Gender, BMI, Patient Comorbidities, and Hospital Characteristics Influence 30-Day Readmission Following Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy.

PURPOSE: Obesity impacts 300 million people worldwide and the number continues to increase. Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) is one of several bariatric procedures offered to help these individuals achieve a healthier life. Here, we report 30-day readmission rates and risk factors for readmission after gastrectomy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We used the US Healthcare Utilization Project's Nationwide Readmission Database (NRD) from 2016 to 2019 for patients who underwent laparoscopic gastrectomy and evaluated 30-day readmission rates, comparing readmitted patients to non-readmitted patients. Confounder adjusted and unadjusted analysis were proceeded to the potential factors. RESULTS: The study population consisted of 235,563 patients, with a 3.0% readmission rate. Factors associated with a higher readmission rate included older age, male gender, higher BMI, Medicare as the primary payer, longer length of stay, higher total charge, higher Charlson Comorbidity Index, higher Elixhauser-Comorbidity Index, lower household income, non-elective admission type, and non-routine disposition. Additionally, larger hospital bed size, and private, invest-own hospital ownership were associated with higher readmission rates. After adjusting for confounders, several comorbidities and complications were found to be significantly associated with readmission, including ileus, abnormal weight loss, postprocedural complications of digestive system, acute posthemorrhagic anemia, and history of pulmonary embolism (all p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Patient characteristics including age, BMI, and payment source, as well as hospital characteristics, can impact the 30-day readmission after LSG. Such factors should be considered by CMS when deciding on penalties related to readmission.

The effect of preoperative endoscopic tattooing on lymph node retrieval in colorectal cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

PURPOSE: The effect of preoperative endoscopic tattooing (ET) on accurate colorectal cancer localization and resection has been well established. However, its effect on lymph node (LN) retrieval remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to systematically compare LN retrieval between patients with colorectal cancer who underwent preoperative ET and those who did not. METHODS: A systematic search for relevant studies was conducted using the following databases: PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science. Studies that compared LN retrieval in patients with colorectal cancer with and without preoperative ET were included. Weighted pooled odds ratio (OR) and mean difference (MD) with the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for all outcomes using the random-effects model were calculated. RESULTS: 10 studies, including 2231 patients with colorectal cancer were included. Six studies reported total LN yield and showed significantly higher LN yield in the tattooed group (MD:2.61; 95% CI:1.01-4.21, P=0.001). Seven studies reported the number of patients with adequate LN retrieval and showed a significantly higher number of patients with adequate LN retrieval in the tattooed group (OR:1.89, 95% CI:1.08-3.32, P=0.03). However, subgroup analysis revealed that both outcomes were only statistically significant in patients with rectal cancer, and not in patients with colon cancer. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that preoperative ET is associated with increased LN retrieval in patients with rectal cancer, but not in colon cancer. Further large-scale randomized control trials are necessary to validate our findings.

Changes in the Utilization of the BI-RADS Category 3 Assessment in Recalled Patients Before and After the Implementation of Screening Digital Breast Tomosynthesis.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to compare the utilization of the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) category 3 assessment in patients recalled from screening before and after the implementation of digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT). MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a retrospective review of 11,478 digital mammography (DM) screening exams and 9350 DM+DBT screening exams. Lesions assigned a BI-RADS category 3 at diagnostic exam were classified as architectural distortions, asymmetries, calcifications, masses, and "other" and followed for a minimum of 2 years. RESULTS: The addition of DBT to screening DM resulted in a 30.4% relative reduction (10.3 women per 1000) in the utilization of BI-RADS category 3 compared to screening DM alone (3.4% for DM versus 2.4% for DM+DBT; p < 0.0001). There was a statistically significant change in the distribution of category 3 findings with DM+DBT characterized by an increase in calcifications and architectural distortions and a decrease in asymmetries. There was no change in category 3 assessment for masses. Although both cohorts had delayed cancer detection rates that exceeded the recommended 2% benchmark (2.3% for DM and 3.6% for DM+DBT), when limited to invasive malignancies, the delayed cancer detection rates were below the 2% benchmark (1.5% for DM and 0.9% for DM+DBT). Screening DM+DBT resulted in a 9.2% relative reduction in recall rate compared to DM (13.0% for DM versus 11.8% for DM+ DBT, p = 0.012). CONCLUSION: Implementation of DBT in the screening population decreased the overall number of patients assigned to short-term follow-up by 10.3 per 1000 women while maintaining comparable rates of delayed cancer detection.

