The British journal of surgery
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There is a pressing need to develop measures of health outcome for use in medical audit and in shaping decisions on the allocation of resources. Such measurement is not normally performed except in specific research settings. Routine information collected on hospital inpatients contains very crude data on two health outcomes, namely whether such patients were alive or dead at the end of their hospital stay. ⋯ The results are broadly consistent with the earlier findings of the Confidential Enquiry into Perioperative Deaths and reveal a crude mortality rate of under 15 deaths per 1000 surgical admissions. Rates as high as 280 per 1000 admissions were found for certain procedures. Since death is a relatively rare health outcome it is argued that the development of a more acceptable measure must be a priority to provide information on the vast majority of surgical patients with non-fatal outcomes.
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Extracorporeal carbon dioxide removal (ECCO2-R) over a membrane lung is a new therapy for patients with adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) who frequently suffer from lung complications caused by long-term artificial ventilation and who may require major thoracic surgery. This is a report of 76 patients with severe ARDS who were treated by ECCO2-R. Twenty-six of these 76 patients required thoracotomy: 19 for pneumothorax and pneumatocele, and seven for haemothorax, infected lung necrosis or oesophagotracheal fistula. ⋯ Ten of these 26 patients required reoperation, usually for extensive persisting alveolar air leaks. Sixteen (62 per cent) of the 26 patients who had a thoracotomy and 22 (44 per cent) of the 50 patients without surgery survived. These results demonstrate that performing a thoracotomy, if necessary, does not diminish the survival chance of high-risk patients with severe ARDS.