Outcome of the “Manchester Groin Repair” (Laparoscopic Totally Extraperitoneal Approach With Fibrin Sealant Mesh Fixation) in 434 Consecutive Inguinal Hernia Repairs

Introduction: This study looks at the outcome of 352 patients that underwent the “Manchester groin repair” in the period from 2007 to 2016. The effect of laterality on chronic groin pain and the reduction of pain scores post-surgery are evaluated as well as the rate of hernia recurrence for the inguinal hernia repairs.Methods: The “Manchester groin repair” is a modification of a laparoscopic totally extra-peritoneal approach with fibrin sealant mesh fixation. Data were collected prospectively. In addition to demographic data and the European Hernia Society classification grading of each hernia, pain scores were assessed prior to surgery and at 4–6 weeks post-operatively using a ten-point visual analog pain scale. Data were collected on a bespoke database and differences between time-points analyzed by non-parametric Wilcoxon signed rank tests with Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test for three-group comparisons. Significance was at the P < 0.05 level. The study was undertaken as an institutional audit.Results: Three hundred and fifty two patients underwent TEP repair as per the “Manchester Groin Repair” modification during the period of interest with a median follow-up period of 109.5 (IQR 57.0–318.5) weeks. Of these 274 (77.8%) were for the repair of true hernias and 78 (22.2%) were for inguinal disruptions.All inguinal hernia repairs patients were evaluated (254 m, 20 f); median [interquartile range] age 50 (39–65) years. There were 75 right inguinal hernias (27.4%), 39 Left inguinal hernias (14.2%), and 160 bilateral inguinal hernias (58.4%), giving a total of 434 hernia repairs. During follow-up there were 6 recurrences (1.4%).Of the 274 patients evaluated, 145 (52.9%) had both pre and post-operative pain scores available. Median pre-operative pain score was 5 [IQR 4–7]. Median post-operative pain score was 1 [IQR 1–2]. This difference was significant (P < 0.001). Pre-operative pain scores were higher for those with a bilateral hernia (median 6 vs. 5 and 4, respectively; P = 0.005), but there was no difference in post-operative scores (P = 0.347). One patient (0.3%) presented with chronic groin pain (pain after 3 months).Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the “Manchester groin repair” provides an excellent repair with a low rate of recurrence and low incidence of chronic pain. Longer-term evaluation and larger patient series will add to the understanding of the role of this procedure in groin hernia repair

Utilisation of an operative difficulty grading scale for laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background A reliable system for grading operative difficulty of laparoscopic cholecystectomy would standardise description of findings and reporting of outcomes. The aim of this study was to validate a difficulty grading system (Nassar scale), testing its applicability and consistency in two large prospective datasets. Methods Patient and disease-related variables and 30-day outcomes were identified in two prospective cholecystectomy databases: the multi-centre prospective cohort of 8820 patients from the recent CholeS Study and the single-surgeon series containing 4089 patients. Operative data and patient outcomes were correlated with Nassar operative difficultly scale, using Kendall’s tau for dichotomous variables, or Jonckheere–Terpstra tests for continuous variables. A ROC curve analysis was performed, to quantify the predictive accuracy of the scale for each outcome, with continuous outcomes dichotomised, prior to analysis. Results A higher operative difficulty grade was consistently associated with worse outcomes for the patients in both the reference and CholeS cohorts. The median length of stay increased from 0 to 4 days, and the 30-day complication rate from 7.6 to 24.4% as the difficulty grade increased from 1 to 4/5 (both p < 0.001). In the CholeS cohort, a higher difficulty grade was found to be most strongly associated with conversion to open and 30-day mortality (AUROC = 0.903, 0.822, respectively). On multivariable analysis, the Nassar operative difficultly scale was found to be a significant independent predictor of operative duration, conversion to open surgery, 30-day complications and 30-day reintervention (all p < 0.001). Conclusion We have shown that an operative difficulty scale can standardise the description of operative findings by multiple grades of surgeons to facilitate audit, training assessment and research. It provides a tool for reporting operative findings, disease severity and technical difficulty and can be utilised in future research to reliably compare outcomes according to case mix and intra-operative difficulty

Population‐based cohort study of outcomes following cholecystectomy for benign gallbladder diseases

