This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Aging/ Geriatrics  • Endocrine Surgery  • Surgical Oncology  • Prognosis/ Outcomes  • Liver/ Biliary Tract/ Pancreatic Diseases  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Wande B. Pratt, MD, MPH; Anupama Gangavati, MD; Kathryn Agarwal, MD; Robert Schreiber, MD; Lewis A. Lipsitz, MD; Mark P. Callery, MD; Charles M. Vollmer Jr, MD

Arch Surg. 2009;144(10):950-956.

Objective  To evaluate pancreatic surgery as a model for high-acuity surgery in elderly patients for immediate and long-term outcomes, predictors of adverse outcomes, and hospital costs.

Design  Retrospective case series.

Setting  University tertiary care referral center.

Patients  Four hundred twelve consecutive patients who underwent pancreatic resection from October 1, 2001, through March 31, 2008, for benign and malignant periampullary conditions.

Main Outcome Measures  Clinical outcomes were compared for elderly (75 years) and nonelderly patient cohorts. Quality assessment analyses were performed to show the differential impact of complications and resource utilization between the groups.

Results  The elderly cohort constituted one-fifth of all patients. Benchmark standards of quality were achieved in this group, including low operative mortality (1%). Despite higher patient acuity, clinical outcomes were comparable to those of nonelderly patients at a marginal cost increase (median, $2202 per case). Cost modeling analysis showed further that minor and moderate complications were more frequent but no more debilitating for elderly patients. Major complications, however, were far more threatening to older patients. In these cases, duration of hospital stay doubled, and invasive interventions were more commonly deployed.

Conclusions  Quality standards for pancreatic resection in the elderly can—and should—mirror those for younger patients. Age-related care, including geriatric consultation, supplemental enteral nutrition, and early rehabilitation placement planning, can be designed to mitigate the impact of complications in the elderly and guarantee quality.

Author Affiliations: Department of Surgery (Drs Pratt, Callery, and Vollmer), and Division of Gerontology, Department of Medicine (Drs Gangavati, Agarwal, and Lipsitz), Harvard Medical School, and Hebrew SeniorLife, Institute for Aging Research (Drs Schreiber and Lipsitz), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?