 |
|
Hospital Volume and Operative Mortality in Cancer Surgery—Invited Critique
Richard J. Davies, MD
Hackensack, NJ
Arch Surg. 2003;138:726.
|
|
| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings. |
|
|
|
The studies by Finlayson et al and others support the notion that operative mortality is higher in low-volume hospitals. However, several questions remain: What factors are responsible for the higher mortality? Is it because of poor patient selection, more comorbidities, or inferior perioperative treatment at low-volume hospitals? Is it because patients with tumors that have a better prognosis select higher-volume hospitals? Are the surgical skills of practioners at high-volume hospitals significantly superior to those at low-volume hospitals? Are those skills transferable, or should patients with certain malignancies be transferred to high-volume units? Finally, how do we define volume? Does a low-volume surgeon at a high-volume hospital have better results than this surgeon's counterpart practicing in a low-volume hospital?
The law of diminishing returns applies to surgery as it does to politicoeconomic endeavors. Therefore, the application of effort or skill toward a particular goal (low operative mortality) . . . [Full Text of this Article]
 CiteULike  Connotea  Del.icio.us  Digg  Reddit  Technorati  Twitter
What's this?
RELATED ARTICLE
Hospital Volume and Operative Mortality in Cancer Surgery: A National Study
Emily V. A. Finlayson, Philip P. Goodney, and John D. Birkmeyer
Arch Surg. 2003;138(7):721-725.
ABSTRACT
| FULL TEXT
THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES
|
Influence of NCI Cancer Center Attendance on Mortality in Lung, Breast, Colorectal, and Prostate Cancer Patients
Onega et al.
Med Care Res Rev 2009;66:542-560.
ABSTRACT
The Effect of Provider Case Volume on Cancer Mortality: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Gruen et al.
CA Cancer J Clin 2009;59:192-211.
ABSTRACT
| FULL TEXT
|
