Implications of preoperative hypoalbuminemia in colorectal surgery

Serum albumin has traditionally been used as a quantitative measure of a patient's nutritional status because of its availability and low cost. While malnutrition has a clear definition within both the American and European Societies for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition clinical guidelines, individual surgeons often determine nutritional status anecdotally. Preoperative albumin level has been shown to be the best predictor of mortality after colorectal cancer surgery. Specifically in colorectal surgical patients, hypoalbuminemia significantly increases the length of hospital stay, rates of surgical site infections, enterocutaneous fistula risk, and deep vein thrombosis formation. The delay of surgical procedures to allow for preoperative correction of albumin levels in hypoalbuminemic patients has been shown to improve the morbidity and mortality in patients with severe nutritional risk. The importance of preoperative albumin levels and the patient's chronic inflammatory state on the postoperative morbidity and mortality has led to the development of a variety of surgical scoring systems to predict outcomes efficiently. This review attempts to provide a systematic overview of albumin and its role and implications in colorectal surgery.

Total pancreatectomy and islet autotransplantation: A decade nationwide analysis

AIM: To investigate outcomes and predictors of inhospital morbidity and mortality after total pancreatectomy(TP) and islet autotransplantation. METHODS: The nationwide inpatient sample(NIS) database was used to identify patients who underwent TP and islet autotransplantation(IAT) between 2002-2012 in the United States. Variables of interest were inherent variables of NIS database which included demographic data(age, sex, and race), comorbidities(such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and deficiency anemia), and admission type(elective vs nonelective). The primary endpoints were mortality and postoperative complications according to the ICD-9 diagnosis codes which were reported as the second to 25 th diagnosis of patients in the database. Risk adjusted analysis was performed to investigate morbidity predictors. Multivariate regression analysis was used to identify predictors of in-hospital morbidity.RESULTS: We evaluated a total of 923 patients who underwent IAT after pancreatectomy during 2002-2012. Among them, there were 754 patients who had TP + IAT. The most common indication ofsurgery was chronic pancreatitis(86%) followed by acute pancreatitis(12%). The number of patients undergoing TP + IAT annually significantly increased during the 11 years of study from 53 cases in 2002 to 155 cases in 2012. Overall mortality and morbidity of patients were 0% and 57.8 %, respectively. Postsurgical hypoinsulinemia was reported in 42.3% of patients, indicating that 57.7% of patients were insulin independent during hospitalization. Predictors of inhospital morbidity were obesity [adjusted odds ratio(AOR): 3.02, P = 0.01], fluid and electrolyte disorders(AOR: 2.71, P < 0.01), alcohol abuse(AOR: 2.63, P < 0.01), and weight loss(AOR: 2.43, P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: TP + IAT is a safe procedure with no mortality, acceptable morbidity, and achieved high rate of early insulin independence. Obesity is the most significant predictor of in-hospital morbidity.

Surgical management of rectal prolapse: The role of robotic surgery

The robotic technique as a safe approach in treatment of rectal prolapse has been widely reported during the last decade. Although there is limited clinical dataregarding the benefits of robotic surgery, the safety of robotic surgery in rectal prolapse treatment has been cited by several authors. Also, the robotic approach helps overcome some of the laparoscopic approach challenges with purported advantages including improved visualization, more precise dissection, easier suturing, accurate identification of anatomic structures and fewer conversions to open surgery which can facilitate the conduct of technically challenging cases. These advantages can make robotic surgery ideally suited for minimally invasive ventral rectopexy. Currently, with greater surgeon experience in robotic surgery, the length of the procedure and the recurrence rate with the robotic approach are decreasing and short term outcomes for robotic rectal prolapse seem on par with laparoscopic and open techniques in recent studies. However, the high cost of robotic procedures is still an important issue. The benefits of a robotic approach must be weighed against the higher cost. More research is needed to better understand if the increased cost is justified by an improvement in outcomes. Also, published articles comparing long term outcomes of the robotic approach with other approaches are very limited at this time and further clinical trials are indicated to affirm the role of robotic surgery in the treatment of rectal prolapse.