Search

The article presents a college thesis which investigated the determinants of the outcomes of lumbar spinal stenosis surgery and is based on several papers previously published by F. G. Sigmundsson, B. Jönsson and B.Strömqvist, including papers which appeared in a 2013 issue of "Acta Orthopaedica", a 2012 issue of "Acta Orthopaedica" and a 2014 issue of "Spine".

Quality in health care is important to measure and palliative care is no exception. The Swedish Register of Palliative Care (SRPC) is a national quality register that focuses on the last week of life. It collects data with an end-of-life questionnaire (ELQ), which is validated in this study. Material and methods. This study included 169 consecutive patients who had died at a palliative unit. That unit had developed a computerized end-of-life medical record module that enabled a comparison between reported data and medical records, illustrating the validity of the registry questionnaire. The paper versions of the ELQs filled in at the unit were also inspected to determine the extent of registration mistakes when completing the web questionnaire. Results. Data from the medical records and data from the ELQs reported to the SRPC showed a congruity of 22 to 100%. A working limit of acceptable congruity was set to 80%. Eight questions fell below that line. Some of these differences were caused by systematic errors. The paper versions filled in at the unit and the data from the ELQs reported to the SRPC had a congruity of between 96% and 100%, with the exception of one question about pain evaluation, which had 91% congruity. Discussion. The results in this study will be used to improve and further develop the register. Some questions need to be more specific to promote more valid registrations. Consensus on quality issues in end-of-life care would simplify the work of writing and answering the questionnaire. It is desirable to perform a similar study at hospital wards that do not specialize in palliative care; however, the anticipated lack of palliative documentation could make such a study difficult to perform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose Modular cementless revision prostheses are being used with increasing frequency. In this paper, we review risk factors for the outcome of the Link MP stem and report implant survival compared to conventional cemented long-stem hip revision arthroplasties. Patients and methods We used data recorded in the Swedish Hip Arthroplasty Register. 812 consecutive revisions with the MP stem (mean follow-up time 3.4 years) and a control group with 1,073 cemented long stems (mean follow-up time 4.2 years) were included. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to determine implant survival. The Cox regression model was used to study risk factors for reoperation and revision. Results The mean age at revision surgery for the MP stem was 72 (SD 11) years. Decreasing age (HR == 1.1, 95% CI: 1--1.1), multiple previous revisions (HR == 2.6, 95% CI: 1.1--6.2), short stem length (HR == 2.4, 95% CI: 1.1--5.2), standard neck offset (HR == 5, 95% CI: 1.5--17) and short head-neck length (HR == 5.3, 95% CI 1.4--21) were risk factors for reoperation. There was an overall increased risk of reoperation (HR == 1.7, 95% CI: 1.3--2.4) and revision (HR == 1.9, 95% CI: 1.2--3.1) for the MP prostheses compared to the controls. Interpretation The cumulative survival with both reoperation and revision as the endpoint was better for the cemented stems with up to 3 years of follow-up. Thereafter, the survival curves converged, mainly because of increasing incidence of revision due to loosening in the cemented group. We recommend the use of cemented long stems in patients with limited bone loss and in older patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]