New thesis on improving surgical therapy for oesophageal cancer
Sheraz Markar from the group Upper GI Surgery will defend his thesis "Improving surgical therapy for oesophageal cancer" on September 14, 2018. Main Supervisor is Jesper Lagergren.
What's the main focus of your thesis?
– My thesis is trying to utilise large national datasets to identify areas of improvement in surgical therapy for oesophageal cancer.
Which are the most important results?
(i) Salvage oesophagectomy following definitive chemoradiotherapy can be performed safely in high volume centres in selected patients.
(ii) Surgeons go through a period of proficiency gain in performing oesophageal cancer surgery with significant adverse effects on short- and long-term mortality to patients.
(iii) After aged 56, surgeons appear to experience a decline in their operative outcomes, which may be due to a decline in technical ability.
(iv) University hospital status does not affect long-term mortality from oesophageal cancer surgery.
(v) Anastomotic leak impairs long-term survival and increase cancer recurrence following oesophageal cancer surgery.
How can this new knowledge contribute to the improvement of people's health?
The studies conducted within this thesis have shown the safety of new therapeutic surgical strategies for oesophageal cancer, the importance of surgeon proficiency gain and surgeon age in prognosis, the lack of significance of university hospital status, and the adverse long-term prognostic effects of severe oesophageal anastomotic leak.
What are your future ambitions?
To continue my surgical and academic training, as a postdoctoral researcher, with the view to become an academic surgeon with a specialist interest in the management of oesophageal cancer.
Dissertation
Friday September 14, 2018 at 13:00, Samuelssonsalen, Tomtebodavägen 6, KI Campus Solna