JAMA surgery最新文献

Importance: Multimorbidity and postoperative clinical decompensation are common among older surgical patients with cancer, highlighting the importance of primary care to optimize survival. Little is known about the association between primary care use and survivorship among older adults (aged ≥65 years) undergoing cancer surgery.

Objective: To examine primary care use among older surgical patients with cancer and its association with mortality.

Design, setting, and participants: In this retrospective cohort study, data were abstracted from the electronic health record of a single health care system for older adults undergoing cancer surgery between January 1, 2017, and December 31, 2019. There were 3 tiers of stratification: (1) patients who had a primary care practitioner (PCP) (physician, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant) vs no PCP, (2) those who had a PCP and underwent surgery in the same health system (unfragmented care) vs not (fragmented care), and (3) those who had a primary care visit within 90 postoperative days vs not. Data were analyzed between August 2023 and January 2024.

Exposure: Primary care use after surgery for colorectal, head and neck, prostate, ovarian, pancreatic, breast, liver, renal cell, non-small cell lung, endometrial, gastric, or esophageal cancer.

Main outcomes and measures: Postoperative 90-day mortality was analyzed using inverse propensity weighted Kaplan-Meier curves, with log-rank tests adjusted for propensity scores.

Results: The study included 2566 older adults (mean [SEM] age, 72.9 [0.1] years; 1321 men [51.5%]). Although 2404 patients (93.7%) had health insurance coverage, 743 (28.9%) had no PCP at the time of surgery. Compared with the PCP group, the no-PCP group had a higher 90-day postoperative mortality rate (2.0% vs 3.6%, respectively; adjusted P = .03). For the 823 patients with unfragmented care, 400 (48.6%) had a primary care visit within 90 postoperative days (median time to visit, 34 days; IQR, 20-57 days). Patients who had a postoperative primary care visit were more likely to be older, have a higher comorbidity burden, have an emergency department visit, and be readmitted. However, they had a significantly lower 90-day postoperative mortality rate than those who did not have a primary care visit (0.3% vs 3.3%, respectively; adjusted P = .001).

Conclusions and relevance: These findings suggest that follow-up with primary care within 90 days after cancer surgery is associated with improved survivorship among older adults.

Importance: The indications, safety, and efficacy of chemical venous thromboembolism prophylaxis (cVTE) in pediatric trauma patients remain unclear. A set of high-risk criteria to guide cVTE use was recently recommended; however, these criteria have not been evaluated prospectively.

Objective: To examine high-risk criteria and cVTE use in a prospective multi-institutional study of pediatric trauma patients.

Design, setting, and participants: This cohort study was completed between October 2019 and October 2022 in 8 free-standing pediatric hospitals designated as American College of Surgeons level I pediatric trauma centers. Participants were pediatric trauma patients younger than 18 years who met defined high-risk criteria on admission. It was hypothesized that cVTE would be safe and reduce the incidence of VTE.

Exposures: Receipt and timing of chemical VTE prophylaxis.

Main outcomes and measures: The primary outcome was overall VTE rate stratified by receipt and timing of cVTE. The secondary outcome was safety of cVTE as measured by bleeding or other complications from anticoagulation.

Results: Among 460 high-risk pediatric trauma patients, the median (IQR) age was 14.5 years (10.4-16.2 years); 313 patients (68%) were male and 147 female (32%). The median (IQR) Injury Severity Score (ISS) was 23 (16-30), and median (IQR) number of high-risk factors was 3 (2-4). A total of 251 (54.5%) patients received cVTE; 62 (13.5%) received cVTE within 24 hours of admission. Patients who received cVTE after 24 hours had more high-risk factors and higher ISS. The most common reason for delayed cVTE was central nervous system bleed (120 patients; 30.2%). There were 28 VTE events among 25 patients (5.4%). VTE occurred in 1 of 62 patients (1.6%) receiving cVTE within 24 hours, 13 of 189 patients (6.9%) receiving cVTE after 24 hours, and 11 of 209 (5.3%) who had no cVTE (P = .31). Increasing time between admission and cVTE initiation was significantly associated with VTE (odds ratio, 1.01; 95% CI, 1.00-1.01; P = .01). No bleeding complications were observed while patients received cVTE.

