This is a repository copy of Effectiveness of a national quality improvement programme to improve survival after emergency abdominal surgery (EPOCH) : a stepped-wedge cluster-randomised trial. Effectiveness of a national quality improvement programme to improve survival after emergency abdominal surgery (EPOCH) : a stepped-wedge cluster-randomised trial. The Lancet. ISSN 0140-6736 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32521-2 eprints@whiterose.ac.uk https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/
ReuseThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND) licence. This licence only allows you to download this work and share it with others as long as you credit the authors, but you can't change the article in any way or use it commercially. More information and the full terms of the licence here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
Implications of all the available evidenceDespite the success of some smaller projects, there was no survival benefit from a national quality improvement programme to implement a care pathway for patients undergoing emergency abdominal surgery. To succeed, large national quality improvement programmes need to allow for differences between hospitals and ensure teams have both the time and resources needed to improve patient care.
In an unselected bowel cancer population surgical resection of the primary tumour in patients presenting with incurable disease does not improve survival and is associated with a high risk of post-operative mortality.
The aim of this study was to determine the role of body mass index (BMI) in a Western population on outcomes after esophagectomy for cancer. Two hundred and fifteen consecutive patients undergoing esophagectomy for esophageal cancer of any cell type were studied prospectively. Patients with BMIs > 25 kg/m were classified as overweight and compared with control patients with BMIs below these reference values. Ninety-seven patients (45%) had low or normal BMIs, 86 patients (40%) were overweight, and a further 32 (15%) were obese. High BMIs were associated with a higher incidence of adenocarcinoma versus squamous cell carcinoma (83%vs. 14%, P = 0.041). Operative morbidity and mortality were 53% and 3% in overweight patients compared with 49% (P = 0.489) and 8% (P = 0.123) in control patients. Cumulative survival at 5 years was 27% for overweight patients compared with 38% for control patients (P = 0.6896). In a multivariate analysis, age (hazard ratio [HR] 1.492, 95% CI 1.143-1.948, P = 0.003), T-stage (HR 1.459, 95% CI 1.028-2.071, P = 0.034), N-stage (HR 1.815, 95% CI 1.039-3.172, P = 0.036) and the number of lymph node metastases (HR 1.008, 95% CI 1.023-1.158, P = 0.008), were significantly and independently associated with durations of survival. High BMIs were not associated with increased operative risk, and long-term outcomes were similar after R0 esophagectomy.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.