Quantity equates to quality, when it comes to prostate cancer surgery, according to new research that shows patients who undergo procedures at busier hospitals fare better.
The study, presented at the American Urological Association Annual Meeting in Atlanta, found patient volume is even more important than a surgeon’s experience in prostate cancer surgery results.
"There's a clear and distinct relation between surgeon and hospital volume and outcome – the more you do the better the results," said lead researcher Dr. Quoc-Dien Trinh, at Henry Ford Hospital's Vattikuti Urology Institute. "I think the novelty of this research is that there are not a lot of studies that have compared hospital to surgeon volume. When does hospital volume matter more, and when does surgeon volume?"
For the study, researchers sough to determine whether higher hospital volume (the number of occupied beds) and higher surgeon volume (the number of operations performed) led to better results of patients undergoing radical prostatectomy surgery, in which the gland and some surrounding tissue are removed.
They identified 19,225 Medicare patients with prostate cancer who had prostate surgery from 1995 to 2005 whose health records were part of the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program (SEER). They then compared the complication rates and post-operative health of patients who used high-volume hospitals with those whose surgeons had performed many surgeries.
They found older, sicker, high-risk prostate cancer surgery patients had better results in larger, busier hospitals, although experienced surgeons were also a factor in reduced complication rates.