Invited commentary

Our plain-English summary of Invited commentary, by B.C. Tong (The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, 2014).

The study

• Author: B.C. Tong
• Journal: The Annals of Thoracic Surgery
• Published: 2014;98(5):1754
• Type of article: Comment
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This is an invited commentary, not an original study. The author discussed a separate article by Lauk and colleagues, a multi-institution, retrospective study of outcomes around the time of surgery in mesothelioma patients who had extrapleural pneumonectomy after induction chemotherapy. That article's title gives 251 mesothelioma patients from three high-volume institutions. The author noted that the Lauk study found pulmonary embolism was the most common cause of death. Its authors advocated prophylactic or therapeutic anticoagulation for 6–12 weeks after surgery, and they found that preoperative C-reactive protein levels were predictive of pulmonary embolism. The author also noted that infections were the most frequent complications in that cohort, and acknowledged some differences in care between the institutions. The author wrote that empiric therapeutic anticoagulation and C-reactive protein testing deserve further consideration and investigation. In the author's view, standard practices such as appropriate antibiotic administration should be strictly followed, preoperative smoking cessation should be required, and longer preventive antibiotic courses deserve further study. The commentary did not discuss asbestos.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: invited commentary on another article (Lauk et al., Ann Thorac Surg 2014;98:1748–54); no original data
• Who was studied: No population of its own. According to that article's title in the reference, the commented-on study by Lauk and colleagues covered 251 mesothelioma patients from three high-volume institutions.
• Exposure: Asbestos is not addressed. The commentary concerns surgery (extrapleural pneumonectomy after induction chemotherapy). It mentions smoking only to recommend that patients stop before surgery, citing smoking's adverse effects on respiratory function and wound healing.
• Main results:
  • The author reported that, in the Lauk study, the most common cause of death was pulmonary embolism.
  • The author reported that the Lauk authors advocated prophylactic or therapeutic anticoagulation for 6–12 weeks after surgery.
  • The author reported that the Lauk authors found preoperative C-reactive protein levels were predictive of pulmonary embolism.
  • The author reported that the most frequent complications in the Lauk study cohort were infectious.
• The authors' conclusion: The author argued for several measures and lines of further study. Standard infection-prevention practices (antibiotic administration, redosing, timing of hair clipping) should be strictly followed. Preoperative smoking cessation should be required for all patients having this operation. Empiric therapeutic anticoagulation, C-reactive protein testing and longer preventive antibiotic courses deserve further consideration or study.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The author noted that there were undoubtedly some differences in care between the three institutions in the Lauk study. The author added that consistent findings across the centers increase the generalizability of the results.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Lung cancer, Mesothelioma.

Related studies

• Extrapleural pneumonectomy after induction chemotherapy: perioperative outcome in 251 mesothelioma patients from three high-volume institutions — O. Lauk, M.A. Hoda, et al. (2014)
• Invited commentary — R.M. Flores (2014)
• Invited commentary — L. Lang-Lazdunski (2015)
• Invited commentary — V.W. Rusch (2015)
• Invited commentary — C.P. Clarke (2011)
• Invited commentary — D. Rice (2010)

Browse more research in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, or return to medical research.