Strengths and limitations
Even though our findings indicate a tendency to improvement in the postoperative management of patients undergoing CD when UC is not used or is removed early, the study is not without limitations. Data was collected prospectively in the setting of the implementation of a best practice protocol, so there was no randomization of the patients. Even though early removal of the UC was encouraged, some patients had the UC removed later than 6 h after surgery. his group of patients was considerably smaller than the others, which is also a limitation when comparing it to the other groups.It is important to mention in this regard that the groups had modest differences as stated above and as shown in Table 1. Regarding morphine use, anaesthesiologists delivering care to CD patients were the ones to decide whether or not they administered this drug , as well as the dosage. Taking all this into consideration, our results should be interpreted as exploratory findings, which might promote further studies and protocols enhancing early mobilization and discharge in those patients in which UC can be avoided, as well as the early removal in patients who require a UC.