Clinical, imaging, and intervention factors associated with the upgrade of isolated flat epithelial atypia.

PURPOSE: This study aims to determine clinical, imaging, and intervention factors associated with the upgrade of flat epithelial atypia (FEA) diagnosed on vacuum-assisted biopsy (VAB) in order to formulate criteria for excision and better assist in management. METHODS: Between 2012 and 2015, 254 patients had a form of atypia diagnosed on ultrasound, MRI or stereotactic VAB and met eligibility for this study. Demographic, imaging, biopsy and pathology characteristics were analyzed for association with upgrade. We compared isolated FEA to all of the atypias grouped together. RESULTS: Of the 254 atypia lesions, 72 (28%) were isolated FEA, and the upgrade rate was 2.8% (2/72). Statistically significant factors present with upgrade of isolated FEA include personal history of breast cancer and cancer diagnosis on a concurrent separate core biopsy. Other factors associated with upgrade include first degree family history of breast cancer, segmental calcification distribution, extent of calcifications >2 cm, and <25% of calcifications removed on biopsy. CONCLUSION: In patients with biopsy results of isolated FEA, in the absence of personal or first degree family history of breast cancer, cancer on a concurrent biopsy, segmental calcification distribution, extent of calcifications >2 cm, and only 0-24% calcifications removed on biopsy, patients may be safely followed with imaging, avoiding unnecessary excision.

Intratumoral and peritumoral radiomics for the pretreatment prediction of pathological complete response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy based on breast DCE-MRI.

BACKGROUND: In this study, we evaluated the ability of radiomic textural analysis of intratumoral and peritumoral regions on pretreatment breast cancer dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) to predict pathological complete response (pCR) to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC). METHODS: A total of 117 patients who had received NAC were retrospectively analyzed. Within the intratumoral and peritumoral regions of T1-weighted contrast-enhanced MRI scans, a total of 99 radiomic textural features were computed at multiple phases. Feature selection was used to identify a set of top pCR-associated features from within a training set (n = 78), which were then used to train multiple machine learning classifiers to predict the likelihood of pCR for a given patient. Classifiers were then independently tested on 39 patients. Experiments were repeated separately among hormone receptor-positive and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative (HR+, HER2-) and triple-negative or HER2+ (TN/HER2+) tumors via threefold cross-validation to determine whether receptor status-specific analysis could improve classification performance. RESULTS: Among all patients, a combined intratumoral and peritumoral radiomic feature set yielded a maximum AUC of 0.78 ± 0.030 within the training set and 0.74 within the independent testing set using a diagonal linear discriminant analysis (DLDA) classifier. Receptor status-specific feature discovery and classification enabled improved prediction of pCR, yielding maximum AUCs of 0.83 ± 0.025 within the HR+, HER2- group using DLDA and 0.93 ± 0.018 within the TN/HER2+ group using a naive Bayes classifier. In HR+, HER2- breast cancers, non-pCR was characterized by elevated peritumoral heterogeneity during initial contrast enhancement. However, TN/HER2+ tumors were best characterized by a speckled enhancement pattern within the peritumoral region of nonresponders. Radiomic features were found to strongly predict pCR independent of choice of classifier, suggesting their robustness as response predictors. CONCLUSIONS: Through a combined intratumoral and peritumoral radiomics approach, we could successfully predict pCR to NAC from pretreatment breast DCE-MRI, both with and without a priori knowledge of receptor status. Further, our findings suggest that the radiomic features most predictive of response vary across different receptor subtypes.