Colectomy in patients with liver disease: albumin-bilirubin score accurately predicts outcomes.

Background: Patients with liver disease undergoing colectomy have higher rates of complications and mortality. The Albumin-Bilirubin score is a recently developed system, established to predict outcomes after hepatectomy, that accounts for liver dysfunction.

Methods: All patients undergoing colectomy were identified in the 2015-2018 American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program colectomy-targeted database.

Trends in General Surgery Resident Experience with Colorectal Surgery: An Analysis of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Case Logs.

Objective: Colorectal surgery is a core component of general surgery. The volume of colorectal surgery performed by general surgery residents throughout training has not been studied. This study aims to analyze trends observed in colorectal-specific case numbers logged by general surgery residents over 16 years.

Use of Preoperative Laboratory Testing Among Low-Risk Patients Undergoing Elective Anorectal Surgery.

Background: Many low-risk patients receive preoperative laboratory testing (PLT) prior to elective outpatient surgery, with no effect on postoperative outcomes. This has not been studied in patients undergoing anorectal surgery. The aim of this study was to determine if PLT in this population was predictive of perioperative complications.

An update on surgical treatment of hemorrhoidal disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Pathologic hemorrhoids are common among adults age 45-65. Hemorrhoids are characterized as internal or external, and grades 1-4 based on severity. The type and grade dictate treatment, with surgical treatment reserved for grades 3/4.

Utilizing Oral Surveys to Better Understand Patient Satisfaction in a Low-Income, Urban Surgical Clinic.

Oral surveys allow patients to elaborate on their experience in the hospital, giving context to numerical values often used to assess patient satisfaction. This allows patients to speak about factors affecting satisfaction, which is important in complex, low-income populations. Spoken surveys were administered to 80 patients in surgery clinics at Temple University Hospital.

Patient Attitudes Toward Spoken Surveys in a Low-Income Urban Surgical Clinic.

Diverse groups in urban settings demonstrate poor participation in health care and low levels of literacy. It is possible the method of health information delivery (eg, spoken vs. written) in these settings could impact health care related communication and understanding, though little is known on this topic.

Challenges to Understanding and Compliance Among Surgical Patients in Low-Income Urban Teaching Hospitals.

Financial and educational barriers significantly impact low socioeconomic status racial and ethnic minority groups in their pursuit of health care, though less is known about the interplay of these factors in the pursuit of surgical care. This study was designed to uncover the challenges to patient understanding and compliance with pre- and postsurgical clinical advice in low-income urban environments. The data for this study were collected in spoken survey with eighty patients in 9 surgery clinics at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia.

Addressing Gender-Related Implicit Bias in Surgical Resident Physician Education: A Set of Guidelines.

While it is the goal of academic institutions to train male and female resident physicians equally, gender-related implicit bias may play a role in resident training, thus impacting the quality and fairness of education. Implicit bias may be one of the reasons for the discrepancies that exist in resident training, specifically in learning style, evaluations by faculty members, and treatment of female residents by other clinicians. Patterns of systemic gender-related implicit bias, we argue, remain pervasive in the healthcare system and affect medical education.

Surgical Options and Approaches for Lower Gastrointestinal Bleeding: When do we operate and what do we do?

Lower gastrointestinal bleeding (LGIB) is a common entity encountered by the surgeon. Though most LGIB stops on its own, familiarity with the diagnoses and their treatments is critical to optimal patient care. Even in 2016, surgery may be required.

A case report of necrotizing fasciitis with growth of and .

and are two facultative anaerobes that are common contaminants of human flora; namely the urinary tract, the female genital tract and the gastrointestinal tract. has been linked with abscesses, decubitus ulcers and purulent urethritis, while has been associated with urinary tract infections, bacteremia and Fournier's gangrene. Here we present a case report of an 84-year-old female patient found to have a necrotizing soft tissue infection caused by and To our knowledge, this is the first case report that documents as a causal agent of a necrotizing infection.

Preoperative bowel preparation does not favor the management of colorectal anastomotic leak.

Background: Controversy exists regarding the impact of preoperative bowel preparation on patients undergoing colorectal surgery. This is due to previous research studies, which fail to demonstrate protective effects of mechanical bowel preparation against postoperative complications. However, in recent studies, combination therapy with oral antibiotics (OAB) and mechanical bowel preparation seems to be beneficial for patients undergoing an elective colorectal operation.

American College of Surgeons NSQIP Risk Calculator Accuracy for Emergent and Elective Colorectal Operations.

Background: The American College of Surgeons NSQIP has developed a risk calculator (RC) to assist patients and surgeons with difficult decisions. The aim of this analysis was to determine the accuracy of the RC in patients undergoing elective and emergent colorectal operations.

Study Design: From January 2013 through December 2015, seventy-five patients undergoing emergent colorectal operations were paired by date with 75 patients having elective colorectal operations.

Comparative Effectiveness and Risks of Bowel Preparation Before Elective Colorectal Surgery.