Conclusions and relevance: In this prospective study, use of cVTE based on a set of high-risk criteria was safe and did not lead to bleeding complications. Delay to initiation of cVTE was significantly associated with development of VTE. Quality improvement in pediatric VTE prevention may center on timing of prophylaxis and barriers to implementation.

Importance: Childbearing has been a particular barrier to successful recruitment and retention of women in surgery. Pregnant surgeons are more likely to have major pregnancy complications, such as preterm delivery, intrauterine growth restriction, infertility, and miscarriage, compared with nonsurgeons. The average obstetric complication rate for surgeons ranges between 25% and 82% in the literature and is considerably higher than that in the general US population at 5% to 15%.

Observations: The risks that pregnant surgeons experience were individually analyzed. These risks included missed prenatal care; musculoskeletal hazards, such as prolonged standing, lifting, and bending; long work hours; overnight calls; exposure to teratogenic agents, such as ionizing radiation, anesthetic gases, chemotherapy agents, and methyl methacrylate; and psychological stress and discrimination from the long-standing stigma associated with balancing motherhood and professional life.

Conclusions and relevance: A clear, translatable, and enforceable policy addressing perinatal care of surgeons was proposed, citing evidence of the risks reviewed from the literature. A framework of protection for pregnant individuals is essential for attracting talented students into surgery, retaining talented surgical trainees and faculty, and protecting pregnant surgeons and their fetuses.

Importance: Extensive bowel surgery is often necessary to achieve complete cytoreduction in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer. Regardless of who performs the surgery, it has been well documented that bowel resections are a high-risk procedure and an anastomotic leak is a severe complication that can occur. There are few studies addressing whether surgeon type impacts surgical outcomes in this patient population.

Objective: To compare surgical outcomes between gynecologic oncologist, general surgeons, and a 2-surgeon team approach for patients with advanced epithelial ovarian cancer who underwent bowel surgery during cytoreductive debulking.

Design, setting, participants: This retrospective cohort study used the American College of Surgeons' National Surgical Quality Improvement Program datasets from 2012 through 2020. The aforementioned years of the dataset were analyzed from March 2022 to March 2023 and reanalyzed in May 2024 for quality assurance. Analysis of cytoreductive surgeries performed by a gynecologic oncologist, a general surgeon, or a 2-surgeon team approach for patients with ovarian cancer recorded in National Surgical Quality Improvement Program datasets was included. The 2-surgeon team approach included any combination of the aforementioned surgical specialties.

Main outcome and measure: The primary outcome of interest was anastomotic leak after bowel surgery during ovarian cancer debulking.

Results: A total of 1810 patients were included in the study; in the general surgery cohort, mean (SD) patient age was 65.1 (11.1) years and mean (SD) body mass index (BMI) (calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared) was 26.9 (7.4); in the gynecologic oncology cohort, mean (SD) patient age was 63.5 (11.7) years and mean BMI (SD) was 27.7 (6.5); and in the 2-surgeon team cohort, mean (SD) patient age 62.4 (12.1) years and mean (SD) BMI was 28.1 (7.0). Gynecologic oncologists performed 1217 cases (67.2%), general surgery performed 97 cases (5.4%), and 496 cases had 2-surgeon teams involved (27.4%). Bivariate analysis revealed an anastomotic leak rate of 3.6% for gynecologic oncologists, 5.2% for general surgeons, and 0.4% for cases that had 2 surgical teams involved (P < .001). By multivariable analysis, the adjusted odds ratio for anastomotic leak was 1.53 (95% CI, 0.59-3.96) for the general surgeon group (P = .38) vs an adjusted odds ratio of 0.11 (95% CI, 0.03-0.47) for the 2-surgeon team approach (P = .003) with the referent being gynecologic oncology.

Conclusion and relevance: In this study, the anastomotic leak rate was found to be lower when 2 surgeons participated in the case, regardless of the surgical specialty. These results suggest that team-based care improves surgical outcomes.