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Experience
counts if you are an older person planning to undergo high-risk
heart or cancer surgery, according to a Dartmouth Medical
School study reported in the April 11th issue of the New England
Journal of Medicine.
Focusing
on 14 high-risk cardiovascular and cancer operations, the
researchers found that older patients fared better at high
volume hospitals when undergoing heart valve replacement,
abdominal aneurysm repair and surgery for various cancers.
For each
of these procedures, the study found that death rates at the
highest volume hospitals were between two percent and five
percent lower than at the lowest volume hospitals.
"In
the absence of better information about surgical quality,
patients undergoing many procedures can substantially improve
their survival odds by selecting a high volume hospital near
them," the researchers concluded.
The study
found that hospital volume was least important for patients
having coronary artery bypass surgery, as death rates at the
highest and lowest volume hospitals differed by less than
two percentage points.
More than
20,000 elderly patients die each year in the United States
while undergoing one of the 14 high-risk and often elective
operations. More than 1,000 of these deaths could be averted
if patients had chosen the highest volume hospitals over the
lowest volume ones, said lead researcher Dr. John D. Birkmeyer,
associate professor of surgery and a general surgeon at Dartmouth-Hitchcock
Medical Center.
Source:
Heart
Disease Week of April 14, 2002
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