A Rare Case of Primary Peritoneal Carcinoma With Large Bowel Metastasis.

Primary serous peritoneal carcinoma (PPC) is a rare malignancy often presenting with a significant disease burden and a poor prognosis. A 65-year-old female was seen in the surgical outpatient clinic with a two-month history of weight loss, altered bowel habits and a CT scan characterizing a heterogenous right paracolic gutter mass and suspicious liver lesions. At colonoscopy, a prominent appendiceal orifice was biopsied to be poorly differentiated carcinoma favouring gynaecological tract origin. The patient was admitted with an acute small bowel obstruction secondary to progression of metastases and underwent neoadjuvant chemotherapy with a near complete response on repeat staging. A debulking hysterectomy, bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, pelvic peritonectomy and small bowel nodule excision were performed. The diagnosis of PPC was confirmed when no malignancy was found in the pelvic organs. The presence of intraluminal colonic metastasis with PPC is exceedingly rare with this being only the third such case in the literature.

A rare case of colo-salpingeal fistula complicating acute sigmoid diverticulitis.

Colo-salpingeal fistulae due to acute diverticulitis are rare entities. A 65-year-old female with a 5-day history of left iliac fossa pain, fevers and diarrhoea was seen in a metropolitan hospital. Initial computed tomography of the abdomen and pelvis characterized a left tubular adnexal structure with an air fluid level and normal-appearing colon and was reported as pyosalpingitis. Worsening sepsis despite antibiotics prompted further imaging where thickening of the sigmoid colon was noted, and the provisional diagnosis was revised to complicated acute diverticulitis with perforation into the left fallopian tube/ovary. This was managed with a laparoscopic anterior resection and en bloc left salpingo-oopherectomy, and was followed by an uneventful recovery. The presence of a gas-containing collection remains a sensitive imaging sign for the presence of an enteric fistula and a high index of suspicion should be maintained when this is encountered.

Barriers-enablers-ownership approach: a mixed methods analysis of a social intervention to improve surgical antibiotic prescribing in hospitals.

OBJECTIVES: To assess an intervention for surgical antibiotic prophylaxis (SAP) improvement within surgical teams focused on addressing barriers and fostering enablers and ownership of guideline compliance. DESIGN: The Queensland Surgical Antibiotic Prophylaxis (QSAP) study was a multicentre, mixed methods study designed to address barriers and enablers to SAP compliance and facilitate engagement in self-directed audit/feedback and assess the efficacy of the intervention in improving compliance with SAP guidelines. The implementation was assessed using a 24-month interrupted time series design coupled with a qualitative evaluation. SETTING: The study was undertaken at three hospitals (one regional, two metropolitan) in Australia. PARTICIPANTS: SAP-prescribing decisions for 1757 patients undergoing general surgical procedures from three health services were included. Six bimonthly time points, pre-implementation and post implementation of the intervention, were measured. Qualitative interviews were performed with 29 clinical team members. SAP improvements varied across site and time periods. INTERVENTION: QSAP embedded ownership of quality improvement in SAP within surgical teams and used known social influences to address barriers to and enablers of optimal SAP prescribing. RESULTS: The site that reported senior surgeon engagement showed steady and consistent improvement in prescribing over 24 months (prestudy and poststudy). Multiple factors, including resource issues, influenced engagement and sites/time points where these were present had no improvement in guideline compliance. CONCLUSIONS: The barriers-enablers-ownership model shows promise in its ability to facilitate prescribing improvements and could be expanded into other areas of antimicrobial stewardship. Senior ownership was a predictor of success (or failure) of the intervention across sites and time periods. The key role of senior leaders in change leadership indicates the critical need to engage other specialties in the stewardship agenda. The influence of contextual factors in limiting engagement clearly identifies issues of resource distributions/inequalities within health systems as limiting antimicrobial optimisation potential.