World journal of surgery
-
World journal of surgery · Jan 2000
Comparative StudyFate of the rectum and ileal recurrence rates after total colectomy for Crohn's disease.
The aim of this study was to examine the fate of the rectum and ileal recurrence rates after total colectomy for Crohn's disease. One hundred thirty patients who underwent total colectomy between 1970 and 1997 were reviewed; 65 patients underwent end ileostomy with an oversewn rectal stump (TC+I) and 65 had ileorectal anastomosis (IRA). Patients treated by TC+I had significantly more rectal involvement (93%) than those having IRA (43%) (p < 0.0001). ⋯ Using Kaplan-Meier methods, the 10-year cumulative probability of proctectomy was significantly higher after TC+I than IRA (58% versus 22%; p = 0.0001), whereas the 10-year cumulative probability of ileal resection was significantly higher after IRA than TC+I (37% versus 18%; p = 0.03). In conclusion, the proctectomy rate is higher after colectomy and ileostomy probably due to a higher incidence of preoperative rectal involvement. By contrast, the ileal recurrence rate is higher after colectomy and IRA.
-
World journal of surgery · Jan 2000
Relaparotomy in peritonitis: prognosis and treatment of patients with persisting intraabdominal infection.
Some patients are prone to persisting intraabdominal infection regardless of initial eradication of the source of infection. Our aim was to characterize patients who had to undergo relaparotomy for persisting abdominal sepsis using simple clinical parameters and to define those patients who are susceptible to benefit of aggressive surgical treatment by early and repeated reoperations to control multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) caused by ongoing intraabdominal infection. Persisting abdominal sepsis was the cause of death in all of our patients who had to undergo relaparotomy. ⋯ Our data show that timely relaparotomy provides the only surgical option that significantly improves outcome. However, aggressive surgical treatment has reached its limit in patients whose source of infection could not be controlled at the initial operation. To improve overall survival the decision to perform a relaparotomy on demand after an initially successful eradication of the source of infection must be made within 48 hr, at least before MODS emerges.
-
World journal of surgery · Dec 1999
Development of clinical practice guidelines: surgical perspective.
Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) are systematically developed statements to assist practitioner and patient decisions about appropriate health care for specific clinical circumstances. The implications of this definition are that: the methodologic perspective and operations for systematic development must be specified, a strategy is needed to account for the patient's perspective in the CPG development process and the clinical decision, and a mechanism is required to determine how appropriateness ought to be conceptualized and defined. Addressing these issues, we review models of CPG development, outline challenges to evidence-based approaches to CPG development, address unique factors relevant to the development of guidelines for the surgical community, introduce an Ontario practice guidelines strategy that uses complementary methods of CPG development, and summarize the feedback provided by the surgical community regarding the practice guidelines produced in Ontario's cancer system.
-
As technology expands and health care resources become more limited, there is increasing pressure on surgeons to evaluate surgical procedures and technology to ensure they are effective. No longer is evidence from case series acceptable, and treatments must be evaluated in randomized controlled trials. ⋯ Many cite methodologic issues related to surgical issues as the reason for this, including concerns related to standardization of the surgical procedure, timing of surgical trials, difficulties with blinding of subjects and investigators, ethics of surgical trials, and patient and surgeon acceptance of surgical trials. These issues are discussed in this paper as are possible strategies to minimize their effect.
-
The randomized clinical trial (RCT) is often referred to as the gold standard for the assessment of treatment efficacy. RCTs are receiving greater attention in the literature and higher priority by funding agencies than they have in the past. In this paper, the basic principles of clinical trial design are reviewed using examples from the neurosurgical literature. The importance of designing the trial to answer one question well is emphasized.