Journal of the American College of Surgeons
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Necrotizing soft-tissue infections (NSTI) are a group of uncommon, rapidly progressive infections requiring prompt surgical debridement and systemic support. A previous attempt to define risk factors for mortality from NSTI had multiple limitations. The objective of this study was to develop and validate a 30-day postoperative mortality risk calculator for patients with NSTI using NSQIP. ⋯ This risk calculator has excellent predictive ability for mortality in patients with NSTI. This simple interactive tool can aid physicians and patients in the decision-making process.
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For patients with melanoma, if there has been no recurrence of disease 10 years after initial treatment, additional disease is believed to be very unlikely. However, such late recurrences are known to occur. The frequency of this phenomenon and its clinical significance are not well characterized due to the difficulty in obtaining relevant data. We examined a large, mature, institutional database to evaluate late recurrence. ⋯ Late melanoma recurrence is not rare. It occurs more frequently in certain clinical groups and is associated with improved post-recurrence survival.