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Video: Centralisation of RC for bladder cancer in England

Centralisation of radical cystectomies for bladder cancer in England, a decade on from the ‘Improving Outcomes Guidance’: the case for super centralisation

Abstract

Objective

To analyse the impact of centralisation of radical cystectomy (RC) provision for bladder cancer in England, on postoperative mortality, length of stay (LoS), complications and re-intervention rates, from implementation of centralisation from 2003 until 2014. In 2002, UK policymakers introduced the ‘Improving Outcomes Guidance’ (IOG) for urological cancers after a global cancer surgery commission identified substantial shortcomings in provision of care of RCs. One key recommendation was centralisation of RCs to high-output centres. No study has yet robustly analysed the changes since the introduction of the IOG, to assess a national healthcare system that has mature data on such institutional transformation.

Patients and Methods

RCs performed for bladder cancer in England between 2003/2004 and 2013/2014 were analysed from Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data. Outcomes including 30-day, 90-day, and 1-year all-cause postoperative mortality; median LoS; complication and re-intervention rates, were calculated. Multivariable statistical analysis was undertaken to describe the relationship between each surgeon and the providers’ annual case volume and mortality.

Results

In all, 15 292 RCs were identified. The percentage of RCs performed in discordance with the IOG guidelines reduced from 65% to 12.4%, corresponding with an improvement in 30-day mortality from 2.7% to 1.5% (P = 0.024). Procedures adhering to the IOG guidelines had better 30-day mortality (2.1% vs 2.9%; P = 0.003) than those that did not, and better 1-year mortality (21.5% vs 25.6%; P < 0.001), LoS (14 vs 16 days; P < 0.001), and re- intervention rates (30.0% vs 33.6%; P < 0.001). Each single extra surgery per centre reduced the odds of death at 30 days by 1.5% (odds ratio [OR] 0.985, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.977–0.992) and 1% at 1 year (OR 0.990, 95% CI 0.988–0.993), and significantly reduced rates of re-intervention.

Conclusion

Centralisation has been implemented across England since the publication of the IOG guidelines in 2002. The improved outcomes shown, including that a single extra procedure per year per centre can significantly reduce mortality and re-intervention, may serve to offer healthcare planners an evidence base to propose new guidance for further optimisation of surgical provision, and hope for other healthcare systems that such widespread institutional change is achievable and positive.

Editorial: Examining the role of centralisation of radical cystectomy for bladder cancer

Despite the high risk of postoperative complications and/or death, radical cystectomy (RC) is currently considered as the standard of care for patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) without clinical evidence of metastases at initial diagnosis. As an alternative, trimodality bladder-sparing therapy with a potentially more favourable toxicity profile has been developed over recent decades, but definitive surgery may provide better cancer control outcomes, especially in fit individuals. Consequently, efforts have been made recently to improve RC quality by introducing new concepts in the perioperative management of patients with MIBC. For example, the implementation of robot-assisted techniques and enhanced recovery protocols may help to reduce surgical stress and facilitate discharge after early rehabilitation. Nonetheless, such valuable interventions are more likely to be delivered at expert centres in MIBC management.

Interestingly, given that surgical experience mostly comes from surgical volume, numerous studies suggest that there is an inverse relationship between hospital as well as surgeon volume and morbidities for major surgeries including RC. Specifically, a recent meta-analysis showed that high-volume hospitals (odds ratio [OR] 0.55, 95% CI: 0.44–0.69; P < 0.001) and surgeons (OR 0.58, 95% CI: 0.46–0.73; P < 0.001) were significantly associated with a lower risk of death after RC [1]. As a result, centralisation of RC at high-output centres has been advocated worldwide to optimise perioperative management of patients with MIBC and improve short-term outcomes.

In this issue of the BJUI, Afshar et al. [2] eloquently show that such a healthcare policy can be effective at the population level. The authors impressively collected perioperative information on >15 000 RC patients from the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) dataset in England, where the ‘Improving Outcomes Guidance’ (IOG) programme recommends since 2002 that RC should be performed by surgeons operating at least five cases per year at centres carrying out ≥50 procedures per year. Interestingly, they found that the proportion of RC performed in discordance with IOG guidelines decreased from 60.7% in 2003 to 12.4% in 2013. This resulted in a significant improvement in the overall 30-day crude mortality rate, with a reduction from 2.7% to 1.5% over the 11-year period (P = 0.02). After adjusting for available confounding, RC patients in the non-IOG-compliant group were more likely to die at 30 days (OR 1.41, 95% CI: 1.13–1.76) or 1 year (OR 1.31, 95% CI: 1.21–1.43) as compared to those in the IOG-compliant group. When analysing the incremental effect of hospital volume, each extra RC per year reduced the risk of death at 30 days and 1 year by 1.5% (OR 0.985, 95% CI: 0.977–0.992) and 1% (OR 0.990, 95% CI: 0.988–0.993), respectively. Although there was no significant difference in the odds of postoperative complications between the two groups (OR 0.96, 95% CI: 0.88–1.04), the risk of re-intervention was higher in the non-IOG-compliant group (OR 1.20, 95% CI: 1.12–1.30). It is noteworthy that, as observed for the risk of death, each extra RC decreased the risk of re-intervention (OR 0.99, 95% CI: 0.991–0.995). In conclusion, the findings by Afshar et al. [2] suggest that urologists have embraced centralisation of care for RC patients in England and this is likely to have positively affected the short-term outcomes.

