Skeletal Muscle Depletion is Associated with Severe Postoperative Complications in Patients Undergoing Cytoreductive Surgery with Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy for Peritoneal Carcinomatosis of Colorectal Cancer.

BACKGROUND: In patients undergoing colorectal cancer surgery, skeletal muscle depletion (sarcopenia) is associated with impaired postoperative recovery and decreased survival. This study aimed to determine whether skeletal muscle depletion can predict postoperative complications for patients undergoing cytoreductive surgery with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (CRS-HIPEC) for peritoneal carcinomatosis of colorectal cancer. METHODS: All consecutive patients with an available preoperative computed tomography (CT) scan who underwent CRS-HIPEC for peritoneal carcinomatosis of colorectal cancer in two centers were analyzed. Skeletal muscle mass was determined using the L3 muscle index on the preoperative CT scan. The cutoff values defined by Prado et al. were used to classify the patients as sarcopenic or nonsarcopenic. RESULTS: Of the study's 206 patients, 90 (43.7 %) were classified as sarcopenic. The sarcopenic patients underwent significantly more reoperations than the nonsarcopenic patients (25.6 vs. 12.1 %; p = 0.012). The mean L3 muscle index was significantly lower for the patients who experienced severe postoperative complications than for the patients without severe postoperative complications (85.6 vs. 110.2 cm(2)/m(2); p = 0.008). In a multivariable logistic regression model, L3 muscle index was the only parameter independently associated with the risk of severe postoperative complications (odds ratio 0.93; 95 % confidence interval 0.87-0.99; p = 0.018). CONCLUSION: Skeletal muscle mass depletion, assessed using CT-based muscle mass measurements, is associated with an increased risk of severe postoperative complications in patients undergoing CRS-HIPEC for colorectal peritoneal carcinomatosis and could therefore be used in preoperative risk assessment.

Navigating with logics: Care for women with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy in a tertiary hospital in Ghana.

This paper explores how care for women with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) is practiced in a tertiary hospital in Ghana. Partly in response to the persistently high maternal and neonatal mortality rates in Low- and Middle-income countries, efforts to improve quality of maternity care have increased. Quality improvement initiatives are shaped by the underlying conceptualisation of quality of care, often driven by global (WHO) standards and protocols. However, there are tensions between global standards of care and local clients' and providers' understandings of care practices and quality of care. Implementation of standards is further complicated by structural and organisational restrictions that influence providers' possibilities and priorities. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, we explore how clinical guidelines and professionals' and patients' perspectives converge and, more importantly, diverge. We illuminate local, situated care practices and show how professionals creatively deal with tensions that arise on the ground. In this middle-income setting, caring for women with HDP involves tinkering and navigating in contexts of uncertainty, scarcity, varying responsibilities and conflicting interests. We unravelled a complex web of, at times, contradictory logics, from which various forms of care arise and in which different notions of good care co-exist. While practitioners navigated through and with these varying logics of care, the logic of survival permeated all practices. This study provides important initial insights into how professionals might implement and innovatively adapt the latest quality of maternity care guidelines which seek to marry clinical standards and patients' needs, preferences and experiences.