An award-winning paper presented at the 2023 Southern Association for Vascular Surgery (SAVS) annual meeting in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, established an association between vascular involvement in non-vascular-led cases, where vascular expertise was required, and improved patient outcomes.
Emma Rooney, MD, a vascular surgery fellow at Emory University in Atlanta, collected SAVS’ prestigious Founders Award for the work on the first day of the meeting (Jan. 18–21). The study showed vascular involvement improved outcomes in cases where that participation was both planned and unplanned
The retrospective analysis carried out by Rooney and colleagues looked at 245 patients treated at three non-trauma hospitals who had vascular surgery involvement in their cases led by a non-vascular surgeon.
“Our initial interpretation was that we had improved outcomes in the planned cases because they did have favorable outcomes intraoperatively and postoperatively,” Rooney told SAVS attendees. However, upon further interpretation, Rooney said the analysis uncovered equivalent mortality in cases classed as unplanned, suggesting the specialty’s “high ability” to deal with complications.
