The Surgical clinics of North America
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Apart from BRCA1, BRCA2, and TP53, more than a dozen breast cancer susceptibility genes have been identified. Recognizing affected individuals depends on evaluation of cancer family history and recognition of certain phenotypic markers on physical examination. ⋯ Mutation carriers have several options for managing risk, including lifestyle alterations, enhanced surveillance, chemoprevention, and prophylactic surgery. Genetic counseling and testing should be considered in the initial evaluation of patients with newly diagnosed breast cancer because this information contributes to surgical decisions, radiation therapy options, and systemic therapy choices.
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Surg. Clin. North Am. · Apr 2013
ReviewSurgical management of the breast: breast conservation therapy and mastectomy.
The twentieth century has witnessed dramatic changes in the surgical management of breast cancer. Herein we focus on the evolution of breast conservation surgery and current surgical trends of lumpectomy, mastectomy and contralateral prophylactic mastectomy. ⋯ Despite these advances, mastectomy remains a popular choice for many women and the use of nipple sparing procedures is increasing. Overall the low rates of local recurrence are attributed to the combination of surgery and targeted adjuvant and radiation therapies.
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Enhanced recovery after surgery or "fast-track" pathways are a multimodal approach to the perioperative management of patients undergoing colorectal surgery designed to improve the overall quality of care. These pathways use existing evidence to streamline and standardize the perioperative management of patients to improve pain management, speed intestinal recovery, and ultimately facilitate a more rapid hospital discharge, thus minimizing complications, decreasing the use of hospital resources and health care costs, and improving overall patient care and satisfaction. Fast-track protocols are safe for patients and offer improvement in intestinal recovery and hospital discharge.
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Several changes in the way patients with hemorrhagic shock are resuscitated have occurred over the past decades, including permissive hypotension, minimal crystalloid resuscitation, earlier blood transfusion, and higher plasma and platelet-to-red cell ratios. Hemostatic adjuncts, such as tranexamic acid and prothrombin complex, and the use of new methods of assessing coagulopathy are also being incorporated into resuscitation of the bleeding patient. These ideas have been incorporated by many trauma centers into institutional massive transfusion protocols, and adoption of these protocols has resulted in improvements in mortality and morbidity. This article discusses each of these new resuscitation strategies and the evidence supporting their use.
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Improving the quality and safety of intensive care unit (ICU) care in the United States is a significant challenge for the future. Obtaining improvement in systems of care is difficult given the reactionary mode physicians tend to enter when dealing with moment-to-moment crises. ⋯ Improvement of device safety will be critical to reducing the large number of device-related complications that occur in US ICUs. Prospective collection of adverse events with rigorous analysis will be important to allow systematic errors to be exposed and corrected.