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Interview: SCVS leaders discuss training challenges, position of private practice, diversifying generation of surgeons
Barriers thrown up between the worlds of private or community vascular surgery and academic practice need to be dismantled for the betterment of the specialty at large. At stake are some of the very fundamentals of what makes vascular surgeons…
Study ‘supports’ SVS open AAA volume recommendations
A multicenter, retrospective database analysis suggests improved open abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) outcomes when surgeon volume is greater than seven cases yearly and performed in hospitals with a 30-day mortality rate less than 5%. “Open AAA repair has decreased in frequency…
Perioperative care in open aortic surgery: SVS and ERAS Society issue consensus statement
The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) and the Stockholm, Sweden-based Enhanced Recovery after Surgery (ERAS) Society have released a consensus statement intended to help address perioperative challenges faced by vascular surgery patients. The ERAS pathways have proven beneficial for a…
Interview: Combating the problem of spin, or overinterpretation, in RCTs
The presence of spin, or overinterpretation, in scientific papers that ultimately demonstrate statistically insignificant findings had been gnawing away at Thomas Forbes, MD, for quite some time. The practice, the University of Toronto vascular chair reflects, is by no means…
Powell: Studies linking EVAR and cancer risk continue to mount
Evidence continues to accumulate of a link between endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) and cancer, with even small amounts of radiation potentially converting epithelial cells “to a precancerous or a cancerous state in smokers or ex-smokers,” according to world-renowned vascular disease…
CLI at a crossroads: Which direction now?
Vascular surgery once again finds itself at a crossroads, Michael Belkin, MD, chief of the division of vascular and endovascular surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told the Western Vascular Society (WVS) annual meeting (Oct. 16–19) in Jackson…
Surgeons must stay skilled in femorotibial/pedal bypass surgery, Paris audience hears
At Paris Vascular Insights (PVI) 2021 (Oct. 21–23, Paris, France), Peter Schneider, MD, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, emphasized the need for trainees to learn both open and endovascular techniques in a talk on how to remain skilled…
Open repair: In good hands?
The twin issues of center volumes for open AAA repair as well as training implications came under the spotlight at two recent regional vascular conferences. The volume of elective open abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repairs that medical centers perform directly…
WVS 2021: Community surgeons report improved rAAA survival after adoption of EVAR-first approach
Overall survival improved from 71% to 80% after a group of community practice surgeons started using an endovascular-first approach to ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm (rAAA) repair. Scott S. Berman, MD, a vascular surgeon at Pima Heart & Vascular in Tucson,…
Just 16% of US centers in VQI offer SVS guideline-compliant open repair for AAA, new study finds
There is a stark downward trend in the number of U.S. centers in the Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI) that meet the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) clinical practice guidelines for open repair of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA), new research to…