Background
The aim of this study is to investigate the outcomes of conservative management of non-complicated acute appendicitis (AA) using our unique institutional protocol, and to compare between ...these and the outcomes of operative management.
Methods
Patients admitted to our institution between March 2016 and October 2019 with non-complicated AA were grouped according to their initial management: non-operative versus surgical. Our unique protocol for non-operative management includes: pain < 3 days; afebrile upon admission; non-gravid; WBC <15,000 (× 10
9
/L); CRP < 5 mg/dl; appendix diameter < 1 cm; no appendicolith on imaging; no prior episode of AA; no history of Inflammatory Bowel Disease; no evidence of peritonitis on physical examination. The primary outcome measured was failure of non-surgical management during the index admission. Secondary outcomes included recurrence rate, readmissions, complications, length of antibiotic treatment and length of stay (LOS).
Results
A total of 695 patients were included, 436 in the operative group and 259 in the non-surgical treatment group. The mean follow-up time was 1004.9 ± 205.7 days. Patients initially treated conservatively rarely required surgery during their index admission (6.9%). Recurrence rate was 19.1% after a mean follow up of 33.4 months. The overall failure rate of conservative management was documented in 20.8% of the patients. The complication rate was higher in those treated with upfront surgery (1.6% vs. 0.4%,
p
< 0.001). The overall LOS was not statistically different between the groups.
Conclusions
Our composite protocol for non-surgical management of non-complicated AA results in a low failure rate. A well calculated patient treatment allocation in non-complicated AA can advocate for wide-spread use of the conservative approach.
Purpose
One-anastomosis-gastric-bypass (OAGB) has become a common bariatric procedure worldwide. Marginal ulcers (MU) are a significant non-immediate complication of gastric bypass surgeries. There ...seems to be concern among surgeons that MU are more common after OAGB compared with Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) due to the constant and extensive exposure of the anastomosis to bile. The aim of this study was to compare the incidence, presentation, and management of MU between the two surgeries.
Materials and Methods
A retrospective study of prospectively collected data was performed to include all consecutive patients between 2010 and 2020, who underwent elective OAGB or RYGB at our institution. Patients diagnosed with symptomatic MU were identified. Factors associated with this complication were assessed and compared between the two surgeries.
Results
Symptomatic MU were identified in 23/372 OAGB patients (6.2%) and 35/491 RYGB patients (7.1%) (
p
= 0.58). Time to ulcer diagnosis was shorter in OAGB patients (12 ± 11 vs. 22 ± 17 months,
p
< 0.01). Epigastric pain was the common symptom (78% OAGB vs. 88.5% RYGB,
p
= 0.7) and approximately 15% of ulcers presented with perforation upon admission (17% vs.11.4%,
p
= 0.7). Re-operation was required in 5/23 OAGB (21.7%) and 6/36 RYGB (17%) patients (
p
= 0.11) while the rest of the patients were managed non-operatively.
Conclusions
The risk of developing a marginal ulcer is similar between patients who underwent OAGB and RYGB. Patients diagnosed with MU following OAGB tend to present earlier; however, the clinical presentation is similar to RYGB patients. The management of this serious complication seems to be associated with acceptable outcomes with comparable operative and non-operative approaches.
Small intestinal neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are a heterogeneous group of epithelial tumors with a predominant neuroendocrine differentiation. Although NETs are usually considered rare neoplasms, ...small intestinal NETs are the most common primary malignancy of the small bowel, with an increasing prevalence worldwide during the course of the past few decades. The indolent nature of these tumors often leads to a delayed diagnosis, resulting in over one-third of patients presenting with synchronous metastases. Primary tumor resection remains the only curative option for this type of tumor. In this review article, the various surgical aspects for the excision of small intestinal NETs are discussed.
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted presentation, management strategies, and patient outcomes of numerous medical conditions. The aim of this study is to perform a year-to-year comparison of clinical ...outcomes of patients with acute appendicitis (AA) before and during the pandemic.
Patients treated for AA during the initial 12-mo period of the pandemic at our institute were compared to those treated for AA during the 12-mo period before. Clinical and laboratory parameters, treatment strategies, intraoperative findings, pathology reports, and postoperative outcomes were compared.
During the study period, 541 patients presented with AA. The median (interquartile range) age was 28 (21-40) y and 292 (54%) were males. 262 (48%) patients presented during the pre-COVID-19 period, while 279 patients (52%) presented during the COVID 19 pandemic. The groups were comparable for baseline clinical data and imaging results upon index admission. There was no significant difference in rate of nonoperative treatment between the Pre-COVID-19 and During-COVID-19 eras (51% versus 53%, P = 0.6) as well as the success rate of such treatment (95.4% versus 96.4%, P = 0.3). Significantly more patients presented with a periappendicular abscess during COVID-19 (4.6% versus 1.1%, P = 0.01) and median (interquartile range) operative time was significantly longer (78 (61-90) versus 32.5 (27-45) min, P < 0.001). Pathology reports revealed a higher rate of perforated appendicitis during COVID-19 (27.4% versus 10.2%, P < 0.001).
Patients with AA present with higher rates of perforated and complicated appendicitis during the COVID-19 pandemic. The success rates of nonoperative management in selected patients with noncomplicated AA did not change during the pandemic and is a safe, feasible, option.
Early recognition of bowel ischemia is critical in patients suffering from acute adhesive small bowel obstruction (ASBO). Recent studies attempted to propose a score combining clinical and ...radiological factors to predict the risk of bowel ischemia in patients with ASBO. This study aimed to compare and validate the existing clinical scores with a cohort of surgical patients.
We conducted a retrospective study including all ASBO cases admitted to our institution between January 1, 2005 and December 31, 2019. Based on three existing clinical scores, we calculated the risk of bowel ischemia for each patient. We then divided the cohort into groups based on the risk for bowel ischemia. For each risk-based category, the proportion of patients who underwent surgical resection and were found to have evidence of ischemic bowel was calculated.
A total of 160 patients presenting with 217 episodes of acute ASBO were included. One hundred seventy-one (78.8%) cases were managed nonoperatively while 46 cases (21.2%) required surgery. Sixteen patients (7.3%) were eventually found to have ischemic bowel while 13 required small bowel resection (5.9%). All three clinical scores showed correlation between the calculated risk of ischemia and the intraoperative finding of ischemia. However, all three scores overestimated ischemia rates in the high-risk groups, yielding a PPV of 8.3%-28.5% and a NPV of 93.3%-94.7%.
Current clinical scores for predicting bowel ischemia in patients with ASBO are of high value in ruling out ischemia, yet are of extremely low sensitivity, warranting an overly aggressive and unnecessary surgical approach.
Recent advancements in natural language processing, especially the emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs), have opened exciting possibilities for constructing computational simulations designed to ...replicate human behavior accurately. However, LLMs are complex statistical learners without straightforward deductive rules, making them prone to unexpected behaviors. In this study, we highlight the limitations of LLMs in simulating human interactions, particularly focusing on LLMs' ability to simulate political debates. Our findings indicate a tendency for LLM agents to conform to the model's inherent social biases despite being directed to debate from certain political perspectives. This tendency results in behavioral patterns that seem to deviate from well-established social dynamics among humans. We reinforce these observations using an automatic self-fine-tuning method, which enables us to manipulate the biases within the LLM and demonstrate that agents subsequently align with the altered biases. These results underscore the need for further research to develop methods that help agents overcome these biases, a critical step toward creating more realistic simulations.
