Objective: To identify in what phases in the treatment of head and neck cancer do delays happen at a tertiary hospital and to determine the association between the length of treatment delays and the oncologic outcomes (disease-free survival and overall survival) for patients with head and neck cancer. : Methods Design: Retrospective Cohort Study Setting: Tertiary National University Hospital Participants: Sixty-eight (68) patients who had surgery and adjuvant radiotherapy for invasive head and neck cancer at the Philippine General Hospital during the 5-year period of January 2014 to December 2019 were included in the initial consideration. Only 15 had survival data and were thus eligible for inclusion in this study. Results: The median treatment package time for head and neck cancers in our institution was 27.6 weeks or 193 days. The treatment package time statistically correlated with both overall survival, F(1,13)=12.952, p <0.005, R2=0.499, and disease-free survival, F(1-13)=12.823, p <0.005, R2= 0.497. However, the independent effects of other predictors such as time interval between first consult to histopathologic diagnosis, diagnosis to surgery, and surgery to post-operative radiotherapy, showed no statistically significant association with overall survival and disease free survival. Conclusion All study patients experienced treatment delays from diagnosis to surgery, and surgery to adjuvant radiation therapy, and in their total treatment package time. The positive correlation among treatment package time, and disease-free and overall survival in this study must be further investigated in order to elucidate the true effect of delays across time intervals in the treatment of head and neck cancer in the Philippine General Hospital. Every effort should be made towards timely management of these patients.
Head and Neck Neoplasms ; Radiotherapy ; Survival Rate ; Treatment Outcome ; Time-to-Treatment ; Surgery ; Disease-Free Survival ; Delayed Diagnosis ; Retrospective Studies ; Postoperative Care

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the safety of laparoscopic pancreaticoduodenectomy (LPD) in elderly patients and the related risk factors admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) after LPD. METHODS: The perioperative data of patients who underwent LPD in Tianjin Medical University General Hospital from February 2017 to June 2023 were retrospectively collected, including basic data, preoperative laboratory indicators, intraoperative and postoperative indicators, pathological results (tumor size, lymph node dissection and pathological type), postoperative complications, ICU postoperative management and prognosis. The patients were divided into the elderly group (≥ 65 years) and the non-elderly group (< 65 years) according to age. Perioperative data between two groups were compared. Kaplan-Meier survival curve was drawn to analyze the survival rate of the elderly group and the non-elderly group, and the pancreatic head carcinoma group and other type of tumors group after LPD. Logistic regression was used to analyze the risk factors of ICU stay (length of ICU stay > 1 day) after LPD in elderly patients. The receiver operator characteristic curve (ROC curve) was drawn to analyze the predictive value of this risk factor for ICU stay after LPD in elderly patients. RESULTS: A total of 160 patients were enrolled, including 57 cases in the elderly group (17 cases of vascular reconstruction) and 103 cases in the non-elderly group (40 cases of vascular reconstruction). All patients underwent R0 resection and were transferred to the comprehensive ICU for treatment. The follow-up time of patients with malignant tumors was 43 (6, 72) months. The elderly group had significantly longer surgery time, postoperative hospital stay and oral feeding time than the non-elderly group, and the incidence of delayed gastric emptying (DGE) was significantly higher than that in the non-elderly group. There were no significant differences in intraoperative blood transfusion rate, intraoperative blood loss, pathological results, short-term and severe postoperative complications, reoperation rate and 90-day mortality between the two groups. In patients with vascular resection reconstruction, the intraoperative blood loss in the elderly group was significantly higher than that in the non-elderly group, and the operation time and postoperative hospital stay were significantly longer. During ICU, the acute physiology and chronic health evaluation II [APACHE II: 12 (9, 14) vs. 8 (7, 10)], sequential organ failure assessment [SOFA: 6 (4, 8) vs. 3 (2, 5)] within 24 hours after admission to ICU were significantly increased in the elderly group (both P < 0.05), the time of mechanical ventilation [hours: 12 (10, 15) vs. 9 (5, 13)] and the length of ICU stay [days: 2 (1, 2) vs. 1 (1, 1)] were significantly increased in the elderly group (both P < 0.05), and the proportion of multi-disciplinary team (MDT) was also significantly increased in the elderly group (33.3% vs. 17.4%, P < 0.05), there were no significant differences in the levels of hemoglobin (Hb), albumin, and blood lactic acid between the two groups. Logistic regression analysis showed that the APACHE II score was an independent risk factor for ICU stay after LPD in elderly patients (β = 1.737, P = 0.028). ROC curve showed that the prediction performance was the best when the APACHE II score was 13, with the sensitivity of 72.41% and the specificity of 96.43%, and the area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.884. The Kaplan-Meier survival curve showed that there were no significant difference in median survival time (months: 24.1 vs. 24.7) and 5-year survival rate (19.01% vs. 19.02%) between the elderly group (52 cases) and the non-elderly group (92 cases) among the 144 patients with malignant tumors (both P > 0.05). The median survival time in the pancreatic head carcinoma group was significantly shorter than that in the other tumors group (63 cases; months: 20.2 vs. 40.1, P < 0.05), 5-year survival rate was significantly lower than that in the other tumors group (21.98% vs. 30.91%, P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS LPD is a safe and feasible treatment for elderly patients. APACHE II score has a certain predictive value for ICU stay after LPD in elderly patients.
Humans ; Aged ; Middle Aged ; Sepsis/therapy* ; ROC Curve ; Pancreaticoduodenectomy/adverse effects* ; Retrospective Studies ; Blood Loss, Surgical ; Prognosis ; Pancreatic Neoplasms/surgery* ; Postoperative Complications ; Intensive Care Units

