Incidence and type of complications in non-operated patients at a surgical ward

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This study was designed to analyze a group of non-operated patients admitted to our surgical ward for incidence and type of documented complication. We classified and categorised these complications according to the definition of the Association of Surgeons of the Netherlands (ASN). Our main interest was to identify adverse events for non-operated patients that are caused by medical management and thus preventable.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Complications were prospectively collected in our registry, which is part of an electronic medical patient file, and in retrospective analysed. All non-operated patients admitted to our surgical ward between January 2003 and January 2006 have been analysed for type and incidence of complications.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We recorded 437 complications in 364 (8%) of 4602 non-operated patients and we categorised 196 (45%) of these events in the Hospital - Provider group. In this last category 161 (82%) events were related to medical management and appeared to be preventable. Numerous different types of complications were recorded (n = 69) among the 437 events. Of all the complications, 75 (17%) were found to be a negative effect/failure of therapy.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The incidence of complications in non-operated patients at our surgical ward was 8%, with a great variety in types of events documented. Almost half of all complications (45%) were recorded in the Hospital-Provider category and appeared to be preventable, which needs further investigation.</p

Longitudinal associations between inflammatory markers and fatigue up to two years after colorectal cancer treatment

BACKGROUND: Fatigue is often reported by colorectal cancer survivors (CRC) and largely impacts their quality of life. Inflammation has been linked to fatigue mainly in breast cancer patients. Therefore, we investigated how inflammation is longitudinally associated with fatigue in CRC survivors, up to 2 years post-treatment. METHODS: A total of 257 patients from the ongoing Energy for life after ColoRectal cancer (EnCoRe) cohort study were included in the analysis. Plasma levels of IL6, IL8, IL10, TNFα, hsCRP, and fatigue were measured at 6 weeks, 6, 12, and 24 months post-treatment. Fatigue was measured through the validated Checklist Individual Strength (CIS total, 20-140), consisting of four subscales - subjective fatigue (8-56), motivation (4-28), physical activity (3-21), and concentration (5-35), and the EORTC QLQ-C30 fatigue subscale (0-100). Linear mixed-models were used to assess the confounder-adjusted longitudinal associations between inflammatory markers and overall fatigue along with the subscales. RESULTS: Mean levels of CIS fatigue decreased from 62.9 at 6 weeks to 53.0 at 24 months. In general, levels of inflammatory markers also decreased over time. No statistically significant longitudinal associations were found between IL6, IL8, IL10, TNFα, and fatigue. Higher levels of hsCRP were associated with more CIS fatigue (β per SD 3.21, 95% CI 1.42; 5.01) and EORTC fatigue (β 2.41, 95% CI 0.72; 4.10). CONCLUSION: Increased levels of hsCRP are longitudinally associated with more post-treatment fatigue in CRC survivors. IMPACT: These findings suggest that low-grade inflammation may play a role in fatigue reported by CRC survivors up to 2 years post-treatment