Maarten van Egmond

131 The feasibility of telerehabilitation after surgery 6 Effectiveness A total of 15 patients that completed the telerehabilitation program were matched with 30 patients from a historical comparison group matched on both pre- and postoperative characteristics (gender, age, preoperative pulmonary function, type of surgery, and postoperative complications classified according to Clavien-Dindo). Table 2 provides details about the matching characteristics. At T0, patients in the intervention group had significantly lower functional capacity measures compared with reference values than patients in the matched historical comparison group (Table 3). Table 2. Patient characteristics of the intervention groupmatched with a historical comparison group Patient characteristics Intervention (N = 15) Matched controls (N = 30) Gender (male), n (%) 11 (73) 22 (73) ASA a classification, n (%) I b 3 (20) 5 (16) II c 8 (53) 15 (50) III d 4 (26) 10 (33) Age (years), mean (SD) 62.8 (6.9) 60.3 (7) BMI e , mean (SD) 26.1 (3.5) 25.2 (4) Comorbidities, n (%) Cardiovascular 6 (40) 5 (16) COPD f 0 (0) 3 (10) DM II g 1 (7) 1 (3) Cigarette smoking 1 (7) 7 (23) Pulmonary function (percent predicted), mean (SD) FVC h 115.0 (20.1) 116.3 (16.2) FEV 1 i 105.4 (20.1) 110.2 (20.7) IVC j 114.1 (21.9) 112.0 (16.7) Surgical procedure, n (%) Transhiatal open 0 (0) 0 (0) Transhiatal minimally invasive 0 (0) 2 (7) Transthoracal open 0 (0) 1 (3) Transthoracal minimally invasive 14 (93) 27 (90) Esophageal resection with colon interposition 1 (7) 0 (0)