A Systematic Review of the Relationship Between Traumatic Brain Injury and Disruptions in Heart Rate Variability.

Autonomic nervous system dysfunction is increasingly recognized as a common sequela of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Heart rate variability (HRV) is a specific measure of autonomic nervous system functioning that can be used to measure beat-to-beat changes in heart rate following TBI. The objective of this systematic review was to determine the state of the literature on HRV dysfunction following TBI, assess the level of support for HRV dysfunction following TBI, and determine if HRV dysfunction predicts mortality and the severity and subsequent recovery of TBI symptoms.

Remote Assessment of Real-World Surgical Safety Checklist Performance Using the OR Black Box: A Multi-Institutional Evaluation.

Background: Large-scale evaluation of surgical safety checklist performance has been limited by the need for direct observation. The operating room (OR) Black Box is a multichannel surgical data capture platform that may allow for the holistic evaluation of checklist performance at scale.

Study Design: In this retrospective cohort study, data from 7 North American academic medical centers using the OR Black Box were collected between August 2020 and January 2022.

Surgical Utilization and Outcomes for Patients with Stage IV Melanoma in the Modern Immunotherapy Era.

Background: The benefit of surgery for patients with stage IV melanoma in the modern era of effective immunotherapy is unclear. This study aimed to evaluate trends and outcomes after surgical resection of stage IV melanoma in the modern immunotherapy era.

Methods: Patients with stage IV melanoma who received surgery, immunotherapy, or both from 2012 to 2017 were identified from the National Cancer Database (NCDB).

Medicaid expansion and surgery for HPB/GI cancers: NCDB difference-in-difference analysis.

Background: It is unclear if Medicaid expansion improved access to surgical resection for hepatopancreatobiliary (HPB) and gastrointestinal (GI) cancers.

Methods: This was a quasi-experimental, cohort study using difference-in-difference analysis to evaluate differences in surgical resection for HPB/GI cancers in the post-Medicaid expansion era compared to the pre-Medicaid expansion era among patients residing in states that had Medicaid expansion versus not.

Results: During the pre- (2011-2013) and post-Medicaid expansion (2015-2017) eras, there were 49,954 patients between the ages of 40-64 who had liver cancer (n = 19,384; 38.

Association between race, hospital volume of major liver surgery, and access to metastasectomy for colorectal liver metastasis.

Background: Previous studies have demonstrated that non-White patients with colorectal liver metastasis (CRLM) were significantly less likely to undergo liver metastasectomy compared to White patients. The aim of this study is to evaluate differences in access to liver metastasectomy for CRLM according to race and hospital-year volume of liver surgery (HVLS).

Methods: The National Cancer Database (2011-2017) was used to identify patients with CRLM.