Background:
The incidence of surgical site infection (SSI) across surgical procedures, specialties, and conditions is reported to vary from 0.1% to 50%. Operative duration is often cited as an ...independent and potentially modifiable risk factor for SSI. The objective of this systematic review was to provide an in-depth understanding of the relation between operating time and SSI.
Patients and Methods:
This review included 81 prospective and retrospective studies. Along with study design, likelihood of SSI, mean operative times, time thresholds, effect measures, confidence intervals, and p values were extracted. Three meta-analyses were conducted, whereby odds ratios were pooled by hourly operative time thresholds, increments of increasing operative time, and surgical specialty.
Results:
Pooled analyses demonstrated that the association between extended operative time and SSI typically remained statistically significant, with close to twice the likelihood of SSI observed across various time thresholds. The likelihood of SSI increased with increasing time increments; for example, a 13%, 17%, and 37% increased likelihood for every 15 min, 30 min, and 60 min of surgery, respectively. On average, across various procedures, the mean operative time was approximately 30 min longer in patients with SSIs compared with those patients without.
Conclusions:
Prolonged operative time can increase the risk of SSI. Given the importance of SSIs on patient outcomes and health care economics, hospitals should focus efforts to reduce operative time.
The aim of this study was to systematically synthesize the large volume of literature reporting on the association between operative duration and complications across various surgical specialties and ...procedure types.
An electronic search of PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews from January 2005 to January 2015 was conducted. Sixty-six observational studies met the inclusion criteria.
Pooled analyses showed that the likelihood of complications increased significantly with prolonged operative duration, approximately doubling with operative time thresholds exceeding 2 or more hours. Meta-analyses also demonstrated a 14% increase in the likelihood of complications for every 30 min of additional operating time.
Prolonged operative time is associated with an increase in the risk of complications. Given the adverse consequences of complications, decreased operative times should be a universal goal for surgeons, hospitals, and policy-makers. Future study is recommended on the evaluation of interventions targeted to reducing operating time.
Previous studies on telemedicine have either focused on its role in the management of chronic diseases in general or examined its effectiveness in comparison to standard post-discharge care. Little ...has been done to determine the comparative impact of different telemedicine options for a specific population such as individuals with heart failure (HF).
Systematic reviews (SR) of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that examined telephone support, telemonitoring, video monitoring or electrocardiographic monitoring for HF patients were identified using a comprehensive search of the following databases: MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL and The Cochrane Library. Studies were included if they reported the primary outcome of mortality or any of the following secondary outcomes: all-cause hospitalization and heart failure hospitalization. Thirty RCTs (N = 10,193 patients) were included. Compared to usual care, structured telephone support was found to reduce the odds of mortality(Odds Ratio 0.80; 95% Credible Intervals 0.66 to 0.96) and hospitalizations due to heart failure (0.69; 0.56 to 0.85). Telemonitoring was also found to reduce the odds of mortality(0.53; 0.36 to 0.80) and reduce hospitalizations related to heart failure (0.64; 0.39 to 0.95) compared to usual post-discharge care. Interventions that involved ECG monitoring also reduced the odds of hospitalization due to heart failure (0.71; 0.52 to 0.98).
Much of the evidence currently available has focused on the comparing either telephone support or telemonitoring with usual care. This has therefore limited our current understanding of how some of the less common forms of telemedicine compare to one another.
Compared to usual care, structured telephone support and telemonitoring significantly reduced the odds of deaths and hospitalization due to heart failure. Despite being the most widely studied forms of telemedicine, little has been done to directly compare these two interventions against one another. Further research into their comparative cost-effectiveness is also warranted.
Background Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is an inflammatory disease that affects 2% to 16% of the US population. Despite its increasing prevalence, there are currently limited data in the literature ...evaluating the economic burden of this disease. Objective This study aimed to determine the direct health care costs of CRS from the perspective of the US government. Methods A prevalence-based approach was used to estimate cost of illness for CRS from the 2011 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey database by using a 4-part model: (1) an estimated sum of all health care expenditures, (2) an attribution model for disease-specific estimation of expenditures, (3) an estimation based on a propensity score model, and (4) estimated disease-specific expenditure by using a linear regression–based approach. A disease prevalence of 3.5% was used. Results The mean CRS-specific annual expenditure was $5955 (95% CI, $5087-$6823) by using method 1 compared with $5560 (95% CI, $4689-$6431) by using method 2 and $5560 (95% CI, $4653-$6467) by using method 3. The annual expenditure, as estimated by using method 4, was $5589 (95% CI, $4986-$6192). Ambulatory expenses accounted for the largest proportion of expenditures, followed by prescription and in-hospital expenses. Conclusions This study provided a range of estimates of the direct medical expenditures associated with CRS. We demonstrated that the economic burden attributable to this disease was an estimated $60.2 to $64.5 billion US dollars in 2011, with a wide variation in the total and incremental direct expenditures depending on the type of estimation model used and the prevalence assumed.
Summary Background Serious infections are a major concern for patients considering treatments for rheumatoid arthritis. Evidence is inconsistent as to whether biological drugs are associated with an ...increased risk of serious infection compared with traditional disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs). We did a systematic review and meta-analysis of serious infections in patients treated with biological drugs compared with those treated with traditional DMARDs. Methods We did a systematic literature search with Medline, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and ClinicalTrials.gov from their inception to Feb 11, 2014. Search terms included “biologics”, “rheumatoid arthritis” and their synonyms. Trials were eligible for inclusion if they included any of the approved biological drugs and reported serious infections. We assessed the risk of bias with the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool. We did a Bayesian network meta-analysis of published trials using a binomial likelihood model to assess the risk of serious infections in patients with rheumatoid arthritis who were treated with biological drugs, compared with those treated with traditional DMARDs. The odds ratio (OR) of serious infection was the primary measure of treatment effect and calculated 95% credible intervals using Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods. Findings The systematic review identified 106 trials that reported serious infections and included patients with rheumatoid arthritis who received biological drugs. Compared with traditional DMARDs, standard-dose biological drugs (OR 1·31, 95% credible interval CrI 1·09–1·58) and high-dose biological drugs (1·90, 1·50–2·39) were associated with an increased risk of serious infections, although low-dose biological drugs (0·93, 0·65–1·33) were not. The risk was lower in patients who were methotrexate naive compared with traditional DMARD-experienced or anti-tumour necrosis factor biological drug-experienced patients. The absolute increase in the number of serious infections per 1000 patients treated each year ranged from six for standard-dose biological drugs to 55 for combination biological therapy, compared with traditional DMARDs. Interpretation Standard-dose and high-dose biological drugs (with or without traditional DMARDs) are associated with an increase in serious infections in rheumatoid arthritis compared with traditional DMARDs, although low-dose biological drugs are not. Clinicians should discuss the balance between benefit and harm with the individual patient before starting biological treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. Funding Rheumatology Division at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Biologics are used for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and many other conditions. While the efficacy of biologics has been established, there is uncertainty regarding the adverse effects of ...this treatment. Since serious risks such as tuberculosis (TB) reactivation, serious infections, and lymphomas may be common to the biologics but occur in small numbers across the various indications, we planned to combine the results from biologics used in many conditions to obtain the much needed risk estimates.
To compare the adverse effects of tumor necrosis factor blocker (etanercept, adalimumab, infliximab, golimumab, certolizumab), interleukin (IL)-1 antagonist (anakinra), IL-6 antagonist (tocilizumab), anti-CD28 (abatacept), and anti-B cell (rituximab) therapy in patients with any disease condition except human immunodeficiency disease (HIV/AIDS).
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs), controlled clinical trials (CCTs) and open-label extension (OLE) studies that studied one of the nine biologics for use in any indication (with the exception of HIV/AIDS) and that reported our pre-specified adverse outcomes were considered for inclusion. We searched The Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, and EMBASE (to January 2010). Identifying search results and data extraction were performed independently and in duplicate. For the network meta-analysis, we performed mixed-effects logistic regression using an arm-based, random-effects model within an empirical Bayes framework.
We included 163 RCTs with 50,010 participants and 46 extension studies with 11,954 participants. The median duration of RCTs was six months and 13 months for OLEs. Data were limited for tuberculosis (TB) reactivation, lymphoma, and congestive heart failure. Adjusted for dose, biologics as a group were associated with a statistically significant higher rate of total adverse events (odds ratio (OR) 1.19, 95% CI 1.09 to 1.30; number needed to treat to harm (NNTH) = 30, 95% CI 21 to 60) and withdrawals due to adverse events (OR 1.32, 95% CI 1.06 to 1.64; NNTH = 37, 95% CI 19 to 190) and an increased risk of TB reactivation (OR 4.68, 95% CI 1.18 to 18.60; NNTH = 681, 95% CI 143 to 14706) compared to control.The rate of serious adverse events, serious infections, lymphoma, and congestive heart failure were not statistically significantly different between biologics and control treatment. Certolizumab pegol was associated with significantly higher risk of serious infections compared to control treatment (OR 3.51, 95% CI 1.59 to 7.79; NNTH = 17, 95% CI 7 to 68). Infliximab was associated with significantly higher risk of withdrawals due to adverse events compared to control (OR 2.04, 95% CI 1.43 to 2.91; NNTH = 12, 95% CI 8 to 28). Indirect comparisons revealed that abatacept and anakinra were associated with a significantly lower risk of serious adverse events compared to most other biologics. Although the overall numbers are relatively small, certolizumab pegol was associated with significantly higher odds of serious infections compared to etanercept, adalimumab, abatacept, anakinra, golimumab, infliximab, and rituximab; abatacept was significantly less likely than infliximab and tocilizumab to be associated with serious infections. Abatacept, adalimumab, etanercept and golimumab were significantly less likely than infliximab to result in withdrawals due to adverse events.
