Journal of the American College of Surgeons
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Understanding the benefits of Medicaid is crucial as states decide whether to expand Medicaid under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We used the 2001 Medicaid expansion in New York to evaluate changes in use by Medicaid beneficiaries and the uninsured of breast cancer reconstruction, panniculectomy, and lower-extremity trauma management. ⋯ Subspecialty surgeons responded to expansion by increasing volume of procedures for Medicaid beneficiaries. This occurred without decline in care for the uninsured, suggesting that Medicaid expansion resulted in increased access for underserved patients. Although more patients received needed care once they had coverage, subgroup analysis identified persistence of additional barriers to use of certain surgical services.
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Multicenter Study
Pediatric inpatient humanitarian care in combat: Iraq and Afghanistan 2002 to 2012.
The purpose of this study was to define the scope of combat- and noncombat-related inpatient pediatric humanitarian care provided from 2002 to 2012 by the United States (US) Military in Iraq and Afghanistan. ⋯ Noncombat-related medical care was the primary reason for pediatric humanitarian admissions to United States military combat hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2002 to 2012. Combat-related injuries have a higher mortality than noncombat injuries or other admissions.
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The natural history of pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms (PNENs) in patients with Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease is poorly defined. Management of patients with PNENs is challenging because there are no reliable preoperative criteria to detect malignant lesions, and the majority of resected tumors are found to be benign. The aim of this study was to determine whether 18-fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography ((18)FDG-PET) uptake predicts growth and detects malignant VHL-associated PNENs. ⋯ Scanning with FDG-PET identifies metastatic disease not detected by CT scan and avoids resection of non-PNEN lesions that have no malignant potential in patients with VHL-associated PNENs. It should be considered as a valuable functional imaging modality in the clinical management of patients with VHL-associated PNENs.
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Multicenter Study
Changes in colorectal cancer care in japan before and after guideline publication: a nationwide survey about D3 lymph node dissection and adjuvant chemotherapy.
The Japanese Society for Cancer of the Colon and Rectum (JSCCR) published clinical guidelines for the treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC) in 2005. To evaluate the impact of these guidelines on clinical practice nationwide, we examined the change in the proportion of patients receiving the recommended CRC treatments. ⋯ D3 dissection for stage II to III disease and adjuvant chemotherapy for stage III disease have become more prevalent and the variation in performance among institutions has decreased in the last decade. Importantly, publication of the guidelines has accelerated the spread of surgical standards.