett WJ, Ljungqvist O, Lonjon G, de Boer HD. Consensus statement for perioperative care in lumbar spinal fusion: Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS(R)) Society recommendations. Spine J. 2021 May;21(5):729-752. doi: 10.1016/j.spinee.2021.01.001. Epub 2021 Jan 12. PubMed 33444664 ↗
  • Baek H, Cho M, Kim S, Hwang H, Song M, Yoo S. Analysis of length of hospital stay using electronic health records: A statistical and data mining approach. PLoS One. 2018 Apr 13;13(4):e0195901. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0195901. eCollection 2018. PubMed 29652932 ↗
  • Singh SM, Liverpool A, Romeiser JL, Miller JD, Thacker J, Gan TJ, Bennett-Guerrero E. A U.S. survey of pre-operative carbohydrate-containing beverage use in colorectal enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) programs. Perioper Med (Lond). 2021 May 28;10(1):19. doi: 10.1186/s13741-021-00187-3. PubMed 34044894 ↗
  • Ljungqvist O, Scott M, Fearon KC. Enhanced Recovery After Surgery: A Review. JAMA Surg. 2017 Mar 1;152(3):292-298. doi: 10.1001/jamasurg.2016.4952. PubMed 28097305 ↗
  • Ackerman RS, Tufts CW, DePinto DG, Chen J, Altshuler JR, Serdiuk A, Cohen JB, Patel SY. How Sweet Is This? A Review and Evaluation of Preoperative Carbohydrate Loading in the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery Model. Nutr Clin Pract. 2020 Apr;35(2):246-253. doi: 10.1002/ncp.10427. Epub 2019 Oct 21. PubMed 31637778 ↗

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No — Data cannot be shared publicly because of legal and ethic restrictions. Data from this study are available (contact cescresearch@gmail.com) for researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data.

09

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reached

Started Jul 2022 (actual). Primary completion is estimated for Jul 2024, 24 months after the start.

How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.

Registered
Jun 22, 2022
First posted
Mar 21, 2023
StartActual
Jul 13, 2022
Primary completionEst.
Jul 2024
CompletionEst.
Jan 2025
Last update
Mar 21, 2023
What these dates mean
Start.
When the first participant enrolled; while estimated, when the study expects to open to recruitment.
Primary completion.
When the last participant was examined or treated to collect data for the study's main question, its primary outcome. A study that stopped early gives the date its data collection stopped.
Completion.
When the last participant's last visit took place, for every outcome, secondary ones and side effects included: the end of the study. Often later than primary completion, sometimes the same day.
Actual and Est.
Actual means the registry says the date has happened. Est. (estimated) is a date the sponsor plans or expects. It can still move, and the sponsor is expected to change it to actual once it has passed.
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Mar 21, 2023, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
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Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT05778487
Lead sponsor
Horizon Health Network
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Mar 21, 2023
Start date
Jul 13, 2022
Primary completion
Jul 2024 (estimated)
Completion
Jan 2025 (estimated)
Last update
Mar 21, 2023

Study contacts

Canada East Spine Centre
Contact
cescresearch@gmail.com
506-566-1451
Kevan Kostynski
Contact
kevan.kostynski@dal.ca
Chris Small, MD
principal investigator · Canada East Spine Centre

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

Not currently enrolling

This study is status unknown, as verified in Mar 2023. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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