HealthGrades study: Bariatric surgery patients have fewer complications at high-volume hospitals
...ends in American Hospitals. Over 70 percent of the surgeries done in 2005 were laparoscopic, which are associated with fewer inhospital complications than traditional gastric bypass. Bariatric surgery has been demonstrated to be highly effective for those with morbid obesity, but the relatively new procedure...Patients with soft tissue sarcomas should be treated at high volume centers
...y tumours alone to establish whether the volume of surgeries done at a centre affected the likelihood of patients keeping their limbs. A total of 1937 extremity tumours were analysed. At high volume centres, 90.6% of procedures for these tumours were limb sparing operations compared with 86.2% at low volume ce...Pancreatic surgery riskier for obese patients
...ty Hospital has found. A study of 202 pancreatic surgeries from 2000 to 2005 indicates obese patients had an increased time on the operating table, blood loss, length of hospital stay and rate of serious complications compared to normal weight individuals, said Adam Berger, M.D., assistant professor of surge...Second SPORT study shows surgery advantage for spinal stenosis and slipped vertebra
...artmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Although back surgeries are among the most common surgical procedures performed in the United States, until SPORT, there had been only a few very small controlled trials to gauge their effectiveness. Degenerative spondylolisthesis (DS) is the forward slippage of one l...New hope for severe heart disease patients
...y of these patients had already undergone multiple surgeries to try and correct the defects causing their heart to malfunction and were on the maximum doses of conventional medicines, yet still experienced chest pain from even the slightest exertion. "However," he cautioned, "this was a safety trial and the...Same-day coronary angiography and surgery safe for many patients
...t: Nearly 48,000 heart valve replacement or repair surgeries were registered with the Society of Thoracic Surgeons National Database in 2005, the researchers point out. Coronary angiography, which is recommended preoperatively for all patients who are considered at risk for coronary artery disease, is frequ...Sling surgery is more effective than Burch for bladder control in women
...s, relatively long-term comparison of these common surgeries in women," said Leroy M. Nyberg Jr., Ph.D., M.D., ...ruiting patients to compare two minimally invasive surgeries for the treatment of SUI. Both procedures include placement of a synthetic mesh sling and have been...Nanomedicine opens the way for nerve cell regeneration
...uding loss of function at the donor site, multiple surgeries and, quite often, it's just not possible to find a suitable nerve to use as a graft. Various synthetic nerve grafts are currently available but none work better than the autograft and can't bridge gaps larger than 4 centimeters. Researchers at the ...Resident work hour restrictions may be costly for teaching hospitals
...r, no efficiencies were achieved and the number of surgeries performed at the hospital increased. "In this case, even modest increases in surgical volume greatly magnified the expense of replacing resident clinical care with other providers, reaching as high as $6 million for the five-year period," the author...Slick and springy: Brown research reveals protein's role in joints
...re, often prompting the need for joint replacement surgeries for patients in their 20s. Using a camera and a microscope, the research team observed how these beads moved through the fluid. Those movements were measured and using a theory espoused by Albert Einstein used to calculate viscosity and elasticit...Washington University surgeon develops treatment for foot deformity
... disorders. Matthew B. Dobbs, M.D., who performs surgeries at St. Louis Children's Hospital, developed a treatment for CVT that involves gently manipulating the foot and applying long leg casts weekly for four to six weeks to gradually correct the deformity. After the casting period, Dobbs and his colleagues...'Shrug off' shoulder surgery myth, study suggests
...ement patients. Given the small number of shoulder surgeries actually performed, McFarland noted that the morta...o hip and knee procedures may be related to repeat surgeries stemming from postoperative complications during the same hospitalization, a need for blood transfus...Colon cancer survival linked to number of lymph nodes examined
...d by general surgeons who do less than 10 of these surgeries a year, and that colon cancers removed by surgeons who perform colon cancer surgery more frequently are more likely to have more lymph nodes examined. "We are not suggesting surgeons cut out more colon than necessary, but that they abide to the pri...World first in medical robotics
...ing and guidance of devices for minimally invasive surgeries using MRI. Commercialization of the technology has been entrusted to Gestion Univalor, LP. ...UCSF policy expert presents recommendation for health coverage
...cident that involves hospitalization and expensive surgeries and he or she has no coverage, it can result in severe hardship due to huge medical bills and shifting of costs to people with coverage." He says he sees a hybrid plan with a universal pool as a solution to this kind of problem. In addition to cat...Patients should be alert for obesity surgery complication
...he surgery. "There are more than 170,000 obesity surgeries performed annually in the United States and this n... changes. In 2005, an estimated 170,000 obesity surgeries were performed in the United States, up from 120,000 in 2004. In 1992, only 16,000 of the operations...Probe to detect spread of breast cancer co-developed by UH scientist
...ave the hospital permission to use the probe in 10 surgeries and that after a review of those procedures, the number could increase to 100. "We expect to start new clinical trials in Japan and Europe before the end of 2007," Brazdeikis said. "Our technology will be extensively validated by different surge...Computed tomography screening may increase lung cancer diagnosis, but not decrease risk of death
... "Our finding of a 10-fold increase in lung cancer surgeries resulting from screening underscores one of the po...ly significant disease or death, then the thoracic surgeries performed to remove them may be insufficiently beneficial to justify the resulting morbidities," the...Study shows no survival benefit for CT screening for lung cancer
...ithout screening, and there were ten times as many surgeries performed for lung cancer compared to what was exp...suggests CT screening can lead to additional major surgeries to remove very small growths that look like lung cancer but do not pose a meaningful threat to the p...Less experienced surgeons performing new techniques in coronary surgery on black patients
...gery they have more access, which is mostly due to surgeries performed by less experienced surgeons." The researchers examined 15,313 CABG patients and found: 31% of black and 23% of white CABG patients underwent off-pump surgery. The higher rates of black patients arose mostly from surgeons who perform fewe...