JAMA surgery
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Comparative Study
Perioperative glucocorticoid prescribing habits in patients with inflammatory bowel disease: a call for standardization.
High-dose glucocorticoids (GCs) are routinely given to surgical patients with a history of GC exposure to prevent perioperative acute adrenal insufficiency, but this practice is not well supported. ⋯ Perioperative GC dosing among patients with IBD undergoing colorectal surgery is highly variable even within a single center. Additional studies are needed to define the risk of postoperative adrenal insufficiency and establish standardized practices for perioperative GC therapy, which may have the benefit of reducing GC overuse.
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Hospital readmissions are believed to be an indicator of suboptimal care and are the focus of efforts by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to reduce health care cost and improve quality. Strategies to reduce surgical readmissions may be most effective if applied prospectively to patients who are at increased risk for readmission. Hospitals do not currently have the means to identify surgical patients who are at high risk for unplanned rehospitalizations. ⋯ Unplanned readmissions in surgical patients are common in patients experiencing postoperative complications and can be predicted using the ACS NSQIP risk of major complications. Prospective identification of high-risk patients, using the NSQIP complication risk index, may allow hospitals to reduce unplanned rehospitalizations.
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Review Meta Analysis Comparative Study
Comparison of outcomes of synthetic mesh vs suture repair of elective primary ventral herniorrhaphy: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
More than 350,000 ventral hernias are repaired in the United States annually, of which 75% are primary ventral hernias (eg, umbilical or epigastric hernias). Despite the volume, there is insufficient evidence to support the use of sutures vs mesh for primary ventral hernia repairs. ⋯ Mesh repair has a small reduction in recurrence rates compared with suture repairs for primary ventral hernias, but an increased risk of seroma and SSI was observed. Further high-quality studies are necessary to determine whether suture or mesh repair leads to improved outcomes for primary ventral hernias.
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
A nomogram to predict long-term survival after resection for intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma: an Eastern and Western experience.
Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) is a primary cancer of the liver that is increasing in incidence, and the prognostic factors associated with outcome after surgery remain poorly defined. ⋯ On the basis of an Eastern and Western experience, a nomogram was developed to predict overall survival after resection for ICC. Validation revealed good discrimination and calibration, suggesting clinical utility to improve individualized predictions of survival for patients undergoing resection of ICC.
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Quality improvement platforms commonly use risk-adjusted morbidity and mortality to profile hospital performance. However, given small hospital caseloads and low event rates for some procedures, it is unclear whether these outcomes reliably reflect hospital performance. ⋯ Most commonly reported outcome measures have low reliability for differentiating hospital performance. This is especially important for clinical registries that sample rather than collect 100% of cases, which can limit hospital case accrual. Eliminating sampling to achieve the highest possible caseloads, adjusting for reliability, and using advanced modeling strategies (eg, hierarchical modeling) are necessary for clinical registries to increase their benchmarking reliability.