Prostate surgery better at some hospitals

DETROIT, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- Men who get their prostate removed get better results at U.S. teaching hospitals than at non-academic medical institutions, researchers say.

Lead author Dr. Quoc-Dien Trinh of Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital Vattikuti Urology Institute said Henry Ford researchers using data from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services' Health Care Utilization Project examined the records of nearly 90,000 radical prostatectomy surgeries performed from 2001 to 2007 -- of which nearly 60 percent were performed at teaching hospitals. Radical prostatectomy is the surgical removal of the entire cancerous prostate gland and some surrounding tissue.

Compared to those patients who had the surgery at non-academic institutions, the study, published in the Journal of Urology, also found they had fewer complications after surgery, there were fewer blood transfusions, hospital stays were shorter, and hospitals with heavy caseloads saw similar results for complications, blood transfusions and length of stay. Even after adjusting findings for such hospitals, the researcher found teaching institutions enjoyed better results than others.

At teaching hospitals, every level of clinical decision-making is subjected to peer review, which may translate into better selection of candidates for radical prostatectomy surgery, and of virtually all medical care directly or indirectly related to radical prostatectomy, Trinh suggested.

"From a practical perspective our results indicate that on average, a more favorable postoperative complication profile, short length of stay and lower transfusion rate should be expected at academic institutions," Trinh said in a statement.