Editor's Note Compared with standard wound dressings, single-use negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) devices can reduce the incidence of surgical site infection (SSI) in at-risk patients with closed surgical incisions across a range of surgical specialties, according to a data review highlighted in the February issue of the American Journal…

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Editor's Note A new study finds that the same cells that are involved in preventing damage to the central nervous system – called microglia – help to awaken the brain following anesthesia. The findings appeared January 4 in the journal Nature.  Using electron-microscopy-based synaptic reconstruction, the researchers could see the…

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Editor's Note Dedicated smoke evacuators reduce the number of particles and levels of acetaldehyde and formaldehyde in surgical smoke during laparotomy, according to a study published online October 25, 2023 and in the March 2024 issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons The randomized, double-blind clinical trial…

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Editor's Note Using early postoperative endoscopy to detect anastomotic leakage after minimally invasive esophagectomy does not increase postoperative adverse events, according to a study published February 10 in the journal Surgery. Anastomotic leakage is one of the most severe adverse events of minimally invasive esophagectomy for esophageal cancer. Often deadly,…

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Editor's Note Due to its impact on a variety of organ systems, COVID-19 could elevate perioperative risks even among patients with mild symptoms, according to a study published in the February 2024 issue of Anesthesiology. Focused on patients presenting for elective inpatient surgery between April 2020 and April 2021, the…

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Editor's Note Benefits to mood and sleep should be considered in preoperative consultations with patients with primary hyperparathyroidism, according to a study published February 12 in the journal Surgery. The researchers’ recommendation reportedly departs from the latest recommendations published according to the primary hyperparathyroidism surgical consensus, which exclude these neuropsychological…

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Editor's Note Although ChatGPT has shown human-level performance on several professional and academic benchmarks, a recent study of its potential for clinical applications raised questions among surgeon evaluators. Findings were reported in the journal Surgery on January 20. Specifically, researchers tested OpenAI’s general-purpose large-language model on questions from the Surgical…

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Editor's Note:  Preoperative thyroid hormone replacement independently predicts operative morbidity and length of stay following major abdominal surgery, according to a January 23 report in the American Journal of Surgery. To determine the association between preoperative thyroid hormone replacement and complications following major abdominal surgery, researchers performed a retrospective case…

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Editor's Note: Complex surgeries at high-volume (“hub”) hospitals are less likely to result in death or serious morbidity (DSM) than other hospitals within a system (“spokes”), the American Journal of Surgery reported December 25. However, patients undergoing common surgical care procedures at hubs are more likely to experience prolonged length…

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Editor's Note Postoperative telehealth for general surgery patients is both safe and effective, according to a study published on December 22 in The American Journal of Surgery. The study consisted of a retrospective review of 1,075 veterans undergoing qualifying procedures at a medical center from June 2019 to September 2021.…

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