Overall, in the short term biologics were associated with significantly higher rates of total adverse events, withdrawals due to adverse events and TB reactivation. Some biologics had a statistically higher association with certain adverse outcomes compared to control, but there was no consistency across the outcomes so caution is needed in interpreting these results.There is an urgent need for more research regarding the long-term safety of biologics and the comparative safety of different biologics. National and international registries and other types of large databases are relevant sources for providing complementary evidence regarding the short- and longer-term safety of biologics.
Insulin analogues may be associated with fewer episodes of hypoglycemia than conventional insulins. However, they are costly alternatives. We compared the cost-effectiveness of insulin analogues and ...conventional insulins used to treat type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus in adults.
We conducted a cost-effectiveness evaluation of insulin analogues versus conventional insulins using the Center for Outcomes Research Diabetes Model. We compared rapid-acting analogues (insulin aspart and insulin lispro) with regular human insulin, and long-acting analogues (insulin glargine and insulin detemir) with neutral protamine Hagedorn insulin. We derived clinical information for the comparisons from meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials. We obtained cost and utility estimates from published sources. We performed sensitivity analyses to test the robustness of our results.
For type 1 diabetes, insulin aspart was more effective and less costly than regular human insulin. Insulin lispro was associated with an incremental cost of Can$28,996 per quality-adjusted life-year. The incremental cost per quality-adjusted life-year was Can$87,932 for insulin glargine and Can$387,729 for insulin detemir, compared with neutral protamine Hagedorn insulin. For type 2 diabetes, insulin aspart was associated with an incremental cost of Can$22,488 per quality-adjusted life-year compared with regular human insulin. For insulin lispro, the incremental cost was Can$130,865. Compared with neutral protamine Hagedorn insulin, insulin detemir was less effective and more costly. Insulin glargine was associated with an incremental cost of Can$642,994 per quality-adjusted life-year. The model was sensitive to changes in the effect size of hemoglobin A(1c) and to decrements applied to utility scores when fear of hypoglycemia was included as a factor.
The cost-effectiveness of insulin analogues depends on the type of insulin analogue and whether the patient receiving the treatment has type 1 or type 2 diabetes. With the exception of rapid-acting insulin analogues in type 1 diabetes, routine use of insulin analogues, especially long-acting analogues in type 2 diabetes, is unlikely to represent an efficient use of finite health care resources.
Recurrent acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) are common, debilitating, costly and often difficult to prevent.
We reviewed records of patients who had COPD and ...immunoglobulin (Ig) treatment as adjunctive preventative treatment for AECOPD, and documented all AECOPD episodes for one year before and after initiation of Ig treatment. We graded AECOPD episodes as moderate for prescription of antibiotics and/or corticosteroids or for visit to the Emergency Department, and as severe for hospital admission. We conducted a retrospective within-subject self-controlled risk interval analysis to compare the outcome of annual AECOPD rate before and after treatment.
We identified 22 cases of certain COPD, of which three had early discontinuation of Ig treatment due to rash and local swelling to subcutaneous Ig, and five had incomplete records leaving 14 cases for analyses. The median baseline IgG level was 5.9 g/L (interquartile range 4.1-7.4). Eight had CT radiographic bronchiectasis. Overall, the incidence of AECOPD was consistently and significantly reduced in frequency from mean 4.7 (± 3.1) per patient-year before, to 0.6 (± 1.0) after the Ig treatment (p = 0.0001). There were twelve episodes of severe AECOPD (in seven cases) in the year prior, and one in the year after Ig treatment initiation (p = 0.016).
Ig treatment appears to decrease the frequency of moderate and severe recurrent AECOPD. A prospective, controlled evaluation of adjunctive Ig treatment to standard therapy of recurrent AECOPD is warranted.
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