Invited commentary

Our plain-English summary of Invited commentary, by L. Lang-Lazdunski (The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, 2015).

The study

• Author: L. Lang-Lazdunski
• Journal: The Annals of Thoracic Surgery
• Published: 2015;99(2):481
• Type of article: Comment
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This invited commentary discussed a meta-analysis by Taioli and colleagues, in the same journal issue, that compared two operations for malignant pleural mesothelioma: extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP) and pleurectomy/decortication (P/D). The commentary presented no new data of its own and did not examine asbestos exposure. The author questioned the meta-analysis's decision to exclude 38 papers on single-procedure series. The author also noted that factors such as intraoperative adjuncts, and whether surgery was curative or palliative, were not analyzed. As the author described it, the meta-analysis found no significant difference in 2-year mortality, and its authors concluded that P/D was associated with a 2.5-fold lower short-term mortality than EPP. The author cited other work as well. An earlier meta-analysis reported perioperative mortality of 2.9% for extended P/D versus 6.8% for EPP. The MARS feasibility study reported EPP-related mortality of 10.5%. A Society of Thoracic Surgeons database analysis reported mortality of 10.5% for EPP versus 3.1% for P/D. The author concluded that it is reasonable to adopt total P/D as the default procedure in clinical trials of multimodal therapy.

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 (a meta-analysis by Taioli and colleagues); not an original study
• Who was studied: No population was studied by the author. The commentary concerns a meta-analysis of EPP versus P/D in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma.
• Exposure: Not an exposure study: the commentary compares two surgical operations (EPP and P/D) and does not discuss asbestos exposure
• Main results:
  • The author criticized the Taioli meta-analysis for excluding 38 papers dealing with single-procedure series, calling the decision debatable
  • The author noted that the Taioli meta-analysis did not analyze factors including intraoperative adjuncts and the curative versus palliative nature of surgery
  • As reported by the author, the Taioli meta-analysis found no significant difference in 2-year mortality between EPP and P/D
  • As reported by the author, Taioli and colleagues concluded that P/D is associated with a 2.5-fold lower short-term mortality than EPP
  • Cited other study (Cao et al., reference 2): perioperative mortality of 2.9% for extended P/D versus 6.8% for EPP
  • Cited other study (MARS feasibility study, reference 3): EPP-related mortality of 10.5%
  • Cited other study (Society of Thoracic Surgeons database analysis, reference 4): mortality of 10.5% for EPP versus 3.1% for P/D
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that it is reasonable to adopt total P/D as the default procedure in clinical trials of multimodal therapy

Topics

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

Related studies

• Invited commentary — C.P. Clarke (2011)
• Invited commentary — R.M. Flores (2014)
• Invited commentary — B.C. Tong (2014)
• Invited commentary — V.W. Rusch (2015)
• Invited commentary — D. Rice (2010)
• Invited Commentary — B.M. Burt (2015)

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