Prevalence and Predictors of Third-Generation Cephalosporin Resistance in the Empirical Treatment of Spontaneous Bacterial Peritonitis.

OBJECTIVE: To better characterize the changing patterns of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) in a tertiary academic center in the United States by identifying the prevalence of gram-positive organisms and cephalosporin resistance along with predictors of mortality and antibiotic drug resistance. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We reviewed 481 consecutive patients with SBP at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, from January 1, 2005, through December 31, 2016. Data on comorbid conditions, etiology of cirrhosis, factors predisposing to infection, and antimicrobial and antibiotic drug use were collected. RESULTS: We identified 96 patients (20%) with culture-positive SBP requiring treatment (median age, 60 years; age range, 22-87 years; 44% men). Gram-positive organisms account for more than half of the cases. Overall resistance to third-generation cephalosporins was 10% (n=10). Risk factors for third-generation cephalosporin resistance include nosocomial acquisition, recent antibiotic drug use, and hepatocellular carcinoma. The negative predictive value for antibiotic drug resistance in the present model was 96% (70 of 73). Overall mortality at 30 and 90 days was 23% and 37%, respectively. CONCLUSION: These findings support the recent observation of a rising prevalence of gram-positive organisms in SBP. Despite the changing pattern, third-generation cephalosporins seem to provide adequate empirical treatment in patients with community-acquired and health care-associated SBP without hepatocellular carcinoma.

Acute Alcoholic Hepatitis: Natural History and Predictors of Mortality Using a Multicenter Prospective Study.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the natural history of acute alcoholic hepatitis (AH) and identify predictors of mortality for AH using data from a prospective multicenter observational study. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: We analyzed data from 164 patients with AH and 131 heavy-drinking controls with no liver disease. Participants underwent clinical/laboratory assessment at baseline and 6 and 12 months after enrollment. Multivariable analyses were conducted to identify variables associated with mortality and examine the association between coffee drinking and risk of AH. RESULTS: Thirty-six patients with AH died during follow-up, with estimated 30-day, 90-day, 180-day, and 1-year survival of 0.91 (95% CI, 0.87-0.96), 0.85 (95% CI, 0.80-0.91), 0.80 (95% CI, 0.74-0.87), and 0.75 (95% CI, 0.68-0.83), respectively. In the multivariable analysis, higher serum bilirubin level (hazard ratio [HR]=1.059; 95% CI, 1.022-1.089), lower hemoglobin level (HR=1.263; 95% CI, 1.012-1.575), and lower platelet count (HR=1.006; 95% CI, 1.001-1.012) were independently associated with mortality in AH. Compared with controls, fewer patients with AH regularly consumed coffee (20% vs 44%; P<.001), and this association between regular coffee drinking and lower risk of AH persisted after controlling for relevant covariates (odds ratio=0.26; 95% CI, 0.15-0.46). Time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curve analysis revealed that Model for End-Stage Liver Disease; Maddrey Discriminant Function; age, serum bilirubin, international normalized ratio, and serum creatinine; and Child-Pugh scores all provided similar discrimination performance at 30 days (area under the curve=0.73-0.77). CONCLUSION: Alcoholic hepatitis remains highly fatal, with 1-year mortality of 25%. Regular coffee consumption was associated with lower risk of AH in heavy drinkers.

Association of Histopathologic Phenotype of Periampullary Adenocarcinomas With Survival.

Importance: Patients with periampullary adenocarcinomas have widely variable survival. These cancers are traditionally categorized by their anatomic location of origin, namely, the duodenum, ampulla, distal common bile duct (CBD), or head of the pancreas. However, they can be alternatively subdivided histopathologically into intestinal or pancreaticobiliary (PB) types, which may more accurately estimate prognosis. Objectives: To identify factors associated with survival in patients with periampullary adenocarcinomas and to compare survival between those having intestinal-type or PB-type cancers originating from the duodenum, ampulla, or distal CBD with those having pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Design, Setting, and Participants: This study was a retrospective analysis of medical records in a prospectively maintained database. Three pathologists separately evaluated histopathologic phenotypes at a university-based tertiary referral center. Study participants were all patients (N = 510) who underwent pancreatoduodenectomy for adenocarcinoma between January 1995 and December 2014. Main Outcome and Measure: Overall survival. Results: This study identified 510 patients (mean [SD] age, 66.1 [10.9] years; 245 female [48%]) who underwent pancreatoduodenectomy for adenocarcinomas: 13 duodenal, 110 ampullary, 43 distal CBD, and 344 PDAC. The median overall survival was 61.2 (interquartile range [IQR], 22.0-111.0), 70.4 (IQR, 26.7-147.7), 40.6 (IQR, 15.2-59.6), and 31.4 (IQR, 17.3-86.3) months for patients with cancers of the duodenum, ampulla, distal CBD, or pancreas, respectively (P = .01), indicating a significant difference between the 4 tumor anatomic locations. Most duodenal (61.5% [8 of 13]) and ampullary (51.8% [57 of 110]) cancers were intestinal type, and most distal CBD tumors were PB type (86.0% [37 of 43]). Those with intestinal-type duodenal, ampullary, or distal CBD adenocarcinomas had longer median overall survival than those with PB type (71.7 vs 33.3 months, P = .02) or PDAC (31.4 months, P = .003). There was no survival difference between PB-type cancers and PDAC (33.3 vs 31.4 months, P = .66). On multivariable analysis, histologic grade (hazard ratio [HR], 1.98; 95% CI, 1.56-2.52; P < .001), histopathologic phenotype (HR, 1.75; 95% CI, 1.16-2.64; P = .008), and nodal status (HR, 1.45; 95% CI, 1.12-1.87; P = .05) were significantly associated with survival, while anatomic location was not. Conclusions and Relevance: Histopathologic phenotype is a better prognosticator of survival in patients with periampullary adenocarcinomas than tumor anatomic location. Those with PB-type duodenal, ampullary, or distal CBD adenocarcinomas have survival similar to those with PDAC.

