Endoscopy Used as Provocative Testing in Bariatric Surgery: An Analysis of the Texas Public Use Data File.

BACKGROUND: Many bariatric surgeons test the anastomosis and staple lines with some sort of provocative test. This can take the form of an air leak test with a nasogastric tube with methylene blue dye or with an endoscopy. The State Department of Health Statistics in Texas tracks outcomes using the Texas Public Use Data File (PUDF). METHODS: We queried the Texas Inpatient and Outpatient PUDFs for 2013 to 2017 to examine the number of bariatric surgeries with endoscopy performed at the same time. We used the International Classification of Diseases Clinical Modification Version 9 (ICD-9-CM) and ICD-10 procedure codes and Current Procedural Terminology for Sleeve Gastrectomy (SG) and laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (LRYGB) and endoscopy, and the ICD-9-CM and ICD-10 diagnosis codes for morbid obesity. RESULTS: There were 74,075 SG reported in the Texas Inpatient and Outpatient PUDF for the years 2013-2017. Of the SG performed, 5,521 (7.4%) had an intraoperative endoscopy. For the 19,192 LRYGB reported, 1640 (8.6%) underwent LRYGB + endoscopy. This was broken down by SG only vs SG + endoscopy and LRYGB only vs LRYGB + endoscopy. Overall, SG + endoscopy had a significantly shorter length of stay (LOS) vs LRYGB + endoscopy at 1.74 d vs 2.34 d (P < .001) and a significantly less cost of $71,685 vs $91,093 (P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: A small percentage of SG and LRYGB patients underwent endoscopy for provocative testing over the study period. Provocative testing with endoscopy costs more for SG and LRYGB and was associated with a shorter LOS.

Thoughts from the threshold: patient and family hopes, fears, values, and goals at the onset of pediatric hematopoietic cell transplantation.

Hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) affords curative potential for high-risk patients but also carries risk of morbidity and mortality. Early palliative care (PC) integration can aid in supporting patients and families, fostering goal-directed care, and maximizing quality-of-life throughout. However, little is known about patient and family hopes, worries, goals, or values in pediatric HCT. Through retrospective review of pretransplant PC consultations, this study sought to provide insights from this unique patient population. Across 100 initial PC encounters conducted between December 2015 and March 2018, patient and caregiver responses to five targeted questions were extracted and analyzed. Data analysis revealed themes related to patient quality-of-life, caregiver/parent role, hopes, and worries. The most commonly identified thematic responses within each topic area were patient quality-of-life "electronics/entertainment" (49%), caregiver/parent role "doing right by my child" (58%), hopes "cure" (83%), worries "potential side effects" (43%), other spirituality (34%), and resiliency (29%). These findings provide an understanding of the values, goals, priorities, hopes, and fears experienced by pediatric HCT patients and their families, which may help inform a targeted approach to improve communication and overall care throughout transplantation. Variability was noted, underscoring the importance of fostering flexible, patient/family-centered communication beginning in the pretransplant period.

In Vivo Evaluation of a Pneumatic Extracorporeal Ventricular Assist Device for up to 90 Day Support.

In a previous study, we showed that the Vitalmex Extracorporeal Ventricular Assist Device-Pneumatic (EVAD-P)-a low-cost, pneumatically actuated, pulsatile blood pump-is easy to implant and safe for short-term in vivo support (30 ± 5 days). In the current study, we included additional 30 day experiments and assessed the safety and durability of the EVAD-P for up to 90 days of support. Using the same surgical procedure as in the previous study, we implanted the device into 14 healthy sheep. Group I subjects (n = 7) were evaluated for up to 30 days, and group II (n = 2) and group III (n = 5) subjects were evaluated for up to 49 and 93 days, respectively. After a system redesign, two of the five sheep in group III reached the scheduled end-point without device-related problems at a fixed beat rate of 56 bpm, a stroke volume (SV) of 58.0 ± 2.3 ml, and a flow of 3.5 ± 0.2 L/min. This study shows that the EVAD-P can provide safe pulsatile mechanical circulatory support (MCS) for up to 93 days. To further confirm that the system can consistently provide MCS for this duration, additional studies are recommended.