van Egmond MA, van der Schaaf M, Klinkenbijl JHG, et al. - The pre and postoperative course of functional status in patients having an esophagectomy is needed to optimally target physiotherapy treatment, so researchers examined patients with esophageal cancer for their course of functional status before and after esophagectomy. Functional status outcome measures were prospectively determined at 3 months and at 1 day before surgery in 155 patients and at 1 week and at 3 months after surgery in 109/155 patients (70.3%). The analysis revealed that, even with a high incidence of postoperative complications (53%), 3 months following surgery functional status of patients undergoing esophagectomy returned to baseline values. Clearly all patients do not benefit from high functional status to prevent postoperative complications, so the concept of prehabilitation should be reconsidered.