In ovarian cancer care, focus on high-volume centers could come at a cost
Patients undergoing cancer surgery often have better outcomes when treated at hospitals that perform these procedures routinely. However, implementing minimum-volume standards for cancer surgery could unintentionally prevent many patients from getting timely care for a minimal increase in survival.
Applying a minimum-volume cutoff of 3 procedures would prevent many hospitals, mainly in rural areas, from performing ovarian cancer surgery, affecting nearly 8% of patients. Over 300 patients would need to be moved from a hospital treating 3 or fewer patients to a higher-volume center to prevent 1 death in the year after surgery
A large number of low-volume hospitals had better-than-expected mortality rates. Outcomes are better at low-volume centres that rigorously adhere to evidence-based treatment guidelines for ovarian cancer.
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