7 deadly surgeries: Research names deadliest, costliest procedures in the U.S.
A medical study released this week has identified seven emergency procedures that account for a majority of surgery deaths and complications in the U.S.
The research, published this week in the journal JAMA Surgery, concluded that seven procedures account for four out of five emergency general-surgery deaths in the United States.
The procedures are:
-Partial colectomy (removal of part of the colon)
-Small-bowel resection
-Gallbladder removal
-Operative management of peptic ulcer disease
-Removal of abdominal adhesions
-Appendectomy
-Laparotomy (an operation to open the abdomen)
Dr. John Scott, a general surgery resident at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, led the research for the study, using data for 420,000 operations in that were performed in the U.S. from 2008 to 2011.The study found that general surgeries that were considered “emergency” accounted for 11 percent of all surgeries, but 50 percent of surgical deaths in the U.S.
More than 3 million Americans go under the knife every year for emergency surgeries and 1.2 percent of those patients don’t make it out alive, according to the study.
The study concluded that the seven deadliest procedures collectively accounted for 80 percent of procedures, 80 percent of deaths, 79 percent of complications, and 80 percent of inpatient costs in the United States.
However, just because a surgery made the list, doesn’t mean the operation is abnormally dangerous, according to reporting from LiveScience.com.
Dr. Paresh Shah, the chief of general surgery at New York University, Langone Medical Center who was not involved in the study, said some of the surgeries were on the list because of they were performed frequently, LiveScience reports.
Appendix removal, for example, has a very low mortality rate (less than 0.1 percent), but was performed on more than 680,000 patients during the four-year period, according to the study.
This story was originally published April 29, 2016 at 10:13 AM with the headline "7 deadly surgeries: Research names deadliest, costliest procedures in the U.S.."