Locally advanced pancreatic cancer: association between prolonged preoperative treatment and lymph-node negativity and overall survival.

IMPORTANCE: Treatment of patients with locally advanced/borderline resectable (LA/BR) pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is not standardized. OBJECTIVE: To (1) perform a detailed survival analysis of our institution's experience with patients with LA/BR PDAC who were downstaged and underwent surgical resection and (2) identify prognostic biomarkers that may help to guide a decision for the use of adjuvant therapy in this patient subgroup. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Retrospective observational study of 49 consecutive patients from a single institution during 1992-2011 with American Joint Committee on Cancer stage III LA/BR PDAC who were initially unresectable, as determined by staging computed tomography and/or surgical exploration, and who were treated and then surgically resected. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Clinicopathologic variables and prognostic biomarkers SMAD4, S100A2, and microRNA-21 were correlated with survival by univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazard modeling. RESULTS: All 49 patients were deemed initially unresectable owing to vascular involvement. After completing preoperative chemotherapy for a median of 7.1 months (range, 5.4-9.6 months), most (75.5%) underwent a pylorus-preserving Whipple operation; 3 patients (6.1%) had a vascular resection. Strikingly, 37 of 49 patients were lymph-node (LN) negative (75.5%) and 42 (85.7%) had negative margins; 45.8% of evaluable patients achieved a complete histopathologic (HP) response. The median overall survival (OS) was 40.1 months (range, 22.7-65.9 months). A univariate analysis of HP prognostic biomarkers revealed that perineural invasion (hazard ratio, 5.5; P=.007) and HP treatment response (hazard ratio, 9.0; P=.009) were most significant. Lymph-node involvement, as a marker of systemic disease, was also significant on univariate analysis (P=.05). Patients with no LN involvement had longer OS (44.4 vs 23.2 months, P=.04) than LN-positive patients. The candidate prognostic biomarkers, SMAD4 protein loss (P=.01) in tumor cells and microRNA-21 expression in the stroma (P=.05), also correlated with OS. On multivariate Cox proportional hazard modeling of HP and prognostic biomarkers, only SMAD4 protein loss was significant (hazard ratio, 9.3; P=.004). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Our approach to patients with LA/BR PDAC, which includes prolonged preoperative chemotherapy, is associated with a high incidence of LN-negative disease and excellent OS. After surgical resection, HP treatment response, perineural invasion, and SMAD4 status should help determine who should receive adjuvant therapy in this select subset of patients.

Using trauma center data to identify missed bicycle injuries and their associated costs.

BACKGROUND: Recently, there has been a 58% increase in the number of observed cyclists in San Francisco. In 2009, 3.2% of commuters were traveling by bicycle in this city, which is well above the national average of less than 1%. Police reports are the industry standard for assessing transportation-related collisions and informing policies and interventions that address the issue. Previous studies have suggested that police reports miss a substantial portion of bicycle crashes not involving motor vehicles. No study to date has explored the health and economic impact of cyclist-only (CO) injuries for adults in the United States. Our objective was to use trauma registry data to investigate possible underrepresentation of certain cyclist injuries and characterize cost. METHODS: We reviewed hospital and police records for 2,504 patients treated for bicycle-related injuries at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH). We compared incidence, injury severity, admission rate, and cost of injury for CO and auto-versus-bicycle (AVB) injuries treated at SFGH. We then calculated the cost of injury. RESULTS: Of all bicycle-related injuries at SFGH, 41.5% were CO injuries and 58.5% were AVB injuries. Those with CO injuries were more than four times as likely to be required of hospital admission compared with those with AVB injuries (odds ratio, 4.76; 95% confidence interval, 3.93-5.76; p < 0.0001). From 2000 to 2009, 54.5% of bicycle injuries treated at SFGH were not associated with a police report, revealing that bicycle crashes and injuries are underrecognized in San Francisco. Costs for care were significantly higher for AVB injuries and increased dramatically over time; total cost for CO and AVB injuries were $12.6 and $17.8 million. CONCLUSION: Based on this study, we conclude that trauma centers can play a key role in future collaborations to define issues and develop prevention strategies for CO crashes. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Epidemiologic study, level II.