Despite tremendous recent advances in the treatment of most malignancies, there remain several critical questions for each cancer. This particularly true for the surgical management of solid-organ malignancies. Comparative effectiveness is a relatively new term which encompasses the age-old concepts of how best to treat cancer patients. Comparative effectiveness is defined as the direct comparison of healthcare interventions to determine which work best for which patients when considering the benefits and risks. The Institute of Medicine has defined comparative effectiveness research(CER) as the generation and synthesis of evidence that compares the benefits and harms of alternative methods to prevent, diagnose, treat, and monitor a clinical condition or to improve the delivery of care. CER is certainly best done with well-conducted randomized controlled trials. Unfortunately, clinical trials are not always feasible owing to the impracticality of conducting the trial, the considerable cost, and the time required to complete the trial. These challenges are even more pronounced with respect to surgical treatment. Thus alternative approaches may need to be considered in order to address pressing questions in the care of the oncology patient. These approaches may include well-conducted retrospective cohort studies from cancer registries and other data sources, decision and cost-effectiveness analyses, and other novel methodologies. This book lays out the current critical questions for each major malignancy and proposes approaches to gain answers to these pressing questions.

This issue of Surgical Oncology Clinics of North America, guest edited by Drs. Caprice C. Greenberg and Daniel E. Abbott, is devoted to Measuring Quality in a Shifting Payment Landscape: Implications for Surgical Oncology. Drs. Caprice C. Greenberg and Daniel E. Abbott have assembled expert authors to review the following topics: Implications of the Affordable Care Act or Surgery and Cancer Care; Repealing the Affordable Care Act and Implications for Cancer Care; Quality Measurement and Pay for Performance; Surgical Collaboratives for Quality Improvement; Big Data and Cancer Care; Cancer Care Delivery Research; Engaging Stakeholders and Patient Partners; Beyond Morbidity and Mortaility - Outcomes that Matter to Patients; Regionalization and its Alternatives; The Economics of the End of Life: Power of Attorney, Palliative Care, Utilization of Hospice; The Accountable Care Organization for Surgical Care; and more!

In this issue of Surgical Oncology Clinics of North America, Guest Editor Clifford Ko, MD has assembled the top experts concerning Outcomes Research in Oncology. Topics in this issue will include: Currently Available Quality Initiatives in Surgical Oncology; Variation in Mortality After High Risk Cancer Surgery: Failure to Rescue; Readmission as a Quality Measure Following High Risk Cancer Surgery; Randomized Controlled Trials in Surgical Oncology: Where Do We Stand?; Lymph Node Staging in GI Malignancies; Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in Cancer Care; Patient Safety in Surgical Oncology: Perspective from the Operating Room; Value Based Health Care: A Surgical Oncologist Perspective; Monitoring the Delivery of Cancer Care: Commission on Cancer and National Cancer Data Base; Prediction Tools in Surgical Oncology; Collaboration With the Community Cancer Center: Benefit for All; and Evaluating the Appropriateness of Cancer Care in the United States.

Minimally Invasive Surgical Oncology is aimed at the minimal invasive surgeon as well as at the general surgeon and surgical trainee who wish to explore this field. It covers disciplines like gastroenterology, gynecology, urology, thoracic and pediatrics and builds bridges to oncologists and internal medicine. It gives a state-of-the art overview and perspectives for future developments and research as well. The book serves as an operative guide for a new generation of surgeons and offers the extraordinary feature being a text book, an operative atlas and a quick reference guide as well. The reader is provided with a tool in hand which synthesizes the latest knowledge in traditional therapies like chemotherapies and gives a comprehensive overview how to proceed in treating a cancer patient using minimal access techniques.

Advances in Surgery 2012

Comparative effectiveness research (CER) is research comparing different interventions and strategies to prevent, diagnose, treat, and monitor health conditions. The Am. Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) appropriated $1.1 billion to the Dept. ofHealth and Human Services (HHS) specifically for CER, including $400 million to the Secretary of HHS, $300 million to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and $400 million to the Nat. Institutes of Health (NIH). Additionally, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) directed AHRQ to disseminate the findings of CER published by the Patient-Centered Outcomes ResearchInstitute (PCORI) and other related government-funded research in consultation with NIH. This report examines HHS's funding of CER under the Recovery Act and PPACA. It includes information on the expenditures HHS has made using these funds, the entities that have received such funding, and the purpose of the funding. Tables. This is a print on demand report.

Surgical oncology is now a recognized specialty in the US and several European countries, and cancer surgery takes up a significant part of any general surgeon’s workload. This thoroughly updated second edition of this bestseller is officially endorsed as a textbook for the syllabus and curriculum of the UEMS examination in Surgical Oncology, which is administered by ESSO (European Society for Surgical Oncology). The examination is for trainees at the end of training or established consultants seeking to expand their accreditation.

This issue of Surgical Oncology Clinics of North America is devoted to "Breast Cancer" and is edited by Lisa Newman, MD, of the University of Michigan. Expert authors in this issue review this topic in articles such as: Applications for Breast MRI; Lobular Neoplasia; Epidemiology of Breast Cancer; Percutaneous Ablation of Breast Tumors; Triple Negative Breast Cancer and the Basal Breast Cancer Subtype; Molecular Profiling of Breast Cancer; Surgical Leadership and Standardization of Multidisciplinary Breast Cancer Care; Neoadjuvant/Primary Systemic Therapy for Breast Cancer; Management of the Clinically Node-Negative Axilla in Patients with Primary and Locally-Recurrent Breast Cancer; Management of the Axilla in Patients with Node-Positive Breast Cancer; Prophylactic Bilateral Mastectomy and Contralateral Prophylactic Mastectomy; Advances in Reconstruction of Mastectomy and Lumpectomy Defects; Nipple-Sparing Mastectomy; and Breast Cancer Disparities.

This issue of Surgical Oncology Clinics devoted to Laparoscopic Approaches in Oncology is Guest Edited by Dr. James Fleshman from the Washington University in St Louis, Missouri. Article topics in this issue include: Lap Colectomy for Colon Cancer; Lap Proctectomy for Rectal Cancer; Lap Resection of Liver for Cancer; Lap Pancreatectomy; Lap Whipple for Pancreatic Cancer; Lap Gastrectomy; Lap Adrenalectomy; Lap Nephrectomy; Lap Prostatectomy; Laparoscopic Robotic Thyroidectomy; and VATS for Lung Cancer.