Surgery
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Neoadjuvant chemotherapy may benefit patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma with resectable and borderline disease. Inappropriate use of neoadjuvant therapy, however, may lead to the loss of therapeutic opportunities. Until an effective prediction model of individual drug sensitivity is established, no accurate model exists to help surgeons decide on the appropriate use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. We hypothesized that early recurrence in patients undergoing upfront, early resection may be an indication for neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Therefore, we aimed to use preoperative clinical parameters to establish a model of early recurrence to select patients at high risk for neoadjuvant chemotherapy. ⋯ We have successfully built a prediction model of early recurrence of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma with the optimal cutoff early-recurrence value of 162 days. Our nomogram and decision tree models may be used to select those at high risk for early recurrence to guide preoperative decision-making concerning the use of neoadjuvant therapy in those patients who have "resectable" disease and not only the more classic criteria of borderline resectability.
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Comparative Study
Racial and ethnic disparities in lower extremity amputation: Assessing the role of frailty in older adults.
Frailty is a state of decreased physiologic reserve contributing to functional decline and is associated with adverse surgical outcomes, particularly in the elderly. Racial disparities have been reported previously both in frail individuals and in limb-salvage patients. Our goal was to assess whether race and ethnicity are disproportionately linked to frailty status in geriatric patients undergoing lower-limb amputation, leading to an increased risk of complications. ⋯ African American and Hispanic geriatric patients undergoing lower-limb amputation are at increased risk for frailty status and, as a result, increased associated operative complications. These disparities exist regardless of age, sex, comorbid conditions, and location of amputation. Further studies are needed to highlight disparities by race and ethnicity to identify potentially modifiable risk factors, decrease frailty, and improve outcomes.