American College of Surgeons

Background noise in the operating room can impair surgical team communication

Chicago (May 10, 2013): Ambient background noise—whether it is the sound of loud surgical equipment, talkative team members, or music—is a patient and surgical safety factor that can affect auditory processing among surgeons ...

Surgery created May 10, 2013 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Single best practice to prevent DVT reduces hospital costs by more than $1.5 million annually

A major challenge facing today's health care community is to find ways to lower costs without compromising clinical quality. Taking that challenge to task, researchers at Medstar Health and Georgetown University School of ...

Surgery created Apr 10, 2013 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Liver transplantation for patients with genetic liver conditions has high survival rate

Patients faced with the diagnosis of a life-threatening liver disease have to consider the seriousness of having a liver transplant, which can be a definitive cure for many acquired and genetic liver diseases. Among the main ...

Surgery created Apr 05, 2013 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Breast cancer patients' fear of developing lymphedema far exceeds risk

Women who have had the lymph nodes under their arm surgically removed during breast cancer treatment are warned to avoid certain practices that can cause lymphedema—a condition that causes chronic, painless swelling in ...

Surgery created Feb 25, 2013 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Specific warning signs of complications in colorectal surgical patients released

Colorectal surgical patients are often discharged from the hospital with vague guidance on how to recognize complications, but researchers at the Michael DeBakey Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center and Baylor College ...

Surgery created Feb 07, 2013 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Study reports racial disparities in pediatric appendicitis treatment tied to hospital type

When researchers from UCLA Medical Center investigated the link between racial disparities and appendicitis outcomes in children, they found that the type of hospital in which black, Hispanic and other minority patients receive ...

Surgery created Dec 28, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Communications training, surgical checklist can reduce costly postoperative complications

As the nation grapples with surging health care costs, researchers at the University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, and Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center, Hartford, have confirmed two simple cost-effective ...

Surgery created Dec 05, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Acute care model improves surgical care quality, lowers costs for two procedures

An acute care surgery model led to improvement in the quality of surgical patient care and reduced the cost of emergency surgical care at Loma Linda University Medical Center, report researchers who published their findings ...

Surgery created Nov 07, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Better battlefield triage, transport may raise severely wounded soldiers' survival rates

Wounded soldiers who sustained chest injuries in Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq) had higher mortality rates than soldiers in Korea and Vietnam, according to a military trauma study ...

Surgery created Oct 04, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Progress reported in tackling initial, recurrent bouts of health care-associated infection

Surgeons are making progress toward preventing initial and recurrent episodes of clostridium difficile colitis (C. difficile or C. diff), a vicious bacterial infection that is estimated to affect about 336,000 people each y ...

Surgery created Oct 04, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Advanced surgical approaches may benefit elderly patients with colorectal, bladder cancers

Advanced surgical techniques such as robotic-assisted operations and minimally invasive surgical procedures may extend survival and improve recovery in octogenarians with bladder and colorectal cancers when compared with ...

Cancer created Oct 03, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Surgeons investigate whether rural colon cancer patients fare worse than urban patients

Colon cancer patients living in rural areas are less likely to receive an early diagnosis, chemotherapy, or thorough surgical treatment when compared with patients living in urban areas. Rural residents are also more likely ...

Cancer created Oct 03, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Surgeons recreate eggs in vitro to treat infertility

Regenerative-medicine researchers have moved a promising step closer to helping infertile, premenopausal women produce enough eggs to become pregnant. Today, surgeons at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center's Institute for ...

Surgery created Oct 02, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Surgeons associate preoperative falls with worse postoperative outcomes in older adults

An answer to the simple question—"Have you recently taken a fall?"—can tell a surgeon how well an older adult may recover from a major operation according to researchers from the University of Colorado, Denver. New study ...

Surgery created Oct 01, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

A form of small pox virus shows potential for treating triple-negative breast cancer

Researchers from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City have shown that a new vaccinia virus, acting as both an oncolytic and anti-angiogenic agent, can enter and kill triple-negative breast cancer ...

Cancer created Oct 01, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0