ArticleSurgery in practice and science2025
Costs of surgical futility in emergency laparotomy.
Article in Surgery in practice and science, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Surgical futility has been defined as death within 72 h of emergency laparotomy. It is associated with patient distress, moral injury and opportunity costs. This study aimed to determine the rates of surgical futility after emergency laparotomy at a single high-volume centre, and to attribute costs to cases of surgical futility. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted between 1st August 2021 and 1st August 2023 at a single high-volume acute hospital trust in the United Kingdom. A national patient-level costings system was used to determine the costs of hospital care from the day of surgery to the time of death. Results: In a cohort of 741 patients, there was a 3.6 % surgical futility rate. Most of these patients died within 24 h of surgery. The median total cost of admission for each patient was £14,118 (range £6,618 to £29,583). The median cost per day of admission was £6,004 (range £1,324 to £15,255). Conclusion: This is the first study to report the costs of surgical futility in the emergency laparotomy setting. Futile surgery appears to cost more and require more resource than non-futile laparotomies. Further research should focus on how to better predict surgical futility, reduce inappropriate interventions and improve patient care.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.