American College of Surgeons, Oct. 4-7

The annual meeting of the American College of Surgeons was held this year from Oct. 4 to 7 in Chicago and attracted participants from around the world, including surgeons, medical experts, allied health professionals, and administrators. The conference included hundreds of general and specialty sessions, postgraduate courses, scientific paper presentations, video-based education presentations, and posters focusing on the latest advances in surgical care.

In a retrospective study, Erryk S. Katayama, a medical student at The Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus, and colleagues found that depression is associated with a lower likelihood of achieving optimal postoperative outcomes, but antidepressant treatment can mitigate the size of these negative effects.

The authors identified patients with colorectal, hepatobiliary, and pancreatic cancers who were also diagnosed with depression 12 months before or after a cancer diagnosis using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare database. They found that depression was associated with worse postoperative outcomes, including complications, length of stay, readmission, mortality, and expenditures. Meanwhile, receipt of antidepressants perioperatively decreased the effect of depression on adverse outcomes.

“The results of this study may inform future prospective studies which more specifically examine the role of mental health care in perioperative management,” Katayama said. “Multidisciplinary care may help optimize surgical outcomes.”

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In another study, Krista L. Haines, D.O., of the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, and colleagues found that drug use is reshaping the pattern of accidental injury deaths, and both public health and clinical care need to keep pace.

The authors assessed trends in mortality rates associated with drug-related unintentional injury between 2018 and 2023 using the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wide-Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) database.

The researchers found that deaths from unintentional injuries linked to drugs increased by nearly 60 percent in the past five years. Adults 35 to 44 years of age had the highest risk for dying from drug-related accidental injuries. Rates were higher among men and among Black Americans, though these differences were not statistically significant after multivariable adjustment.

“Trauma teams should anticipate drug involvement and its effect on resuscitation and outcomes,” Haines said. “Integrating injury prevention with drug use prevention could reduce both overdose and trauma-related deaths.”

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Patrick J. Sweigert, M.D., of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, and colleagues found that the newest generation of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, including semaglutide and tirzepatide, are increasingly being used in combination with surgery for patients with obesity or overweight.