Journal of the American College of Surgeons
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Clinical practice should be driven by high-quality research that produces evidence to inform best practices. Generation of such evidence is often challenging, particularly for smaller specialties, such as pediatric surgery, that treat many patients with rare diseases. Multi-institutional collaboration is seen as a major strategy to address these challenges. ⋯ The mission of the Consortium is to improve pediatric surgical care through high-quality collaborative research. In this article, we describe the rationale and methodology for creation of the Canadian Consortium for Research in Pediatric Surgery, demonstrate its achievements to date, and share a number of foundational concepts that are integral to its success. Our aim is to provide a model for creation of such consortia, ultimately leading to improvements in the quality of clinical research and patient care.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Ultrasound-Guided Anterior Quadratus Lumborum Block at Lateral Supra-Arcuate Ligament vs Thoracic Epidural Analgesia after Open Liver Surgery: A Randomized, Controlled, Noninferiority Trial.
Thoracic epidural analgesia (TEA) has demonstrated great analgesic benefits in open liver surgery. However, the increased risk of postoperative coagulopathy after open liver surgery has promoted interest in alternate analgesic research. We aimed to explore whether ultrasound-guided anterior quadratus lumborum block at the lateral supra-arcuate ligament (LAL-QLB) with intravenous analgesia was noninferior to TEA under multimodal analgesia after open liver surgery. ⋯ LAL-QLB provided noninferior analgesia at 24 hours postoperatively. Despite regarding coagulopathy and delayed epidural removal, TEA was found to be better than LAL-QLB for pain management after open liver surgery. Epidural removal required close coagulation test.
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Current literature has identified textbook outcome (TO) as a quality metric after cancer surgery. We studied whether TO after pancreatic resection has a stronger association with long-term survival than individual hospital case volume. ⋯ Improved long-term survival after pancreatic resection was associated with TO rather than high hospital volume. Quality improvement efforts focused on TO criteria have the potential to improve outcomes irrespective of case volume.
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Controlled Clinical Trial
Supervised Exercise Therapy and Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Pancreatic Cancer: A Prospective, Single-Arm, Phase II Open-Label, Nonrandomized, Historically Controlled Study.
Improvement of the completion rate of postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy is a key to obtaining favorable prognosis in patients who undergo macroscopically curative pancreatectomy for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. ⋯ Adjuvant chemotherapy combined with supervised exercise therapy for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma was confirmed to improve the completion rate of S-1 adjuvant chemotherapy.
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Controlled Clinical Trial
Surgical Cost Awareness Program Study: Impact of a Novel, Real-Time, Cost Awareness Intervention on Operating Room Expenses in Thoracoscopic Lobectomy.
For surgical patients, operating room expenses are significant drivers of overall hospitalization costs. Surgical teams often lack awareness of the costs associated with disposable surgical supplies, which may lead to unnecessary expenditures. The aim of this study is to evaluate whether a Surgical Cost Awareness Program would reduce operating room costs. ⋯ Providing real-time educational feedback to surgical teams significantly reduced costs associated with disposable surgical equipment without compromising perioperative outcomes for lobectomy. Integrating the novel AssistIQ software across other procedural settings may generate further data insights with the potential for significant cost savings on a larger scale.