Publications by authors named "G C Balch"
Background: Surgical resection is the cornerstone of rectal cancer treatment but can be associated with adverse short-term postoperative outcomes. We sought to assess the factors associated with achievement of optimal outcomes among patients undergoing surgery for rectal cancer.
Methods: In this multicenter retrospective cohort study, the US Rectal Cancer Consortium database was used to identify patients who underwent surgery for nonmetastatic rectal cancer between 2007 and 2018.
Background And Objectives: The RAPIDO trial showed promising rates of pathologic complete response (pCR) after neoadjuvant short-course radiation with consolidation chemotherapy (total neoadjuvant therapy [SC TNT]) for rectal cancer. Only single-center reviews comparing tumor downstaging between SC TNT and long-course chemoradiation (LCRT) have been published in the United States. We reviewed our multi-institutional experience with both.
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- Patients with locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC) who undergo incomplete total mesorectal excision (TME) generally have poorer cancer outcomes, and the link between TME quality, adjuvant chemotherapy, and these outcomes has been under-researched.
- A study analyzed 746 LARC patients treated with neoadjuvant chemoradiation or short-course radiotherapy followed by surgery and found that adjuvant chemotherapy significantly reduced mortality risk for all patients and decreased locoregional recurrence specifically in those with complete TME.
- The results indicate that adjuvant chemotherapy could improve oncologic outcomes for LARC patients undergoing surgery after neoadjuvant treatments, highlighting its potential benefits in clinical management.
Background: Robotic surgery is perceived to be more complex in obese patients. Objective performance indicators, machine learning-enabled metrics, can provide objective data regarding surgeon movements and robotic arm kinematics. In this feasibility study, we identified differences in objective performance indicators during robotic proctectomy in obese and nonobese patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Surgeon assessment tools are subjective and nonscalable. Objective performance indicators (OPIs), machine learning-enabled metrics recorded during robotic surgery, offer objective insights into surgeon movements and robotic arm kinematics. In this study, we identified OPIs that significantly differed across expert (EX), intermediate (IM), and novice (NV) surgeons during robotic right colectomy.
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