Publications by authors named "Alex B Haynes"
Objective: To assess trends in patients' decisions to decline cancer surgery in the United States by race and ethnicity.
Background: Racial and ethnic differences in declining potentially curative cancer surgery are suggested to be due to systemic inequities in healthcare access and mistrust of healthcare systems, among other factors. Despite ongoing national efforts to address these inequities, it is unknown whether differences in rates of declined cancer surgery have improved.
Objectives: The proposed study aims to assess users' perceptions of a surgical safety checklist (SSC) reimplementation toolkit and its impact on SSC attitudes and operating room (OR) culture, meaningful checklist use, measures of surgical safety, and OR efficiency at 3 different hospital sites.
Background: The High-Performance Checklist toolkit (toolkit) assists surgical teams in modifying and implementing or reimplementing the World Health Organization's SSC. Through the explore, prepare, implement, and sustain implementation framework, the toolkit provides a process and set of tools to facilitate surgical teams' modification, implementation, training on, and evaluation of the SSC.
Digital phenotyping, the moment-by-moment quantification of human behavior in situ using data from personal digital devices, is a potentially powerful tool for increasing understanding of recovery from surgery. While physical metrics are often emphasized, measures of emotional, cognitive, and psychosocial function are important aspects for the surgeon, a better understanding of which can lead to improved preoperative counseling and optimization, shared decision-making, and monitoring of recovery after surgery. A growing number of studies have begun to characterize these techniques.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDoege-Potter syndrome occurs when incompletely processed insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF-2), also known as , is produced by a solitary fibrous tumor (SFT) and results in non-islet cell tumor hypoglycemia (NICTH). We discuss here the case of a 66-year-old male who presented with a 2-week history of increasing confusion and a serum glucose of 34 mg/dL. The patient's symptoms immediately improved with dextrose.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Most of the rapid increase in cutaneous melanoma incidence in the US has been localized disease that is treated surgically and is associated with high survival rates. However, little is known about the psychological well-being of survivors in the US.
Objective: To explore the lived experiences and fear of cancer recurrence among survivors of localized cutaneous melanoma.
Background: Previous studies of hospital-based patients with metastatic melanoma suggest sociodemographic factors, including insurance type, may be associated with the receipt of systemic treatments.
Objectives: To examine whether insurance type is associated with the receipt of systemic treatment among patients with melanoma in a broad cohort of patients in North Carolina.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study between 2011 and 2017 of patients with stages III-IV melanoma using data from the North Carolina Central Cancer Registry linked to Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance claims across the state.
Introduction: Social media platforms like Twitter are highly utilized for communicating about cancer care. Although surgery is the primary curative treatment for solid malignancies, little is known about online communication behaviors regarding this treatment modality. This study tracked online discussions and characterized participants to better characterize the content of public communication about surgical cancer care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To assess the impact of primary-site surgery plus systemic therapy compared to systemic therapy alone on overall survival in common metastatic cancer types.
Methods: Data sources included Embase, PubMed, and Web of Science (January 1, 1995-March 22, 2023). Randomized controlled trials were included that enrolled patients diagnosed with the 10 most common de novo metastatic cancer types in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database and randomized patients to resection of the primary site and systemic therapy versus systemic treatment alone.
Background: Musculoskeletal providers are increasingly recognizing the importance of social factors and their association with health outcomes as they aim to develop more comprehensive models of care delivery. Such factors may account for some of the unexplained variation between pathophysiology and level of pain intensity and incapability experienced by people with common conditions, such as persistent nontraumatic knee pain secondary to osteoarthritis (OA). Although the association of one's social position (for example, income, employment, or education) with levels of pain and capability are often assessed in OA research, the relationship between aspects of social context (or unmet social needs) and such symptomatic and functional outcomes in persistent knee pain are less clear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFrom smartphones or wearables to portable physiologic sensors and apps, healthcare is witnessing an exponential growth in mHealth-digital health tools used to support medical and surgical care, as well as public health. In surgery, there is interest in harnessing the capabilities of mHealth to improve the quality of patient-centered care delivery. Digitally delivered surveys have enhanced patient-reported outcome measurement and patient engagement throughout care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMerkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare, aggressive primary neuroendocrine carcinoma of the skin that can present in immunocompromised patients. Kaposi sarcoma (KS) is an indolent angioproliferative tumor associated with human herpesvirus 8 (HHV8). The concurrence of both MCC and KS is rare, and there have been limited cases reported in the literature.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To explore the surgeon-perceived added value of mobile health technologies (mHealth), and determine facilitators of and barriers to implementing mHealth.
Background: Despite the growing popularity of mHealth and evidence of meaningful use of patient-generated health data in surgery, implementation remains limited.
Methods: This was an exploratory qualitative study following the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research.
Aims: Daily micro-surveys, or the high-frequency administration of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), may provide real-time, unbiased assessments of health-related quality of life (HRQoL). We evaluated the feasibility and accuracy of daily micro-surveys using a smartphone platform among patients recovering from cancer surgery.
Methods: In a prospective study (2017-2019), patients undergoing cancer surgery downloaded a smartphone application that administered daily micro-surveys comprising five randomly selected items from the Short Form-36 (SF-36).
Unlabelled: To assess health care professionals' attitudes on the Surgical Safety Checklist ("the Checklist") in resource-rich health systems and provide insights on strategies for optimizing Checklist use.
Background: In use for over a decade, the Checklist is a safety instrument aimed at improving operating room communication, teamwork, and evidence-based safety practices.
Methods: An online survey was sent to surgeons, nurses, and anesthesiologists in 5 high-income countries (Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand).
Background: Use of robot-assisted surgery has increased dramatically since its advent in the 1980s, and nearly all surgical subspecialties have adopted it. However, whether it has advantages compared with laparoscopy or open surgery is unknown.
Purpose: To assess the quality of evidence and outcomes of robot-assisted surgery compared with laparoscopy and open surgery in adults.
Article Synopsis
- The study examined how patients undergoing cancer surgery expected their health-related quality of life (HRQL) to change after surgery, compared to what they actually experienced.
- It involved a survey of 101 patients, measuring their expectations and experienced HRQL at several points post-surgery using a standard health assessment tool.
- Findings showed that while patients anticipated improvement in their HRQL over six months, there was generally a poor correlation between their expectations and actual experiences, except in areas related to physical health.