Diseases of the colon and rectum
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Comparative Study
Payer status and access to laparoscopic subtotal colectomy for ulcerative colitis.
Medicaid populations have been shown to have inferior surgical outcomes, but less is known about their access to advanced surgical procedures. ⋯ Medicaid payer status was associated with reduced use of laparoscopic subtotal colectomy for ulcerative colitis. Although this finding may be due in part to physician preference or patient characteristics, health system factors appear to contribute to selection of the surgical approach.
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Laparoscopic colectomy for the treatment of colon cancer has been widely adopted in community practice, in part, because of shorter hospitalizations. The benefits of a shorter hospital stay are only realized if readmissions and emergency department visits, collectively termed revisits, do not increase after discharge. We conducted a population-based analysis to determine whether hospitals with higher laparoscopic colectomy rates have higher revisit rates. ⋯ Hospitals where a greater proportion of colon resections for cancer are approached laparoscopically do not have higher 30-day, risk-standardized readmission, emergency department encounter, or revisit rates.
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Hospital readmission is increasingly perceived as a marker of quality and is poorly investigated in patients receiving colorectal surgery. ⋯ Predictors of readmission were major complications and immediate preoperative condition of the patients. Comorbidity profiling does not capture readmission risk. Because most readmissions relate to complications, further efforts to prevent these will improve readmission rates.
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Crohn's disease is a chronic inflammatory ailment that can affect the colon and/or small intestine. A genetic basis for disease distribution is being sought, although the available data are seminal. The STAT5 gene is known to influence colonic permeability, mucosal regeneration, and interleukin 2 production, although its role in the distribution of Crohn's disease is unclear. ⋯ Single nucleotide polymorphism rs16967637 in the STAT5 gene was the only single nucleotide polymorphism associated with Crohn's disease without enteritis. Homozygosity for the at-risk allele demonstrated the strongest association with this phenotype. These results suggest a role for this single nucleotide polymorphism in the development of inflammatory bowel disease of the large intestine.