• In 74 obese kidney disease patients undergoing weight loss surgery, there were 16 adverse events, including two deaths related to surgical complications.
Use of a minimally invasive endoscopic procedure to remove superficial, early stage esophageal cancer is as effective as surgery that takes out and rebuilds the esophagus, according to a study by researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida.
Initial results of a first and largest of its kind study focusing on the safety of adolescent bariatric surgery were published this week in JAMA Pediatrics. The “Teen Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery” (Teen-LABS) study is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is being conducted at five sites in the U.S., including Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
Researchers are reporting positive results from a landmark clinical trial of an investigational aortic valve that is deployed with a catheter, without open heart surgery.
In the largest in-depth scientific study of its kind on the safety of teen weight-loss surgery, researchers report few short-term complications for adolescents with severe obesity undergoing bariatric surgery.
The first study to look extensively at sexual function in women who underwent bariatric surgery found that significant improvements in overall sexual function, most reproductive hormones and in psychological status were maintained over two years following surgery. Women reporting the poorest quality of sexual function prior to surgery saw the most dramatic improvements one year after surgery, on par with women who reported the highest quality of sexual function prior to surgery.
More than two decades ago, Ryan Vincent had open brain surgery to remove a malignant brain tumor, resulting in a lengthy hospital stay and weeks of recovery at home. Recently, neurosurgeons at Houston Methodist Hospital removed a different lesion from Vincent’s brain through a tube inserted into a hole smaller than a dime and he went home the next day.
A study of over 750 kidney transplant patients over a five-year period has found that 90 percent of early rehospitalizations (within 30 days of surgery) were caused by complex medical factors related to the transplantation process. Only nine percent of rehospitalizations – which occurred among only three percent of the entire group of patients – were categorized as potentially preventable.
A discovery from Case Western Reserve and Cleveland Clinic researchers could provide epilepsy patients invaluable advance guidance about their chances to improve symptoms through surgery.
Would you consider traveling to Mexico or India for a less-expensive rhinoplasty or breast augmentation procedure? Many Americans are doing just that—and the trend is having an impact on the market for cosmetic plastic surgery, according to an article in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery—Global Open®, the official open-access medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).
For the first time in minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery, 3-D goggles are giving surgeons a natural, three-dimensional view inside the human body.
Minimally invasive surgical techniques have revolutionized the treatment paraesophageal hernia—but there's continued controversy over some key technical aspects of the procedure. To inform the debate, leading surgical specialists outline their approaches to laparoscopic paraesophageal hernia repair in the October issue of Surgical Laparoscopy, Endoscopy & Percutaneous Techniques. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
Patients with rheumatoid arthritis may not need to halt use of their antirheumatic drugs prior to surgery due to fears of increased infection risk, according to research presented this week at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting in San Diego.
Researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery found that people who lacked good social connections were much more likely to experience serious, ongoing pain following total hip replacement surgery two or more years after the procedure.
Highlights
• After a median of 2.4 years of follow up, 86.5% of transplants of donor kidneys considered “high-risk” for infection and disease were functioning with no evidence of infections.
• Such “high-risk” organs are relatively safe when screened with current methods.
In sports, anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears happen. When star players suffer one, fans sometimes have questions as to what these injuries involve and how they are repaired.
Highlights
• Kidney transplant recipients who discontinue immunosuppressive drugs before conception have a higher rate of live births and a lower rate of birth defects without an increased risk of kidney problems.
Scientists have known for years that certain wavelengths of light in certain doses can heal, but they are only now uncovering exactly how it works, thanks in large part to research cluster in Milwaukee.
A study of 69,000 Medicare patient records led by Johns Hopkins researchers shows that people with spine compression fractures who undergo operations to strengthen back bones with cement survive longer and have shorter overall hospital stays than those who stick with bed rest, pain control and physical therapy.
A hologram-like display of a patient’s organs based on molecular PET/CT images helps surgeons plan surgery by allowing them to see detailed anatomical structure, peel away layers of tissue, and see all sides of a tumor, before entering the operating room to excise it.
A new recovery program for abdominal surgery patients at University of Virginia Health System is helping patients go home sooner while making them more comfortable both before and after surgery.
Despite major efforts to keep operating rooms sterile, surgical wound infections remain a serious and stubborn problem, killing up to 8,200 patients a year in the U.S. Columbia University Medical Center research published in PLOS ONE suggests that narrow-spectrum UV light could dramatically reduce such infections without damaging human tissue.
A study designed to compare cure rates, postoperative pain, cosmetic satisfaction, and length of the procedure and of the hospital stay for patients with hyperparathyroidism who underwent BNE versus minimally invasive video-assisted (MIVAP) parathyroidectomy.
Review of cases spanning more than 12 years found that nearly a third of patients with DTC and neck metastases would not have had adequate operations if the surgeons had relied on pre-referral imaging studies and had not performed US themselves.
A team of engineers and doctors has developed a new wireless capsule that can give surgeons back their sense of touch when performing minimally invasive surgery.
Breast cancer patients who received the combination of a nerve block with general anesthesia for their breast cancer surgery had less cancer recurrence and were three times less likely to die than those who received only general anesthesia, according to a study presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ annual meeting. Additionally, patients who received the nerve block needed less opioid pain relief from drugs such as fentanyl and oxycodone.
