Variations in death rates after surgery for cancers prompt initiative to improve patient outcomes
Numerous previous studies have shown that hospitals that see and treat the highest numbers of patients for a variety of diseases and conditions ranging from cancer to cardiology tend to have greater expertise, resulting in better outcomes for the patients they treat. However, this latest study shows that this is not necessarily the full story, and, as a result, Dr Johan Dikken (MD, PhD), a surgical resident at the Leiden University Medical Center and the Medical Center Haaglanden (The Netherlands), will tell the congress that European cancer surgeons have launched a new initiative — the European Upper GI Cancer Audit (EURECCA Upper GI) — to find out the reasons for the differences between countries. The pilot study, which ran between 2004 and 2009, examined outcomes after 10,854 surgical operations for esophageal cancer and 9,010 operations for gastric cancer in The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and England…