Annals of surgery
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The aim of this study was to evaluate outcomes of metastases at various time intervals after colorectal cancer (CRC) diagnosis. ⋯ Immediate or early metastases are not associated with unfavorable outcome compared to late metastases. These findings challenge the current notion of poor outcome for CRC with immediate or early metastases.
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The aim of this study was to uncover the mediators and mechanistic events that facilitate the browning of white adipose tissue (WAT) in response to burns. ⋯ Together, our findings uncover macrophages as the key instigators and missing link in trauma-induced browning.
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The aim of this study was to determine the feasibility of "hot spotting" in elective surgical populations. ⋯ We found that a subset of multimorbid patients was responsible for a disproportionate share of total Medicare spending, but the individual components of spending vary by procedure. These findings suggest that targeting high-cost Medicare patients (ie, hot spotting) for cost containment efforts would be a potentially effective strategy to reduce costs in surgical populations.
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This qualitative study examines surgical consultation as a social process and assesses its alignment with assumptions of the shared decision-making (SDM) model. ⋯ The influence of events preceding consultation suggests that decision-making models should account for broader spatiotemporal spans. Given surgeons' authority to define patients' conditions and control service provision, SDM may be premised on an overestimation of patients' power to alter the course of decision making once in a specialist's office. Considering the subordinate role of the risk/benefit discussion in many surgical decisions, it will be important to study if and how the social process of decision making is altered by SDM-oriented decision aids that foreground this discussion.