Complications in the recovery room decreased by 58 percent between 1990 and 2010, according to a study presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2013 annual meeting. In a previous study completed in the late 1980s, recovery room complications occurred in 23.7 percent of the patients. Today, the complication rate is 9.9 percent. The study also found that less-healthy patients are more prone to recovery room complications.
Late starts to the first surgical case of the day can be improved, according to two studies presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2013 annual meeting. Improving efficiency potentially reduces costs, increases patient and staff satisfaction, and increases the number of cases that can be performed daily.
Elderly surgical patients are more likely to suffer from debilitating post-operative delirium if they have diabetes, undergo longer surgery or respond poorly to stress, according to a study presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2013 annual meeting.
Researchers have identified hundreds of variants in a patient’s DNA sequence or genetic code that predict which military service members are more likely to develop persistent, chronic pain after amputation, according to a study presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2013 annual meeting.
Ninety-seven percent of bariatric surgery patients avoided post-operative nausea and vomiting (PONV) with the addition of a second drug to the standard treatment given during surgery, according to a study presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2013 annual meeting.
Simple remedies – from keeping the antibacterial gel dispenser clean to giving health care workers their own hand sanitizer – can help keep patients safe by decreasing contamination in operating and recovery rooms, suggest two studies presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2013 annual meeting.
Before and after spinal surgery, patients on a polyamine-deficient diets experienced significant relief of both chronic and acute pain, according to a study presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2013 annual meeting.
The incidence of chronic pain following cardiac surgery can be reduced in patients when the drug pregabalin is used before surgery and for 14 days post-surgery, according to a study presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2013 annual meeting. The study also found that patients at risk of developing long-term post-operative persistent pain can be predicted by conducting pain sensitivity tests at the time of surgery.
Long-term memory loss, difficulty understanding verbal or written communication or impaired ability to pay attention may still occur five years after heart surgery if a patient has a certain gene variation, according to a study presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2013 annual meeting. This gene was found to be related to a decline in cognitive capabilities compared to those who do not have the variation.
Using intravenous (IV) acetaminophen with narcotics provides more effective pain relief to children having tonsillectomies, according to a study presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2013 annual meeting. Additionally, the combination therapy saves costs due to reduced use of narcotics after surgery, reduced side effects and slightly quicker hospital discharge than in patients who receive narcotics alone.
A Mayo Clinic study looked at one of those -- cataract surgery-- and found that more people are getting the vision-improving procedure, seeking it at younger ages and having both eyes repaired within a few months, rather than only treating one eye.
Most patients whose breast cancer has spread to their lymph nodes have most of the lymph nodes in their armpit area removed after chemotherapy to determine if any cancer remains. A study conducted through the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group and led by Judy Boughey, M.D., a breast surgeon at Mayo Clinic, shows that a less-invasive procedure known as sentinel lymph node surgery successfully identified whether cancer remained in lymph nodes in 91 percent of patients with node-positive breast cancer who received chemotherapy before their surgery. In sentinel lymph node surgery, only a few lymph nodes, the ones most likely to contain cancer, are removed. The findings are published online in the Journal of American Medical Association.
Surgeons at UC San Diego Health System have performed the region’s first robotic gastrectomy, a potentially lifesaving procedure to remove a section of the stomach after a diagnosis of gastric cancer.
A conservative approach to removing lymph nodes is associated with less harm for breast cancer patients and often yields the same results as more radical procedures, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.
A telestroke service increases the rate of effective tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) therapy for patients with acute ischemic stroke treated at community hospitals, according to a report in the October issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
A new study released today shows that among patients undergoing surgery for chronic wounds related to diabetes, the risk of wound-related complications is affected by how well the patient's blood sugar levels are controlled before surgery. These findings appear in the October issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).
Body contouring surgery to remove excess skin improves long-term weight control in patients after gastric bypass surgery, reports a study in the October issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).
Patients with aortic stenosis who are ineligible for surgical valve replacement as well as the traditional approach to transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) may have comparable outcomes when the surgeon uses an alternative access TAVR approach.
Patients receiving statin therapy before coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery appear to have a reduced risk of post-surgical mortality, stroke, and atrial fibrillation (irregular or rapid heart rate)
The total hospital cost of mitral valve repair surgery -- from the time a patient is admitted to the hospital until release --is similar, whether performed through small port incisions using robotic equipment or via the conventional open-chest method, a Mayo Clinic study of 370 patients found. Importantly, robotic surgeries were just as safe as conventional open procedures, but patients who underwent robotic mitral valve repair recovered more rapidly and returned home earlier than patients who had open-chest surgery, the study found. The results of the study also reflect systems innovation efforts designed to reduce the cost of high-technology cardiac care. The findings will be published online Oct. 1 in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
In a new paper published early online by the Annals of Surgery, physician-researchers at University Hospitals Case Medical Center describe a new tool called the HARM score that reliably measures quality and clinical outcomes for colon and rectal surgery patients. The name of the tool reflects the data sources used to calculate the score: HospitAl stay, Readmission rate, and Mortality. The paper demonstrates a strong correlation between the HARM score, and the quality of clinical outcomes achieved by surgeons and hospitals for patients having major abdominal surgery.