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New Study Finds More Post-Surgery Deaths Globally Than From HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria Combined (upi.com)
schwit1 shares a report from UPI: About 4.2 million people worldwide die every year within 30 days of surgery -- more than from HIV, tuberculosis and malaria combined, a new study reports. The findings show that 7.7 percent of all deaths worldwide occur within a month of surgery, a rate higher than that from any other cause except ischemic heart disease and stroke. "Although not all postoperative deaths are avoidable, many can be prevented by increasing investment in research, staff training, equipment and better hospital facilities," lead author of the study, Dr. Dmitri Nepogodiev, said in a university news release. Along with finding that 4.2 million people a year die within a month of having surgery, his team discovered that half of those deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.
"Although not all postoperative deaths are avoidable, many can be prevented by increasing investment in research, staff training, equipment and better hospital facilities," Nepogodiev said in a university news release. "To avoid millions more people dying after surgery, planned expansion of access to surgery must be complemented by investment in to improving the quality of surgery around the world," he noted.
"Although not all postoperative deaths are avoidable, many can be prevented by increasing investment in research, staff training, equipment and better hospital facilities," Nepogodiev said in a university news release. "To avoid millions more people dying after surgery, planned expansion of access to surgery must be complemented by investment in to improving the quality of surgery around the world," he noted.
100% of people die within a few days of drinking water.
Compared to what? What's the number for people who die within 30 days of not having medically necessary surgery? I'm pretty sure people consider the risks pretty carefully before opting for surgery.
And yes, spending more money generally correlates with improved outcomes, but if it's not quantitative then it's not telling us anything new.
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I suspect that increasing investment in research, staff training, equipment and better hospital facilities aren't really going to have that much impact because usually when you need surgery, you are pretty fucked up already.
This is nothing more than shilling for more cash.
"half of those deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries"
Which strongly suggests that half of them die in high income countries. Countries which typically have a smaller population. Which suggests that a larger proportion of high income people are dying after their surgery.
Hey, I'm talking about US, people! Tech workers, managers, skilled mathematicians and undertakers and other people who help maintain our countries' high incomes. Are we gonna stand for this death rate? We need to protest! Or move to a low-income country where surgery is safer.
...omphaloskepsis often...
The sumary says "half of those deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries"
Doesn't that mean half of those happen in rich countries? Why are they trying to shame low and middle income countries when the rate in rich countries is so high?
This 'recent' discovery is hardly proven to be true yet. At least two large studies are in progress to confirm, or reject, those early findings.
Sepsis historically has had many preliminary studies suggest a positive intervention only to be shown later it is ineffective or even harmful when studied fully. Further, even if we assume this intervention is effective, its not clear whether all three, two of the three or just one of the ingredients in necessary. We already know in some cases steroids can be helpful.
Inject-able vitamin C has plenty of history of overhyped effects followed by studies that show it has no significant effect. This is especially true as an intervention for cancer.
I wouldn't hold by breath.
In time, you may change your tune a bit once you personally know someone who goes into surgery and never wakes up.
Especially something ridiculously simple and / or routine.
No words can explain how you feel when you meet the Doctor and are expecting to hear one thing ( we're done, they're doing fine, etc. )
only to find out they coded on the table and the surgical team spent the last half hour trying to revive them to no avail.
The truly frustrating part is not knowing why.
Body just give up ? Medical / Anesthesia error ? Reaction to one of the meds ?
It's one of those things that will haunt you forever.
Reminds me of a quote supposedly given by Willie Sutton, a notorious bank robber. When asked why he robbed banks, he replied "because that's where the money is."
Why do people die in hospitals? Because that's where sick people go. Why do people die after surgery? Because one, surgery carries a certain risk. Two, if they are doing surgery on you, there's probably something wrong with you to begin with.
There are absolutely problems with secondary infections, surgical errors, unnecessary surgeries and the like. but a single statistic doesn't say anything about those things.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Of course in America irrational fears of socialism win the day most times...
Fears about socialised medicine win the day EVERY time. Which is the primary cause of the US having a worse life expectancy and worse medical outcomes than Canada and Japan despite spending nearly twice as much on healthcare, exactly as you pointed out.
I am seeing it happen right before my eyes in my country (UK). We used to have a world-leading socialised healthcare system that is slowly being eroded into a US-style system by greedy right-wing politicians. It works like this: Step 1: chronically under-fund the social health system, step 2 create headlines about the health system failing (obviously don't mention drastic funding cuts), step 3, point to private healthcare providers as the solution. Step 4: identify private healthcare providers looking for investment (or ones your mates are already invested in) and invest, step 5, abuse the political process to make sure large medical contracts (paid for by taxpayers) go to the private providers you identified. Step 6, profit for you and your mates at the cost of quality and affordability of healthcare for the general population.
