Public Awareness of Uterine Power Morcellation Through US Food and Drug Administration Communications: Analysis of Google Trends Search Term Patterns.

BACKGROUND: Uterine power morcellation, where the uterus is shred into smaller pieces, is a widely used technique for removal of uterine specimens in patients undergoing minimally invasive abdominal hysterectomy or myomectomy. Complications related to power morcellation of uterine specimens led to US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) communications in 2014 ultimately recommending against the use of power morcellation for women undergoing minimally invasive hysterectomy. Subsequently, practitioners drastically decreased the use of morcellation. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to determine the effect of increased patient awareness on the decrease in use of the morcellator. Google Trends is a public tool that provides data on temporal patterns of search terms, and we correlated this data with the timing of the FDA communication. METHODS: Weekly relative search volume (RSV) was obtained from Google Trends using the term "morcellation." Higher RSV corresponds to increases in weekly search volume. Search volumes were divided into 3 groups: the 2 years prior to the FDA communication, a 1-year period following, and thereafter, with the distribution of the weekly RSV over the 3 periods tested using 1-way analysis of variance. Additionally, we analyzed the total number of websites containing the term "morcellation" over this time. RESULTS: The mean RSV prior to the FDA communication was 12.0 (SD 15.8), with the RSV being 60.3 (SD 24.7) in the 1-year after and 19.3 (SD 5.2) thereafter (P<.001). The mean number of webpages containing the term "morcellation" in 2011 was 10,800, rising to 18,800 during 2014 and 36,200 in 2017. CONCLUSIONS: Google search activity about morcellation of uterine specimens increased significantly after the FDA communications. This trend indicates an increased public awareness regarding morcellation and its complications. More extensive preoperative counseling and alteration of surgical technique and clinician practice may be necessary.

Frequency of lower urinary tract injury after gastrointestinal surgery in the nationwide inpatient sample database.

Bladder and ureteral injury are serious iatrogenic complications during abdominal and pelvic surgery but are poorly investigated in the general surgery literature. The objective of this study was to examine rates, trends, and patient and surgical characteristics present in lower urinary tract injuries during gastrointestinal surgery using the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) database. The NIS database was queried from 2002 to 2010 for gastrointestinal surgery procedures including small/large bowel, rectal surgery, and procedures involving a combination of the two. These were crossreferenced with bladder and ureteral injury using International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification codes. Multivariate regression analysis was used to calculate odds ratios for hypothesized risk factors. From 2002 to 2010, total average rates of bladder injury and ureteral injury were 0.15 and 0.06 per cent, respectively. Small/large bowel procedures had lower annual rates of ureteral (0.05 to 0.07%) and bladder (0.12 to 0.14%) injuries compared with ureteral (0.11 to 0.25%) and bladder (0.27 to 0.41%) injuries in rectal procedures. Presence of metastatic disease was associated with the greatest risk for bladder (odds ratio, 2.0; 95% confidence interval, 1.8 to 2.2) and ureteral (2.2; 1.9 to 2.5) injury in small/large bowel surgery, and for bladder (3.1; 2.5 to 3.9) and ureteral (4.0; 3.2 to 5.0) injury in combination procedures. Injury rates were significantly greater in open surgeries compared with laparoscopic procedures for both bladder injury (0.78 vs 0.26%, P < 0.0001) and ureteral injury (0.34 vs 0.06%, P < 0.0001). The incidence of genitourinary (GU) injury in gastrointestinal surgery is rare, less than 1.0 per cent, and is less than the incidence of GU injury reported in gynecologic surgery. This risk is increased by operations on the rectum and the presence of malignancy.

A geographic analysis of male urethral stricture aetiology and location.

UNLABELLED: WHAT'S KNOWN ON THE SUBJECT? AND WHAT DOES THE STUDY ADD?: The incidence of specific aetiologies of urethral stricture disease has been reported from a variety of series throughout the world. Most reported urethral stricture series are from single institutions or from a specific region of the world. We provide a multi-centred series to compare aetiologic incidence between differing regional populations. OBJECTIVE: To better understand distinct regional patterns in urethral stricture aetiology and location among distinct regional populations. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Data on 2589 patients who underwent urethroplasty from 2000 to 2011 were collected retrospectively from three clinical sites, including 1646 patients from Italy, 715 from India and 228 from the USA. Data from all sites were single-surgeon series. As the data from the Italian and US cohorts were similar in aetiology, location and demographics, we combined these data to form group 1, and compared this group with men in the Indian cohort, group 2. Age, stricture site and primary stricture aetiology were identified for each patient. Stricture site and primary aetiology were determined by the treating surgeon. Primary aetiology was defined as iatrogenic, trauma including pelvic-fracture-related urethral injury (PFUI), lichen sclerosus (LS), infectious, congenital, or unknown. RESULTS: There were more penile strictures (27 vs 5%) and fewer posterior urethral stenoses (9 vs 34%) in group 1. There were more iatrogenic strictures identified in group 1 (35 vs 16%). When comparing the aetiology of iatrogenic strictures alone, more strictures in group 1 were attributable to failed hypospadias repair (49 vs 16%). More patients presented with LS (22 vs 7%) and external trauma (36 vs 16%) in group 2. Prevalence of strictures of infectious aetiology was low (1%) with similar proportions between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: We have shown that significant regional differences in stricture aetiology exist in a large multicentre cohort study. Group 1 had a higher proportion of penile strictures, largely owing to more iatrogenic strictures and, in particular, failed hypospadias repair. Group 2 had a higher proportion of PFUI and LS-associated urethal stricture. Identified infection-related urethral stricture was rare in all cohorts. Significant regional differences in stricture aetiology exist and should be considered when analysing international outcomes after urethroplasty. These data may also help the development of international disease prevention and treatment strategies.

Anaplasma phagocytophilum infection in a dog: identifying the causative agent using PCR.

A diagnosis of Anaplasma phagocytophilum infection was confirmed in a two-year-old male golden retriever displaying few clinical and haematological abnormalities. This was achieved by demonstrating ehrlichial organisms in circulating neutrophils, by indirect immunofluorescence assay using A phagocytophilum as an antigen, and by detecting DNA specific for the 16S rRNA gene of granulocytic Anaplasma by PCR. After treatment with doxycycline for 10 days the dog showed improvement and the laboratory values returned to normal.

Tractor-trailer crashes in Indiana: a case-control study of the role of truck configuration.

Studies of the crash experience of tractors pulling multiple trailers have reached different conclusions concerning the relationship of truck configuration to crash risk. A previous case-control study found a significant increase in crash risk for double-trailer trucks in the state of Washington. The present case-control study was done of tractor-trailers crashing on Indiana interstates during November 1989-March 1991. Controls were obtained for 25% of the crash sites and were all tractor-trailers passing the crash sites during a traffic observation session one to four weeks following a crash on the same day of the week for 30 minutes at the same time of day. Logistic regression identified day of week, time of day, urban/rural area, and specific highway as significant predictors of controls' truck configuration. This model was applied to the cases to estimate the expected number of double-trailer cases. For all crashes combined, no increased crash risk was observed for doubles (Standardized Crash Ratio (SCR) = 83). Doubles were significantly underinvolved in multiple-vehicle crashes (SCR = 74), crashes on dry roads (SCR = 61), and crashes on wet (other than snow, ice, or slush) roads (SCR = 54). Doubles were significantly overinvolved in crashes on roads with snow, ice, or slush (SCR = 153). Because truck configuration was highly associated with driver age and work operation attributes among trucks in crashes, the absence of control data on these potential confounders precluded definitive assessment of the intrinsic risk of multiple versus single-trailer vehicles.