Although, as acknowledged by the authors, many limitations related to the administrative nature of the HES dataset (e.g. missing data or coding errors) may have influenced the aforementioned results, other reports from the USA are consistent with this study. Specifically, it has been estimated that up to 40% of the decline in 30-day mortality after RC from 2000 to 2008 was attributable to centralisation of care [3]. In addition, other RC quality criteria, such as adequate pelvic lymph node dissection at the time of surgery, have improved after similar centralisation in the Netherlands between 2006 and 2012 [4]. As such, centralisation of RC offers many undisputable advantages, but given that travel distance to the treating facility may represent an important barrier for patients with MIBC seeking surgical care, concerns have been raised with regards to potential drawbacks, including increased time to definitive surgery. However, a recent report from the USA showed that, although centralisation of RC has led to a decrease overall access to the treating facilities, the process simultaneously improved access to high-volume centres [5]. It is noteworthy that hospital volume standards for centralisation of RC should not be set too high to avoid unreasonable travel burdens on patients with MIBC [6].

To summarise, centralisation of care is arguably the best way to go, to continue improving quality of RC and its associated short-term outcomes in the near future. Despite inherent limitations, virtually all available evidence, including the study by Afshar et al. [2], converge toward the general concept that RC patients should be managed by experienced urologists operating at expert centres with trained surgical teams.

Thomas Seisen 
Department of Urology, Pitie Salpetriere Hospital, Assistance Publique des Hopitaux de Paris, Paris Sorbonne University, Paris, France

 

 

References

 

 

2 Afshar M, Goodfellow H, Jackson-Spence F et al. Centralisation of radical cystectomies for bladder cancer in England, a decade on from the ‘Improving Outcomes Guidance: the case for super centralisation. BJU Int 2018; 121: 21724 166

 

 3 Finks JF, Osborne NH, Birkmeyer JD. Trends in hospital volume and operative mortality for high-risk surgery. N Engl J Med 2011; 364: 212837

 

4 Hermans TJ, Fransen van de Putte EE, Fossion LM et al. Variations in
pelvic lymph node dissection in invasive bladder cancer: a Dutch

 

nationwide population-based study during centralization of care. Urol
Oncol 2016;34:532. e7532.e12

 

5 Casey MF, Wisnivesky J, Le VH et al. The relationship between centralization of care and geographic barriers to cystectomy for bladder cancer. Bladder Cancer 2016; 2: 31927

 

6 Birkmeyer JD, Siewers AE, Marth NJ, Goodman DC. Regionalization of high-risk surgery and implications for patient travel times. JAMA 2003; 290: 27038

 

Article of the Week: Centralisation of RC for bladder cancer in England

Every Week, the Editor-in-Chief selects an Article of the Week from the current issue of BJUI. The abstract is reproduced below and you can click on the button to read the full article, which is freely available to all readers for at least 30 days from the time of this post.

In addition to the article itself, there is an accompanying editorial written by a prominent member of the urological community. This blog is intended to provoke comment and discussion and we invite you to use the comment tools at the bottom of each post to join the conversation.

Finally, the third post under the Article of the Week heading on the homepage will consist of additional material or media. This week we feature a video discussing the paper.

If you only have time to read one article this week, it should be this one.

Centralisation of radical cystectomies for bladder cancer in England, a decade on from the ‘Improving Outcomes Guidance’: the case for super centralisation

Mehran Afshar*, Henry Goodfellow, Francesca Jackson-Spence, Felicity Evison§John Parkin§, Richard T. Bryan, Helen Parsons, Nicholas D. James§‡ and Prashant Patel§

 

*St Georges Hospital NHS Trust, London, UK, The Royal Free London NHS Trust, London, UK, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK, §University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham, UK, and Clinical Trials Unit, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

Abstract

Objective

To analyse the impact of centralisation of radical cystectomy (RC) provision for bladder cancer in England, on postoperative mortality, length of stay (LoS), complications and re-intervention rates, from implementation of centralisation from 2003 until 2014. In 2002, UK policymakers introduced the ‘Improving Outcomes Guidance’ (IOG) for urological cancers after a global cancer surgery commission identified substantial shortcomings in provision of care of RCs. One key recommendation was centralisation of RCs to high-output centres. No study has yet robustly analysed the changes since the introduction of the IOG, to assess a national healthcare system that has mature data on such institutional transformation.

Patients and Methods

RCs performed for bladder cancer in England between 2003/2004 and 2013/2014 were analysed from Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data. Outcomes including 30-day, 90-day, and 1-year all-cause postoperative mortality; median LoS; complication and re-intervention rates, were calculated. Multivariable statistical analysis was undertaken to describe the relationship between each surgeon and the providers’ annual case volume and mortality.

Results

In all, 15 292 RCs were identified. The percentage of RCs performed in discordance with the IOG guidelines reduced from 65% to 12.4%, corresponding with an improvement in 30-day mortality from 2.7% to 1.5% (P = 0.024). Procedures adhering to the IOG guidelines had better 30-day mortality (2.1% vs 2.9%; P = 0.003) than those that did not, and better 1-year mortality (21.5% vs 25.6%; P < 0.001), LoS (14 vs 16 days; P < 0.001), and re- intervention rates (30.0% vs 33.6%; P < 0.001). Each single extra surgery per centre reduced the odds of death at 30 days by 1.5% (odds ratio [OR] 0.985, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.977–0.992) and 1% at 1 year (OR 0.990, 95% CI 0.988–0.993), and significantly reduced rates of re-intervention.

Conclusion

Centralisation has been implemented across England since the publication of the IOG guidelines in 2002. The improved outcomes shown, including that a single extra procedure per year per centre can significantly reduce mortality and re-intervention, may serve to offer healthcare planners an evidence base to propose new guidance for further optimisation of surgical provision, and hope for other healthcare systems that such widespread institutional change is achievable and positive.

Read more articles of the week

 

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