Publications by authors named "Tummers F"

Surgical intervention for endometriosis is an important treatment modality, yet incomplete resection resulting from poor visibility of affected tissue and consequently recurrence of disease remains a prevalent challenge. Intra-operative visualization of endometriosis, enabling fluorescence-guided surgery (FGS), could help to optimize surgical treatment. A biomarker, upregulated in endometriosis compared to adjacent tissue, is required to use as a target for FGS.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Updating evidence-based clinical practice guidelines is an onerous process and there is a call for more efficient determination of key questions that need updating. Especially for surgical techniques it is unclear if new evidence will result in substantial changes after wide implementation and if continuous updating is always necessary.

Objectives: This study analyses the impact of updating a surgical guideline and proposes suggestions for optimising this process.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: Patients often undergo repeat surgery for endometriosis, due to recurrent or residual disease. Previous surgery is often considered a risk factor for worse surgical outcome. However, data are scarce concerning the influence of subsequent endometriosis surgery.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: While night shifts are crucial for patient care, they threaten doctors' well-being and performance. Knowledge of how the impact of night shifts differs for doctors is needed to attenuate the adverse effects of night shifts. This study aimed to obtain more precise insight into doctors' feelings surrounding night shift by: identifying profiles based on doctors' alertness, contentedness and calmness scores before and after night shifts (research question (RQ) 1); assessing how doctors' pre- and post-shift profiles change (RQ2); and determining associations of doctors' demographics and shift circumstances with alertness, contentedness and calmness change (RQ3).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Intra-operative fluorescent imaging of endometriosis could help to optimize surgical treatment. Potential biomarkers to use as target for endometriosis-binding fluorescent probes were identified using a new five-phase transcriptomics-based approach to broaden the search for biomarkers. Using publicly available datasets, a differentially expressed gene (DEG) analysis was performed for endometriosis versus surgically relevant surrounding tissue (peritoneum, bladder, sigmoid, rectum, transverse colon, small intestine, vagina, and fallopian tubes) for which data was available.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Laparoscopic hysterectomy is accepted worldwide as the standard treatment option for early-stage endometrial cancer. However, there are limited data on long-term survival, particularly when no lymphadenectomy is performed. We compared the survival outcomes of total laparoscopic hysterectomy (TLH) and total abdominal hysterectomy (TAH), both without lymphadenectomy, for early-stage endometrial cancer up to 5 years postoperatively.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: The implementation of advanced minimally invasive surgical (MIS) techniques has broadened. An extensive body of literature shows that high hospital and surgeon volumes lead to better patient outcomes. However, no information is available regarding volume trends in the post-implementation phase of MIS.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

During the COVID-19 pandemic the question arises if laparoscopy, as an aerosol forming procedure, poses a potential risk for viral transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to healthcare workers. A literature search was conducted using PubMed, Embase and MEDLINE. Articles reporting information regarding COVID-19 or other relevant viruses and laparoscopy, surgical smoke, aerosols and viral transmission were included.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The field of obstetrics and gynecology requires complex decision-making and skills because of unexpected high-risk situations. These skills are influenced by alertness, reaction time, and concentration. Night shifts result in sleep deprivation, which might impair these functions, although it is still unclear to what extent.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Surgical skills and decision making are influenced by alertness, reaction time, eye-hand coordination, and concentration. Night shift might impair these functions but it is unclear to what extent. The aim of this study was to investigate whether a night shift routinely impairs the surgeon's fitness to perform and whether this reaches a critical limit as compared to relevant frames of reference.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The need for data to study the relationship between fatigued healthcare professionals and performance outcomes is evident, however, it is unclear which methodology is most appropriate to provide these insights. To address this issue, we performed a systematic review of relevant articles by searching the MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, Web of Science, and CINAHL databases. The literature search identified 2960 unique references, of which 82 were identified eligible.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: To compare uterine-sparing treatment options for fibroids in terms of reintervention risk and quality of life.

Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis according to PRISMA guidelines.

Setting: Not applicable.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

After the introduction of CT-scanning the management of focal cerebral infections has been modified. Based on the data of two patients and on the literature the authors discuss the choice between fully conservative, immediately neurosurgical or delayed neurosurgical treatment. It is the author's opinion that by closely following the infectious process too early neurosurgical intervention can be avoided and thus unnecessary sacrifice of viable neural tissue.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF