Seminars in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery
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Semin. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg. · Jan 2012
Nighttime intensivist staffing: is there evidence for a need?
Postoperative critical care provided by critical care specialists, or intensivists, improves outcomes after surgery. Although there are data supporting daytime intensivist coverage in the intensive care unit, it is not clear how nighttime specialist coverage impacts the quality of care or outcomes. Many surgical intensive care units have adopted continuous 24-hour critical care coverage. Here, we highlight an important study by Wallace and colleagues that reports the impact of nighttime intensivist staffing on outcomes in critically ill patients.
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Semin. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg. · Jan 2012
What is the optimal interval between chemoradiation and esophagectomy?
Locally advanced esophageal cancer requires multimodality therapy-most commonly induction chemoradiation followed by esophagectomy. There is a paucity of literature on the optimal time interval between induction treatment and resection. Patient readiness and healthy tissue, as well as tumor responses to radiation, are factors to consider. Two recent retrospective large-center studies on this topic are reviewed.