Management Strategies for Malignant Left-Sided Colonic Obstruction: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials and Propensity Score Matching Studies.

BACKGROUND: The optimal treatment strategy for left-sided malignant colonic obstruction remains controversial. Emergency colonic resection has been the standard of care; however, self-expanding metallic stenting as a bridge to surgery may offer short-term advantages, although oncological concerns exist. Decompressing stoma may provide a valid alternative, with limited evidence. OBJECTIVE: To perform a systematic review and Bayesian arm random-effects model network meta-analysis comparing the approaches for management of malignant left-sided colonic obstruction. DATA SOURCES: A systematic review of PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar databases was conducted from inception to August 22, 2023. STUDY SELECTION: Randomized controlled trials and propensity score-matched studies. INTERVENTIONS: Emergency colonic resection, self-expanding metallic stent, and decompressing stoma. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Oncologic efficacy, morbidity, successful minimally invasive surgery, primary anastomosis, and permanent stoma rates. RESULTS: Nineteen of 5225 articles identified met our inclusion criteria. Stenting (risk ratio 0.57; 95% credible interval, 0.33-0.79) and decompressing stomas (risk ratio 0.46, 95% credible interval: 0.18-0.92) resulted in a significant reduction in the permanent stoma rate. Stenting facilitated minimally invasive surgery more frequently (risk ratio 4.10; 95% credible interval, 1.45-13.13) and had lower overall morbidity (risk ratio 0.58; 95% credible interval, 0.35-0.86). A pairwise analysis of primary anastomosis rates showed increased stenting (risk ratio 1.40; 95% credible interval, 1.31-1.49) compared with emergency resection. There was a significant decrease in the 90-day mortality with stenting (risk ratio 0.63; 95% credible interval, 0.41-0.95) compared with resection. There were no differences in disease-free and overall survival rates, respectively. LIMITATIONS: There is a lack of randomized controlled trials and propensity score matching data comparing short-term and long-term outcomes for diverting stomas compared to self-expanding metallic stents. Two trials compared self-expanding metallic stents and diverting stomas in left-sided malignant colonic obstruction. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides high-level evidence that a bridge-to-surgery strategy is safe for the management of left-sided malignant colonic obstruction and may facilitate minimally invasive surgery, increase primary anastomosis rates, and reduce permanent stoma rates and postoperative morbidity compared with emergency colonic resection.

Comparing the outcomes of open, laparoscopic and robot-assisted partial nephrectomy: a network meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To perform a systematic review and network meta-analysis (NMA) to determine the advantages and disadvantages of open (OPN), laparoscopic (LPN), and robot-assisted partial nephrectomy (RAPN) with particular attention to intraoperative, immediate postoperative, as well as longer-term functional and oncological outcomes. METHODS: A systematic review was performed as per the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses-NMA guidelines. Binary data were compared using odds ratios (ORs). Mean differences (MDs) were used for continuous variables. ORs and MDs were extracted from the articles to compare the efficacy of the various surgical approaches. Statistical validity is guaranteed when the 95% credible interval does not include 1. RESULTS: In total, there were 31 studies included in the NMA with a combined 7869 patients. Of these, 33.7% (2651/7869) underwent OPN, 20.8% (1636/7869) LPN, and 45.5% (3582/7689) RAPN. There was no difference for either LPN or RAPN as compared to OPN in ischaemia time, intraoperative complications, positive surgical margins, operative time or trifecta rate. The estimated blood loss (EBL), postoperative complications and length of stay were all significantly reduced in RAPN when compared with OPN. The outcomes of RAPN and LPN were largely similar except the significantly reduced EBL in RAPN. CONCLUSION: This systematic review and NMA suggests that RAPN is the preferable operative approach for patients undergoing surgery for lower-staged RCC.

Daily handover in surgery: systematic review and a novel taxonomy of interventions and outcomes.

BACKGROUND: Poor-quality handovers lead to adverse outcomes for patients; however, there is a lack of evidence to support safe surgical handovers. This systematic review aims to summarize the interventions available to improve end-of-shift surgical handover. A novel taxonomy of interventions and outcomes and a modified quality assessment tool are also described. METHODS: Ovid MEDLINE®, PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane databases were searched for articles up to April 2023. Comparative studies describing interventions for daily in-hospital surgical handovers between doctors were included. Studies were grouped according to their interventions and outcomes. RESULTS: In total, 6139 citations were retrieved, and 41 studies met the inclusion criteria. The total patient sample sizes in the control and intervention groups were 11 946 and 11 563 patients, respectively. Most studies were pre-/post-intervention cohort studies (92.7%), and most (73.2%) represented level V evidence. The mean quality assessment score was 53.4% (17.1). A taxonomy of handover interventions and outcomes was developed, with interventions including handover tools, process standardization measures, staff education, and the use of mnemonics. More than 25% of studies used a document as the only intervention. Overall, 55 discrete outcomes were assessed in four categories including process (n = 27), staff (n = 14), patient (n = 12) and system-level (n = 2) outcomes. Significant improvements were seen in 51.8%, 78.5%, 58.3% (n = 9761 versus 9312 patients) and 100% of these outcomes, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Most publications demonstrate that good-quality surgical handover improves outcomes and many interventions appear to be effective; however, studies are methodologically heterogeneous. These novel taxonomies and quality assessment tool will help standardize future studies.

Mechanical bowel preparation and antibiotics in elective colorectal surgery: network meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: The use of intravenous antibiotics at anaesthetic induction in colorectal surgery is the standard of care. However, the role of mechanical bowel preparation, enemas, and oral antibiotics in surgical site infection, anastomotic leak, and other perioperative outcomes remains controversial. The aim of this study was to determine the optimal preoperative bowel preparation strategy in elective colorectal surgery. METHODS: A systematic review and network meta-analysis of RCTs was performed with searches from PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Embase, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials from inception to December 2022. Primary outcomes included surgical site infection and anastomotic leak. Secondary outcomes included 30-day mortality rate, ileus, length of stay, return to theatre, other infections, and side effects of antibiotic therapy or bowel preparation. RESULTS: Sixty RCTs involving 16 314 patients were included in the final analysis: 3465 (21.2 per cent) had intravenous antibiotics alone, 5268 (32.3 per cent) had intravenous antibiotics + mechanical bowel preparation, 1710 (10.5 per cent) had intravenous antibiotics + oral antibiotics, 4183 (25.6 per cent) had intravenous antibiotics + oral antibiotics + mechanical bowel preparation, 262 (1.6 per cent) had intravenous antibiotics + enemas, and 1426 (8.7 per cent) had oral antibiotics + mechanical bowel preparation. With intravenous antibiotics as a baseline comparator, network meta-analysis demonstrated a significant reduction in total surgical site infection risk with intravenous antibiotics + oral antibiotics (OR 0.47 (95 per cent c.i. 0.32 to 0.68)) and intravenous antibiotics + oral antibiotics + mechanical bowel preparation (OR 0.55 (95 per cent c.i. 0.40 to 0.76)), whereas oral antibiotics + mechanical bowel preparation resulted in a higher surgical site infection rate compared with intravenous antibiotics alone (OR 1.84 (95 per cent c.i. 1.20 to 2.81)). Anastomotic leak rates were lower with intravenous antibiotics + oral antibiotics (OR 0.63 (95 per cent c.i. 0.44 to 0.90)) and intravenous antibiotics + oral antibiotics + mechanical bowel preparation (OR 0.62 (95 per cent c.i. 0.41 to 0.94)) compared with intravenous antibiotics alone. There was no significant difference in outcomes with mechanical bowel preparation in the absence of intravenous antibiotics and oral antibiotics in the main analysis. CONCLUSION: A bowel preparation strategy with intravenous antibiotics + oral antibiotics, with or without mechanical bowel preparation, should represent the standard of care for patients undergoing elective colorectal surgery.

Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement With the LOTUS Edge System: Early European Experience.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to evaluate the short-term safety and efficacy of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) with the LOTUS Edge system. BACKGROUND: The LOTUS Edge system was commercially re-released in April 2019. The authors report the first European experience with this device. METHODS: A multicenter, single-arm, retrospective registry was initiated to evaluate short-term clinical outcomes. Included cases are the first experience with this device and new implantation technique in Europe. Clinical, echocardiographic, and computed tomographic data were analyzed. Endpoints were defined according to Valve Academic Research Consortium-2 and were site reported. RESULTS: Between April and November 2019, 286 consecutive patients undergoing TAVR with the LOTUS Edge system at 18 European centers were included. The mean age and Society of Thoracic Surgeons score were 81.2 ± 6.9 years and 5.2 ± 5.4%, respectively. Nearly one-half of all patients (47.9%) were considered to have complex anatomy. Thirty-day major adverse events included death (2.4% [n = 7]) and stroke (3.5% [n = 10]). After TAVR, the mean aortic valve area was 1.9 ± 0.9 cm2, and the mean transvalvular gradient was 11.9 ± 5.7 mm Hg. None or trace paravalvular leak (PVL) occurred in 84.4% and moderate PVL in 2.0%. There were no cases of severe PVL. New permanent pacemaker (PPM) implantation was required in 25.9% among all patients and 30.8% among PPM-naive patients. CONCLUSIONS: Early experience with the LOTUS Edge system demonstrated satisfactory short-term safety and efficacy, favorable hemodynamic data, and very low rates of PVL in an anatomically complex cohort. New PPM implantation remained high. Further study will evaluate if increasing operator experience with the device and new implantation technique can reduce the incidence of PPM implantation.

Patient Disposition and Clinical Outcome After Referral to a Dedicated TAVI Clinic.

Introduction: Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is the standard of care for the majority of patients with severe symptomatic aortic stenosis (AS) at excessive-, high- and intermediate-surgical risk. A proportion of patients referred for TAVI do not undergo the procedure and proceed with an alternate treatment strategy. There is scarce data describing the final treatment allocation of such patients. Hence, we sought to evaluate the final treatment allocation of patients referred for TAVI in contemporary practice. Methods: We performed a single center prospective observational study, including all patients referred to our institution for treatment of severe aortic stenosis between February 2014 and August 2017. Baseline demographic and clinical data were recorded. Patients were categorized according to treatment allocation: TAVI, surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) or optimal medical therapy (OMT). Clinical outcomes were adjudicated according to VARC-2 definitions. All patients were discussed at a dedicated Heart Team meeting. Results: Total of 245 patients were referred for assessment to a dedicated TAVI clinic during the study period. Patients with moderate (N = 32; 13.1%) and asymptomatic (N = 31; 13.1%) AS were excluded. Subsequently, 53.9% (N = 132) received TAVI, 12.7% (N =31) were managed with OMT, and 7.3% (N =18) had SAVR. Reasons for OMT included primarily: patient's preference (N = 12; 38.7%); excessive surgical risk (N = 4; 12.9%) and severe frailty (N = 5; 16.1%). Reasons for surgical referral included low surgical risk (N = 11; 61.1%), excessive annulus size (N = 5; 27.8%), and aortic root dilatation (N = 2; 11.1%). Patients proceeding to SAVR had lower surgical risk than those in either the OMT or TAVI cohorts (P < 0.001). Mean STS score in SAVR group was 2.2 ± 1.3 vs. 4.5 ± 2.4 in OMT cohort and 6.1 ± 4.9 in TAVI cohort. Six-month all-cause mortality was 16.7, 19.4, and 9.3% among those receiving SAVR, OMT, and TAVI, respectively. Conclusions: Almost half of all patients with severe AS referred to a dedicated TAVI clinic did not receive a TAVI. A considerable proportion of patients were reclassified as moderate AS (13%), were asymptomatic (13%), or intervention was determined to be futile (13%) due to advanced frailty. Early detection and increased awareness of valvular heart disease are required to increase the number of patients that can benefit from TAVI.

Antithrombotic management after transcatheter aortic valve implantation.

Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is now the accepted standard of care for patients with symptomatic severe aortic stenosis at elevated risk for conventional surgical valve replacement. Currently, societal guidelines propose the use of dual antiplatelet therapy for the prevention of thromboembolic events after TAVI in patients without an indication for oral anticoagulation. This strategy is empiric and largely based on expert consensus extrapolated from the arena of percutaneous coronary intervention. In this review, we explore the rational for using antiplatelet and/or anticoagulant strategies after TAVI, review current guidelines and the evidence underpinning them, and detail the on-going randomized trials that will shape future recommendations on this important issue.