Background The aim was to describe the management of benign gallbladder disease and identify characteristics associated with all‐cause 30‐day readmissions and complications in a prospective population‐based cohort. Methods Data were collected on consecutive patients undergoing cholecystectomy in acute UK and Irish hospitals between 1 March and 1 May 2014. Potential explanatory variables influencing all‐cause 30‐day readmissions and complications were analysed by means of multilevel, multivariable logistic regression modelling using a two‐level hierarchical structure with patients (level 1) nested within hospitals (level 2). Results Data were collected on 8909 patients undergoing cholecystectomy from 167 hospitals. Some 1451 cholecystectomies (16·3 per cent) were performed as an emergency, 4165 (46·8 per cent) as elective operations, and 3293 patients (37·0 per cent) had had at least one previous emergency admission, but had surgery on a delayed basis. The readmission and complication rates at 30 days were 7·1 per cent (633 of 8909) and 10·8 per cent (962 of 8909) respectively. Both readmissions and complications were independently associated with increasing ASA fitness grade, duration of surgery, and increasing numbers of emergency admissions with gallbladder disease before cholecystectomy. No identifiable hospital characteristics were linked to readmissions and complications. Conclusion Readmissions and complications following cholecystectomy are common and associated with patient and disease characteristics

The development and validation of a scoring tool to predict the operative duration of elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background: The ability to accurately predict operative duration has the potential to optimise theatre efficiency and utilisation, thus reducing costs and increasing staff and patient satisfaction. With laparoscopic cholecystectomy being one of the most commonly performed procedures worldwide, a tool to predict operative duration could be extremely beneficial to healthcare organisations. Methods: Data collected from the CholeS study on patients undergoing cholecystectomy in UK and Irish hospitals between 04/2014 and 05/2014 were used to study operative duration. A multivariable binary logistic regression model was produced in order to identify significant independent predictors of long (> 90 min) operations. The resulting model was converted to a risk score, which was subsequently validated on second cohort of patients using ROC curves. Results: After exclusions, data were available for 7227 patients in the derivation (CholeS) cohort. The median operative duration was 60 min (interquartile range 45–85), with 17.7% of operations lasting longer than 90 min. Ten factors were found to be significant independent predictors of operative durations > 90 min, including ASA, age, previous surgical admissions, BMI, gallbladder wall thickness and CBD diameter. A risk score was then produced from these factors, and applied to a cohort of 2405 patients from a tertiary centre for external validation. This returned an area under the ROC curve of 0.708 (SE = 0.013, p  90 min increasing more than eightfold from 5.1 to 41.8% in the extremes of the score. Conclusion: The scoring tool produced in this study was found to be significantly predictive of long operative durations on validation in an external cohort. As such, the tool may have the potential to enable organisations to better organise theatre lists and deliver greater efficiencies in care

The Cholecystectomy As A Day Case (CAAD) Score: A Validated Score of Preoperative Predictors of Successful Day-Case Cholecystectomy Using the CholeS Data Set

Background Day-case surgery is associated with significant patient and cost benefits. However, only 43% of cholecystectomy patients are discharged home the same day. One hypothesis is day-case cholecystectomy rates, defined as patients discharged the same day as their operation, may be improved by better assessment of patients using standard preoperative variables. Methods Data were extracted from a prospectively collected data set of cholecystectomy patients from 166 UK and Irish hospitals (CholeS). Cholecystectomies performed as elective procedures were divided into main (75%) and validation (25%) data sets. Preoperative predictors were identified, and a risk score of failed day case was devised using multivariate logistic regression. Receiver operating curve analysis was used to validate the score in the validation data set. Results Of the 7426 elective cholecystectomies performed, 49% of these were discharged home the same day. Same-day discharge following cholecystectomy was less likely with older patients (OR 0.18, 95% CI 0.15–0.23), higher ASA scores (OR 0.19, 95% CI 0.15–0.23), complicated cholelithiasis (OR 0.38, 95% CI 0.31 to 0.48), male gender (OR 0.66, 95% CI 0.58–0.74), previous acute gallstone-related admissions (OR 0.54, 95% CI 0.48–0.60) and preoperative endoscopic intervention (OR 0.40, 95% CI 0.34–0.47). The CAAD score was developed using these variables. When applied to the validation subgroup, a CAAD score of ≤5 was associated with 80.8% successful day-case cholecystectomy compared with 19.2% associated with a CAAD score >5 (p < 0.001). Conclusions The CAAD score which utilises data readily available from clinic letters and electronic sources can predict same-day discharges following cholecystectomy

A multiple phases approach for design patterns recovery based on structural and method signature features

Design patterns describe both structure, behavior of classes and their relationships. They can improve software documentation, speed up the development process and enable large-scale reuse of software architectures. This article presents a multiple levels detection approach (MLDA) to recover design pattern instances from Java source code. MLDA is able to recover design pattern instances based on a generated class level representation of a subject system. Specifically, MLDA presents what is the so-called Structural Search Model (SSM) which incrementally builds the structure of each design pattern based on the generated source code model. Moreover, MLDA uses a rule-based approach to match the method signatures of the candidate design instances to that of the subject system. As the experiment results illustrate, MLDA is able to recover 23 design patterns with reasonable detection accuracy.</jats:p