title: Mortality after esophagectomy is heavily impacted by center volume: retrospective analysis of the Nationwide Inpatient Sample.
abstract: The effects of hospital volume on in-hospital mortality after esophageal resection are disputed in the literature. We sought to analyze treatment effects in patient subpopulations that undergo esophagectomy for cancer based on hospital volume.
  
  
  
  We performed a retrospective analysis of the Nationwide Inpatient Sample from 1998 to 2011. Patients who underwent open or laparoscopic transhiatal and transthoracic esophageal resection were identified using ICD-9 codes. Patients <18 years and those with peritoneal disease were excluded. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were used with mortality as the independent variable to evaluate the effect of low (<6), intermediate (6-19), and high (≥20) hospital volume of esophagectomies. These analyses were repeated in different subsets of patients to determine whether hospital volume affected mortality depending on the subpopulation evaluated. Subgroups were created depending on age, race, gender, operative approach, comorbidities, and tumor pathology.
  
  
  
  A total of 23,751 patients were included. The overall perioperative mortality rate was 7.7 % (low volume: 11.4 %; intermediate volume: 8.39 %, high volume: 4.01 %), and multivariate analysis revealed that high hospital volume had a protective effect (OR 0.54, 95 % CI 0.45-0.65). On subgroup analyses for low- and intermediate-volume hospitals, mortality was uniformly elevated for the subpopulations when comparing to high-volume hospitals (p < 0.05). There was no difference in mortality between low- and medium-volume hospitals and between subgroups.
  
  
  
  No lower mortality risk subgroup could be identified in this nationwide collective. This analysis emphasizes that perioperative mortality after esophagectomy for cancer is lower in high-volume hospitals.
authors.affiliation: Division of Minimally Invasive Surgery, Department of Surgery, Center for the Future of Surgery, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, MC 0740, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0740, USA. hans-fuchs@freenet.de.|Department of General Surgery, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany. hans-fuchs@freenet.de.
authors.forename: Hans F
authors.initials: HF
authors.lastname: Fuchs
authors.affiliation: Division of Minimally Invasive Surgery, Department of Surgery, Center for the Future of Surgery, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, MC 0740, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0740, USA.
authors.forename: Cristina R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Harnsberger
authors.affiliation: Division of Minimally Invasive Surgery, Department of Surgery, Center for the Future of Surgery, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, MC 0740, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0740, USA.
authors.forename: Ryan C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Broderick
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.|Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: David C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Division of Minimally Invasive Surgery, Department of Surgery, Center for the Future of Surgery, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, MC 0740, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0740, USA.
authors.forename: Bryan J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Sandler
authors.affiliation: Division of Minimally Invasive Surgery, Department of Surgery, Center for the Future of Surgery, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, MC 0740, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0740, USA.
authors.forename: Garth R
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Jacobsen
authors.affiliation: Division of Surgical Oncology, Department of Surgery, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bouvet
authors.affiliation: Division of Minimally Invasive Surgery, Department of Surgery, Center for the Future of Surgery, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, MC 0740, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0740, USA.
authors.forename: Santiago
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Horgan
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality* / Q000601:surgery*; D016629:Esophagectomy / Q000401:mortality*; D005260:Female; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D061847:Hospitals, High-Volume / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D061846:Hospitals, Low-Volume / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012306:Risk; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Esophageal cancer; Esophagectomy; Outcomes research