I don't agree.
I had a major surgery, planned a couple of months in advance. I was in a good condition, but if I didn't have the surgery, then it would have led to a serious condition later on. I was not "pretty fucked up".
One week after being released from hospital, I went back to the hospital's ER, due to pain and fluid leaking from the closed incision. The doctor on duty gave me a prescription for strong pain killers and sent me away.
3 days later, I was back in the same ER. A more experienced doctor knew what was wrong, and proceeded to pump out of me over a pint of smelly fluid. He also contacted one of the surgical team, who ordered tests and a CAT scan. I was admitted back into the hospital and given a course of the strongest antibiotics they had via IV. If I hadn't gone back in to the ER when I did, there was a good change I would have died.
The surgeon told me that when I first visited the ER, they should have contacted her and let her examine me. This appeared to be a standard procedure but the working doctor was not aware of this.
In my case, better training would have prevented an almost fatal outcome.
"The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
Medicine remains seriously adverse to inexpensive immune and nutritional methods that can make huge differences in surgical recovery and complications.
No it isn't. I don't know any self respecting doctor who wouldn't recommend a healthy diet. By healthy diet I mean the basics: avoid too much sugar, fat, salt, eat the right amount of calories, etc... They also routinely recommend avoiding or favoring some kinds of foods if you have some conditions. As for inexpensive immune methods, they are called vaccines.
The recent "discovery" that vitamin B1+hydrocortisone+a little injected vitamin C can prevent and abort sepsis is a small, belated step in the right direction. Big Medicine is still way behind on injectable vitamin C technology though.
The conclusion of that "recent discovery" is "additional studies are required to confirm these preliminary findings". Many promising preliminary studies don't pass clinical trials unfortunately. Don't claim victory too early.
Vitamin C is effective for treating scurvy, which is a now rare disease caused by the lack of vitamin C. It is a discovery that saved thousands of life in the past. But such a resounding success doesn't make vitamin C a cure-all. Other uses of vitamin C, injectable or otherwise didn't get much conclusive results despite being studied a lot (61759 results for "vitamin C" on PubMed).
You're improperly comparing to a zero base state - post-surgery death vs if the person were living a normal life and didn't need surgery. That leads you to the incorrect conclusion that "something is wrong" when someone dies after surgery.
The correct comparison is is against what would've happened to the person if they hadn't gone into surgery. Except for cosmetic surgery, going to the OR is usually to treat a life-threatening problem. 4.2 million deaths after surgery vs 313 million surgical procedures is a 1.3% chance of death post-surgery. People opt for surgery because that's a helluva improvement over the ~50% chance of death if they hadn't gone into surgery.
The same miguided argument is used against vaccines. A few dozen children die from vaccines each year. Anti-vaxxers (comparing to a zero base state of no deaths) cite that as evidence that vaccines are unsafe. But the correct comparison is a few dozen deaths from vaccines, vs the tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths if nobody were vaccinated. We opt for vaccines and surgery because they're the lesser of two evils (far, far lesser).
Another example is the crash of United Airlines 232. One of the passengers was a lap child - an infant or small child carried on the parents' lap and traveling without paying for a seat. The head stewardess abroad the flight followed procedure and instructed the parents to put the lap child underneath the seat in front of them like carry-on luggage. When the child died, she was so racked with guilt that she went on a multi-decade crusade to get lap children banned. The FAA finally ruled against her a few years ago. She was incorrectly comparing against a zero base state - the lap child dying vs possibly surviving if it had been belted into a seat. The FAA made the correct comparison. Lap children are allowed because flying is two orders of magnitude safer than driving. If you forced all parents with small children to pay for a seat for those children, a lot of them would opt to drive instead of fly. And as a result a lot more children would die from car accidents than this one lap child on this one ill-fated flight.
Instead of being frustrated over not knowing why the "unnecessary" death occurred, treat it as a gamble. The patient's original status gave him, say, a 50% chance of survival. Surgery gives him a 98.7% chance of survival. So surgery is obviously the better bet and wiser choice. But 1.3% of the time you will still lose that bet. It still boils down to the luck of the draw, except with surgery (and vaccines and lap children) you are stacking the deck far, far in your favor.
We can and certainly should try to improve the 1.3% fatality rate following surgery. But 1.3% is still a good thing, not something to be ashamed or fearful of. People are making jokes because TFA is naively trying to spin this story as if surgery were an additional risk, when it's actually a reduction in risk.