Facility Expertise Matters for Mesothelioma Surgery

Patients having aggressive surgery for pleural mesothelioma at high-volume facilities experience fewer complications, shorter hospital stays and lower 30-day readmission rates than those treated at low-volume centers. Overall survival rates were higher and 90-day mortality rates were lower at the high-volume facilities, according to a study published in the June issue of Lung Cancer. The new study, based on data from the National Cancer Database (NCDB), is the largest to compare facility volume with post-surgery outcome for pleural mesothelioma. “In general, going to a high-volume center for oncology care makes sense, but particularly for a rare cancer such as mesothelioma,” Dr. Charles Simone, radiation oncologist at University of Maryland Medical Center and study co-author, told Asbestos.com. “Coupled with being one of the largest oncology surgeries there is, it makes expertise critically important.” Simone is the director at the Maryland Proton Treatment Center and part of the multidisciplinary mesothelioma tumor board at the University of Maryland Medical Center. He was joined by researchers from Penn Medicine in Philadelphia and the Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. “Our hypothesis [going into the study] was there would be less perioperative mortality in high-volume centers because there is more surgical expertise,” Simone said. “And that’s exactly what we found.” Fewer Complications at High-Volume Facilities The study compared complications ...
Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Source Type: news