Publications by authors named "Alex Swanger"
Background: Twenty-nine percent of postileostomy discharges are readmitted, most commonly because of dehydration. However, there is a lack of detailed data specifically evaluating factors associated with readmission with dehydration. In addition, patients with a history of an ileostomy have often been excluded from previous studies and therefore represent a group of understudied ileostomates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Rectal cancer patients who are understaged may not be offered the highest quality treatment modalities, which are based on an accurate assessment of preoperative staging. The objective of this study was to evaluate heterogeneity in the probability of being understaged at Commission on Cancer hospitals in the United States and to assess how this variation affects outcomes.
Methods: The 2006-2013 National Cancer Data Base was queried for clinical stage I-III rectal cancer patients who underwent resection.
Objective: The aim of the study was to analyze recent trends in the rate of nonelective surgery and corresponding mortality for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients since the rise of biologic use.
Background: Modern biologic therapy has improved outcomes for IBD, but little is known about the impact on mortality rates after nonelective surgery.
Methods: New York's Statewide Planning & Research Cooperative System was queried for hospital admissions for ulcerative colitis (UC) with concurrent colectomy and Crohn disease (CD) with concurrent small bowel resection or colectomy from 2000 to 2013.
Background: It is unclear whether traveling long distances to high-volume centers would compensate for travel burden among patients undergoing rectal cancer resection.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine whether operative volume outweighs the advantages of being treated locally by comparing the outcomes of patients with rectal cancer treated at local, low-volume centers versus far, high-volume centers.
Design: This was a population-based study.
Background: Surgical care fragmentation at readmission impacts short-term outcomes. However, the long-term impact of surgical care fragmentation is unknown.
Objective: The purpose was to evaluate the impact of surgical care fragmentation, encompassing both surgeon and hospital care, at readmission after colorectal surgery on 1-year survival.
Purpose: Although radiation therapy (RT) can provide palliative benefits for patients with metastatic rectal cancer, its role at the end of life remains unclear. The objective of this study was to assess sociodemographic and clinical factors associated with the use of RT during the last 30 days of life and to evaluate yearly time trends in RT utilization among stage IV patients with rectal cancer.
Methods: The 2004 to 2012 National Cancer DataBase was queried for patients with metastatic rectal cancer who had a documented death during follow-up.
Background: The purpose of this study was to examine the long-term overall survival (OS) of colon cancer patients who underwent emergent resection versus patients who were resected electively.
Methods: The 2006-2012 National Cancer Data Base was queried for colon cancer patients who underwent surgical resection. Emergent resection was defined as resection within 24 h of diagnosis.
Background: There is a paucity of literature quantifying the extent to which time to adjuvant chemotherapy for stage III colon cancer patients varies between individual surgeons, medical oncologists, and hospitals.
Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted by merging the New York State Cancer Registry with the Statewide Planning & Research Cooperative System and Medicare claims to identify stage III colon cancer patients from 2004 to 2009 who underwent resection and received adjuvant chemotherapy. Multilevel logistic regression models characterized variation in delayed time to adjuvant chemotherapy (>8 weeks vs.
Background: Little is known about between-hospital differences in the rate of suboptimal lymphadenectomy. This study characterizes variation in hospital-specific rates of suboptimal lymphadenectomy and its effect on overall survival in a national hospital-based registry.
Methods: Stage I-III colon cancer patients were identified from the 2003-2012 National Cancer Data Base.