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Journal and News Scan
June 22, 2017
Submitted by: Aristotle Protopapas
The Amsterdam Investigator-initiated Absorb Strategy All-comers Trial report safety concerns identified in early results for the bioresorbable scaffold drug eluting stent. The scaffold group experienced significantly higher rates of device thrombosis than the stent group (3.5% vs 0.9%; p<0.001). It seems that no stent, no matter how sophisticated and costly it may be, will ever match arterial coronary bypass in long term outcomes.
June 20, 2017
Submitted by: Claire Vernon
David and colleagues investigate tricuspid regurgitation (TR) before and after mitral valve (MV) repair in a retrospective analysis of over 1000 patients. TR was present prior to surgery in 11.8% of cases and new postoperative TR was not common. The authors suggest that their findings support repairing the MV before TR develops.
Commentary from Gillinov and collegues, Dreyfus, and Chikwe and Adams adds to the discussion on tricuspid annuloplasty during degenerative mitral repair:
The tricuspid valve: If it's not broken, don't fix it. Marc Gillinov, Stephanie Mick, Kenneth McCurry, Jose Navia.
Functional tricuspid pathology: To treat or not to treat? That is the question. Gilles D. Dreyfus.
The donkey's shadow. Joanna Chikwe, David H. Adams.
June 19, 2017
Submitted by: Joel Dunning
This is a MUST read article on how predatory journals who only make money by charging authors are sidelining ethics and the usual standards of peer review in order to make a profit.
With the author as their only source of income this neccessarily influences their editorial policies. But many of these journals have been heralded as a new era of open-access in contrast to the subscription publications, painting companies as Elsevier as 'greedy' companies whose subscription fees constantly rise over time.
This article casts very interesting light on these open-access journals. It does state that not every open-access journal is neccessarily predatory, but the 'author-pays', online-only, model does inherently influence editorial policy in the opposite direction to that of a limited page, impact factor driven standard journal.
Let us know your views -
Have you ever paid significant amounts of money to get your paper published ?
Or are these journals the future and it is right that open-access means all papers are free to readers around the world ?
June 19, 2017
Submitted by: Claire Vernon
Chudgar and colleagues evaluated clinicopathologic variables and characteristics of treatment for 539 patients who had undergone pulmonary metastasectomy for soft-tissue sarcoma at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. They report several factors associated with improved survival, including minimally invasive approaches and histological subtype.
Commentaries from Berry and from Hoang consider the application of these findings to patient selection for metastasectomy:
Evidence for resection of sarcoma pulmonary metastases: More, but better? Mark F. Berry.
Resection of pulmonary sarcomatous metastases: Cut to cure? Chuong D. Hoang.
June 19, 2017
Submitted by: Claire Vernon
Gaudino and colleagues report a retrospective analysis of short-term outcomes following aortic valve-sparing operations (VSO) with and without reconstruction of the sinuses of Valsalva (SV). Despite the importance of the SV for aortic valve function, data evaluating SV reconstruction with VSO are limited. Clinical outcomes and aortic valve status were not affected by SV recreation, however adverse events were rare in both groups.
June 15, 2017
Submitted by: Lisa Brown
Prospective observational cohort study of 106 patients undergoing repair of giant paraesphageal hernia (GPEH) with near complete follow-up at 1 year. Outcomes measured at the first postoperative visit and at one year were radiographic recurrence, patient satisfaction and GERD-HRQL score. Importantly, this study compared patients with small radiographic recurrence (<2cm) to those with a commonly used definition of radiographic recurrence (classified as large recurrence for this cohort): >2cm or 10% of the stomach above the diaphragm. Most patients underwent laparoscopic repair (80.2%) and 66% had an esophageal lengthening procedure. The overall recurrence rate at one year was 32.7% versus 18.8% using the commonly used definition (>2cm or 10% of the stomach above the diaphragm). Patient satisfaction increased from 2.9% preoperatively to 85% at 1 month and 71.4% at one year. There was no difference in patient satisfaction between those with small and large recurrences (57.1% versus 52.6%). The median GERD-HRQL score was 22.5 preoperative, 3.0 at one month, and 7.0 at one year. There was no difference in GERD-HRQL scores between patients with small and large recurrences (12.0 versus 14.0). The authors concluded that any recurrence, whether small or large, has a negative effect on patient satisfaction and control of symptoms and that there is a need for further investigation of patients with small recurrences to determine their clinical importance.
June 14, 2017
Submitted by: Benjamin Bidstrup
The authors have examined impedance aggregometry on patients undergoing CABG on DAPT. They examined the impact of cessation on beeding and transfusion and showed a higher level of platelet function led to lower transfusions.
June 13, 2017
Submitted by: Aristotle Protopapas
A succinct review of cardiac amyloidosis, particularly relevant to transplant surgeons that are expected to see more patients with the condition
June 12, 2017
Submitted by: Claire Vernon
Ejiofor, et al. present a retrospective analysis of the mid- and long-term outcomes following isolated tricuspid valve (TV) surgery in 57 adult patients, with overall operative mortality of 8.6% and similar mid-term outcomes for TV repair versus replacement. Less than one-quarter of TV operations are done in the absence of another pathology; the decision to perform isolated TV operations is more controversial, however the authors note an increasing interest in such interventions in the literature.
June 11, 2017
Submitted by: Joel Dunning
Dozens of recent clinical trials contain suspicious statistical patterns that could indicate incorrect or falsified data, according to a review of thousands of papers published in leading medical journals.
The analysis was carried out by John Carlisle, a consultant anaesthetist at Torbay Hospital, who previously used similar statistical tools to expose one of the most egregious cases of scientific fraud on record, involving a Japanese anaesthesiologist who was found to have fabricated data in many of his 183 retracted scientific papers.
The latest study identified 90 trials that had skewed baseline statistics, 43 of which with measurements that had about a one in a quadrillion probability of occurring by chance.
This study is published in Anaesthesia and it names the papers concerned - go here to read the paper
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/anae.13938/full