Editor's Note In this study, 30-day complications rates increased after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned against the use of power morcellation in women undergoing hysterectomy for benign gynecologic indications. In a cohort of 75,487 women who had hysterectomies, statistically and clinically significant increases in major (1.9% to 2.4%)…

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Editor's Note Spinal anesthesia was associated with lower mortality and morbidity rates after hip fracture repair than general anesthesia in this study that will be presented Saturday April 19 at the 2018 World Congress on Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine in New York City. In this analysis of 2,591 patients,…

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Editor's Note The use of nonopioid analgesics intraoperatively was one of eight factors found to predict postoperative pain in the first 24 hours after spine surgery, finds this study that will be presented Saturday April 21 at the 2018 World Congress on Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine in New York…

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Editor's Note Patients at Porter Adventist Hospital in Denver may be at risk for HIV or hepatitis after the hospital discovered a surgical instrument sterilization breach, the April 5 LiveScience reports. The process for precleaning surgical instruments was found to be inadequate, which may have put patients who had orthopedic…

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Editor's Note At First Hill Surgery Center in Seattle, patients can have a knee or hip replaced in the morning and go home in the afternoon, the April Seattle Magazine reports. The surgical procedure takes about 2 hours, and patients admitted at 7:30 am generally are able to return home…

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Editor's Note Anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) can be performed on an outpatient basis with comparable morbidity, readmission rates, and lower costs as on an inpatient basis, finds this study. In this analysis of 3,135 outpatient and 46,966 inpatient ACDFs, the mean Charlson comorbidity index, length of stay, and…

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Editor's Note Movement in the OR is associated with microbial load, this study finds. Researchers determined areas in the OR with high and low numbers of people in transit and placed air samplers and settle plates in representative locations during 21 surgical procedures, in four ORs, during two seasons of…

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Editor's Note Frailty is an important risk factor for postoperative complications and failure to rescue, after both low-risk and high-risk surgical procedures, this study finds. In this study of 984,550 patients in the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program, there was a dose-response association between increasing patient…

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Editor's Note In this study from the UK, researchers found a robust relationship between a surgeon’s daily OR schedule and surgical performance (indexed by duration of procedure). The researchers say surgeons should reorder their OR schedule, starting their days with the simpler cases and building up to the more difficult…

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Editor's Note Transparency Market Research predicts the global spinal fusion devices market will reach more than $10.97 billion by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 4.65%, the March 19 Becker’s Spine Review reports. Growth will be driven by the aging US population that is susceptible to degenerative spine…

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