Humans ; Preoperative Exercise ; Preoperative Care ; Postoperative Complications/prevention & control*

Surgical resection plays pivotal role in the treatment of gastric cancer. Adequate preoperative evaluation, precise intraoperative maneuver and delicate postoperative management lay the foundation for successful gastrectomy. The aim of preoperative evaluation is to stage tumor and identify potential risk factors (including preoperative factors like age, ASA status, body mass index, comorbidity, hypoalbuminemia, and intraoperative factors like blood loss and combined resection) which could lead to postoperative complication. With the management of prehabilitation, adequate medical decision could be made and patient's fast recovery could be ensured. With the rapid adoption of ERAS concept, there is increasing attention to prehabilitation which focus on optimization of cardio-pulmonary capacity and muscular-skeletal capacity. Despite of the efficacy of prehabilitation demonstrated by randomized controlled trials, consensus has yet to be reached on the following items: specific intervention, optimal measurement, candidate population and optimal timing for intervention. Balancing the efficiency and safety, preoperative evaluation could be put into clinical practice smoothly.
Humans ; Stomach Neoplasms/complications* ; Preoperative Care/adverse effects* ; Postoperative Complications/etiology* ; Gastrectomy/adverse effects* ; Risk Factors

With the development and application of laparoscopic hepatectomy in major medical centers, domestic and foreign guidelines have summarized the indications, surgical techniques and operational procedures of the surgery. But in primary care facilities, where the surgical equipment are available, laparoscopic hepatectomy is performed only in a small number of cases and the progress of its application remains slow. The reasons possibly lie in the failure of a full understanding of the surgery, the lack of anatomical knowledge of laparoscopic hepatectomy, the lack of close multidisciplinary cooperation in the perioperative period and insufficient training of laparoscopic technology. In this review, we elaborate on three aspects of laparoscopic hepatectomy: preoperative planning, surgical techniques and postoperative management. Before the operation, the surgeons should fully understand the anatomical structure of the liver and select appropriate cases considering both the difficulty of operation and the surgical experience of the surgeons. During the operation, the position of the patient and the layout of the stamping card should be appropriate, and the central venous pressure needs to be well controlled in close cooperation with the anesthesiologist. The surgeons should be proficient at the techniques of liver suspension and pulling and at the use of ultrasonic knife, and select correct techniques for management of bleeding and the control of blood flow in and out of the liver. The patient should receive postoperative management with standard enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) protocols. These experiences may help to improve the practice of laparoscopic hepatectomy in local hospitals or primary care facilities.
China ; Hepatectomy ; Humans ; Laparoscopy/methods* ; Liver Neoplasms/surgery* ; Postoperative Period ; Primary Health Care

The enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) protocol is an evidence-based perioperative care pathway, which is to reduce the perioperative stress and metabolic variation, with the ultimate goal of improving patient recovery and outcomes. This article reviews some hot issues in the clinical practice of ERAS in China. Currently, the concept and pathways of ERAS are very consistent with China's medical reform, and the basic principle of "safety first, efficiency second" should be adhered to. In specific clinical practice, multidisciplinary cooperation, the improvement of surgical quality and the implementation of prehabilitation pathway should be advocated. In addition, the ERAS approaches should be implemented individually to avoid mechanical understanding and dogmatic implementation. The implementation of ERAS and its clinical outcome should be audited to accumulate experience, and a feedback mechanism should be established to improve the outcome continuously. In clinical practice, "fast recovery" should not be the sole purpose. For patients, the decrease in the risk of readmission rate is more important as compared to discharge rate. Additionally, the disparities between the development of ERAS clinical research in China and that in the world are also analyzed in this review. A national ERAS database should be established on the basic platform of academic groups to ensure the development of high-quality clinical research in China.
Critical Pathways ; Enhanced Recovery After Surgery ; Humans ; Length of Stay ; Perioperative Care/methods* ; Postoperative Complications

Enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) is a multimodal perioperative care program to decrease the risk of delayed hospitalization, medical complications, readmission and to improve patient short- and long-term outcomes with minimized level of surgical stress responses through multidisciplinary cooperation. Despite its huge success, the program has challenges for further optimization with a primary focus on modification according to the specific pathophysiology and perioperative management characteristics of patients with gastrointestinal tumors to improve the compliance and implementation rate of items. Patient education, prehabilitation, multimodal analgesia, precision surgery, early mobilization, early oral feeding and oral nutrition supplement (ONS) should be regarded as core terms suitable for all the patients. During the application of ERAS pathway management, it is necessary to fully understand the perioperative changes of organ function and pathophysiology, and to strictly implement the ERAS program and items based on evidence-based medicine. Moreover, the close collaboration of multidisciplinary teams is needed to improve the compliance and increase the adherence rate of ERAS protocol for patients, which emphasizes the dynamic, gap-free and whole course management that covers pre-hospital, pre-operative, intra-operative, post-operative and post-hospital periods. Concurrently, we encourage our patients and their families to participate in the whole healthcare activities. Even more concerning, it is indispensable to adjust ERAS program for special time and special patients. At present, several consensus and guidelines on the ERAS management of gastrointestinal tumor surgery have come out for clinical practice in China, which, however, still lacks a high-level evidence from more high-quality clinical trials conducted by Chinese researchers. It is urgent to carry out a series of large-scale randomized controlled studies in accordance with international standards to obtain high-level evidence-based medical evidence for clinical practice, which is problem-oriented and integrated with features of metabolism and perioperative management of gastrointestinal tumor surgery.
Enhanced Recovery After Surgery ; Gastrointestinal Neoplasms/surgery* ; Humans ; Length of Stay ; Perioperative Care/methods* ; Postoperative Complications

Objective To develop a risk prediction model combining pre/intraoperative risk factors and intraoperative vital signs for postoperative healthcare-associated infection(HAI)based on deep learning. Methods We carried out a retrospective study based on two randomized controlled trials(NCT02715076,ChiCTR-IPR-17011099).The patients who underwent elective radical resection of advanced digestive system tumor were included in this study.The primary outcome was HAI within 30 days after surgery.Logistic regression analysis and long short-term memory(LSTM)model based on iteratively occluding sections of the input were used for feature selection.The risk prediction model for postoperative HAI was developed based on deep learning,combining the selected pre/intraoperative risk factors and intraoperative vital signs,and was evaluated by comparison with other models.Finally,we adopted the simulated annealing algorithm to simulatively adjust the vital signs during surgery,trying to explore the adjustment system that can reduce the risk of HAI. Results A total of 839 patients were included in this study,of which 112(13.3%)developed HAI within 30 days after surgery.The selected pre/intraoperative risk factors included neoadjuvant chemotherapy,parenteral nutrition,esophagectomy,gastrectomy,colorectal resection,pancreatoduodenectomy,hepatic resection,intraoperative blood loss>500 ml,and anesthesia time>4 h.The intraoperative vital signs significantly associated with HAI were in an order of heart rate>core body temperature>systolic blood pressure>diastolic blood pressure.Compared with multivariable Logistic regression model,random forest model,and LSTM model including vital signs only,this deep learning-based prediction model performed best(ACC=0.733,F1=0.237,AUC=0.728).The simulation via simulated annealing algorithm reduced the incidence of postoperative HAI.Moreover,the incidence decreased most in the case of reducing the initial annealing temperature and choosing the last 20% of surgery procedure. Conclusions This study developed a risk prediction model for postoperative HAI based on deep learning,which combined pre/intraoperative risk factors and intraoperative basic vital signs.Using simulated annealing algorithm to adjust intraoperative vital signs could reduce the incidence of postoperative HAI to some extent.
Cross Infection ; Deep Learning ; Delivery of Health Care ; Humans ; Postoperative Period ; Retrospective Studies

Preemptive analgesia refers to the use of analgesics or regional nerve block in advance of nerve conduction changing or nerve remodeling caused by traumatic stimulation, so as to achieve better postoperative pain relief and to prevent postoperative pain hypersensitivity. Preemptive analgesia minimizes or prevents postoperative pain by reducing peripheral and central sensitization, which thereby limit the pain cascade. This paper briefly introduces the mechanism and methods of preemptive analgesia, as well as its application and research progress in the field of oral treatment. With the increased requirements for comfortable medical treatments and popularization of multimodal analgesia in pain management of oral surgery, preemptive analgesia will be more widely studied and applied in oral diagnosis and treatment.
Analgesia/methods* ; Analgesics/therapeutic use* ; Dental Care ; Humans ; Pain, Postoperative/prevention & control*

COVID-19/transmission* ; COVID-19 Testing ; Humans ; Infection Control ; Infectious Disease Transmission, Patient-to-Professional/prevention & control* ; Intraoperative Care ; Pandemics ; Personal Protective Equipment ; Postoperative Care ; Preoperative Care ; Tracheostomy/methods*