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between bowel preparation and surgical site infections (SSIs), and also other postoperative complications, after elective colorectal surgery.

Background: SSI is a major source of postoperative morbidity/costs after colorectal surgery. The value of preoperative bowel preparation to prevent SSI remains controversial.

De Novo Transcriptome Analysis of the Common New Zealand Stick Insect Clitarchus hookeri (Phasmatodea) Reveals Genes Involved in Olfaction, Digestion and Sexual Reproduction.

Phasmatodea, more commonly known as stick insects, have been poorly studied at the molecular level for several key traits, such as components of the sensory system and regulators of reproduction and development, impeding a deeper understanding of their functional biology. Here, we employ de novo transcriptome analysis to identify genes with primary functions related to female odour reception, digestion, and male sexual traits in the New Zealand common stick insect Clitarchus hookeri (White). The female olfactory gene repertoire revealed ten odorant binding proteins with three recently duplicated, 12 chemosensory proteins, 16 odorant receptors, and 17 ionotropic receptors.

A new virus discovered by immunocapture of double-stranded RNA, a rapid method for virus enrichment in metagenomic studies.

Next-generation sequencing technologies enable the rapid identification of viral infection of diseased organisms. However, despite a consistent decrease in sequencing costs, it is difficult to justify their use in large-scale surveys without a virus sequence enrichment technique. As the majority of plant viruses have an RNA genome, a common approach is to extract the double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) replicative form, to enrich the replicating virus genetic material over the host background.

Evaluating a multigene environmental DNA approach for biodiversity assessment.

Background: There is an increasing demand for rapid biodiversity assessment tools that have a broad taxonomic coverage. Here we evaluate a suite of environmental DNA (eDNA) markers coupled with next generation sequencing (NGS) that span the tree of life, comparing them with traditional biodiversity monitoring tools within ten 20×20 meter plots along a 700 meter elevational gradient.

Results: From six eDNA datasets (one from each of 16S, 18S, ITS, trnL and two from COI) we identified sequences from 109 NCBI taxonomy-defined phyla or equivalent, ranging from 31 to 60 for a given eDNA marker.

Error correction and statistical analyses for intra-host comparisons of feline immunodeficiency virus diversity from high-throughput sequencing data.

Background: Infection with feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) causes an immunosuppressive disease whose consequences are less severe if cats are co-infected with an attenuated FIV strain (PLV). We use virus diversity measurements, which reflect replication ability and the virus response to various conditions, to test whether diversity of virulent FIV in lymphoid tissues is altered in the presence of PLV. Our data consisted of the 3' half of the FIV genome from three tissues of animals infected with FIV alone, or with FIV and PLV, sequenced by 454 technology.

Integration over song classification replicates: song variant analysis in the hihi.

Human expert analyses are commonly used in bioacoustic studies and can potentially limit the reproducibility of these results. In this paper, a machine learning method is presented to statistically classify avian vocalizations. Automated approaches were applied to isolate bird songs from long field recordings, assess song similarities, and classify songs into distinct variants.

Pyrosequencing reveals regional differences in fruit-associated fungal communities.

We know relatively little of the distribution of microbial communities generally. Significant work has examined a range of bacterial communities, but the distribution of microbial eukaryotes is less well characterized. Humans have an ancient association with grape vines (Vitis vinifera) and have been making wine since the dawn of civilization, and fungi drive this natural process.

The incidence of species-level paraphyly in animals: a re-assessment.

Species-level paraphyly was found by Funk and Omland (2003) to occur in 23% of animal species on the basis of a meta-analysis of published mitochondrial gene trees. Given the potential for bias in the selection of study organisms and the subsequent publication of their gene trees, I re-estimated the incidence of paraphyly in an independent dataset of publicly accessible COI sequences from the Barcode of Life Data System. Among 7368 animal species represented by two or more sequences, 19% were paraphyletic, slightly less than in the previous study.

Prophylactic antibiotics for hemorrhoidectomy: are they really needed?

Background: Hemorrhoidectomy is considered by many to be a contaminated operation that requires antibiotic prophylaxis to lower the incidence of surgical site infection. In reality, little evidence exists to either support or refute the use of antibiotic prophylaxis in this setting.

Objective: This study aimed to determine if antibiotic prophylaxis is associated with reduced incidence of postoperative surgical site infection following hemorrhoidectomy.

Selection pressure on the hepatitis B virus pre-S/S and P open reading frames in Tongan subjects with a chronic hepatitis B virus infection.

Identification of the full repertoire of hepatitis B virus (HBV) peptides that are presented to CD8+ T cells by common HLA class I alleles will be useful for designing immunotherapies for chronic hepatitis B. One hundred and seventy five cloned sequences containing the pre-S/S and P open reading frames (ORF) of the HBV were obtained from serum HBV-DNA of HBeAg-positive (n=4) and HBeAg-negative (inactive healthy carriers (IHC), n=16) Tongan subjects with an inactive chronic HBV infection. In addition, 34 and 32 sequences were obtained 5.