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Surgery
Gauteng claims surgery backlog cleared
Gauteng Health says it has cleared its massive backlog of 37 000 operations, including of stoma reversals – completing 100 of these procedures in...
Stricter screening call after deaths and TB from contaminated bone grafts
The US Centres for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) says there is an urgent need to improve donor screening and product testing, after contaminated...
Rural Limpopo hospital records first robotic knee surgery
In the first surgery of its kind in the mainly rural province of Limpopo, a team led by Professor Steve Matshidze recently performed a...
REBOA fails to reduce mortality, first clinical trial finds
In the first clinical trial on REBOA (Resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta) done in Britain by a team of US scientists, it...
Male surgeons’ patients 25% likelier to die in 90 days – Canadian study
Patients treated by female surgeons have lower rates of adverse postoperative long-term outcomes – including death – than similar patients treated by male surgeons, and...
Need for rethink on spinal surgery training – SA study
A Cape Town study has found that spinal operations – with the largest open medical scheme in SA – was dominated by surgery for...
World-first brain surgery on foetus corrects abnormal blood vessel
For the first time, surgery has corrected an abnormal blood vessel in the brain of a foetus. The baby – who has a rare...
Steady decline in survival of pancreatitis surgery patients – US study
A recent study has found declining survival rates for pancreatic surgery patients, most of whom have opted for the operation as their only hope...
Male surgeon? Women patients have 15% more chance of death or complications
A study in JAMA Surgery shows that women have a 15% greater chance of death or serious injury if a man, rather than a...
Antibiotics effective in 70% of appendix cases with no added risk – Duke study
With numerous recent studies demonstrating that antibiotics work as well as surgery for most uncomplicated appendicitis cases, the non-surgical approach can now be considered...
Simple procedure slashes atrial fibrillation risk following cardiac surgery
A simple surgical technique during cardiac surgery was associated with a 56% reduction in the incidence of atrial fibrillation, which can lead to stroke,...
Bariatric surgery in NAFLD and obesity slashes liver and cardiovascular risk
In non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and obesity, bariatric surgery cut by 90% the risk of advanced liver disease, liver cancer or related death,...
Surprise finding: Patients isolating before surgery 20% more likely to develop post-op lung problems
A US National Institute for Health Research-funded study found patients who isolate before surgery are 20% more likely to develop postoperative lung complications.
Patients isolating...
Bariatric surgery linked to markedly decreased stroke risk
Obese people who had bariatric surgery to reduce their weight appeared to get an added benefit of a markedly reduced risk of stroke, a...
Bariatric surgery linked to decreased stroke risk – Canadian study
Canadian researchers have found that obese people who had bariatric surgery to reduce their weight appeared to get an added benefit of a markedly...
Royal College Ireland: Surgery best for acute uncomplicated appendicitis
A Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland study conducted in Beaumont Hospital in Dublin has found that surgery, rather than antibiotics-only, should remain as the...
Expert panel: First opioid prescribing guidelines for children post-surgery
An expert panel convened by the American Pediatric Surgical Association Outcomes and Evidence-based Practice Committee set out some guidelines for how to think about...
Weight-reduction surgery may prevent second heart attack and death
People with severe obesity (BMI >35) and a prior heart attack who undergo weight-reduction surgery may lower their risk of a second heart attack,...
Antibiotics compared to surgery in treating appendicitis — Randomised trial
The largest randomised US study of appendicitis found that 70% of patients can avoid surgery and be treated with antibiotics only.
Every year more than...
Meta-analysis: No benefit to continued antibiotic prophylaxis after surgery
When best practice standards for surgical antibiotic prophylaxis were applied, postoperative continuation of antibiotic prophylaxis was found to have no benefit in reducing the...
AI outperforms clinicians in triaging post-operative patients for ICUe
Artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of a machine-learned algorithm correctly triaged the vast majority of post-operative patients to the intensive care unit in...
Major surgery increases odds of decline in brain functioning
Major surgery is associated with small, long term decline in brain functioning. On average, this was equivalent to less than five months of brain...
Vascular surgery after gunshot injury linked to increased morbidity and mortality
Among all hospitalisations that were due to firearm injury, patients who underwent surgical repair of their major blood vessels had the highest injury severity...
Bariatric surgery may result in lasting improvement in sexual health
Weight-loss surgery has more benefits than simply slimming a patient down, it may also result in lasting improvements to sexual functioning, Reuters Health reports...
More post-surgery deaths than from TB, HIV and malaria combined
Around the world 4.2m people die every year within 30 days after surgery – with half of these deaths occurring in low- and middle-income...
Discovering why the 'super-agers' live long and well
'Super-agers' have long puzzled scientists, but now researchers say they are unpicking why some people live beyond 80 – and still appear to be...
Complications and hospital stay cut by exercise before lung surgery
Exercising regularly before surgery for lung cancer halves the complication rate afterwards, finds a synthesis of the available published evidence. And it reduces length...
Bariatric surgery link to reduced mortality risk in obese patients
Obese patients undergoing bariatric surgery have half the risk of death, compared with those tackling their weight through diet and behaviour alone, a large...
Death from scheduled surgery in Africa is a post-operative problem
Despite having a better risk profile than those in high-income countries, the risk of dying from scheduled surgery in Africa is more than double...
Peri-operative aspirin prevents complications in patients with previous PCIs
A Canadian-led study has found that peri-operative aspirin can prevent heart-related complications after major non-cardiac surgery in patients with previous percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI)...
Robotic-assisted vs laparoscopic surgery compared
Two large international studies have compared outcomes of robotic-assisted vs laparoscopic surgery for kidney removal, as well as for rectal cancer.
In one study, Dr...
Better outcomes from afternoon surgery
Patients undergoing open heart surgery in the afternoon have a lower risk of potentially fatal complications than those undergoing operations in the morning. The...
Surgical and radiation backlogs rocket in Gauteng
Surgical backlogs at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Johannesburg have mounted substantially to up to five years, while at the Steve Biko Academic Hospital...
Anaemia rates rise 10 years after bariatric surgery
Researchers found a high rate of anaemia 10 years after patients received Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB), suggesting that long-term follow-up with a bariatric specialist...
Patient receives 3-D printed skull after traumatic brain injury
When a coma patient with frontal lobe trauma needed emergency surgery to relieve brain swelling with the intent of replacing the skull after the...
Women fare worse than men in abdominal aortic aneurysm surgery
Mortality rates for women undergoing surgery for abdominal aortic aneurysms are nearly twice those for men, a study by Imperial College and the University...
CDC recommendations to prevent surgical site infections
Good patient and environmental hygiene and judicious use of antimicrobial therapy form the basis of new recommendations issued by the Centres for Disease Control...
Less aggressive treatment for the oldest
The oldest of the elderly are less likely to be investigated or aggressively treated after surgery – despite higher rates of multiple underlying conditions on admission. This was revealed in an audit of hospital deaths in Australia.
Gastric bypass: Better control, worse infection
Two years after surgery, people who had a gastric bypass have better control of their type 2 diabetes, but also had higher risk of infections and bone fractures.
Improving OCSCC cancer survival
Neck dissection to remove lymph nodes and treatment at academic institutions was associated with improved survival in patients with stages I and II oral cavity squamous cell cancer (OCSCC), according to a Yale study.