Open AccessThe degree of agreement between score-based decision and clinician's discretion regarding the need for tracheotomy in oral cancer surgery
Author(s) -
Atsushi Abe,
Yu Ito,
Hiroki Hayashi,
Hiroshi Furuta,
Takanori Ishihama,
Moriyasu Adachi
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.59
H-Index - 148
eISSN - 1536-5964
pISSN - 0025-7974
DOI - 10.1097/md.0000000000026712
Subject(s) - medicine , tracheotomy , concordance , confidence interval , surgery , clinical judgment , general surgery , medical physics
In oral cancer surgery, the decision to perform a tracheotomy is often determined by the surgeon. In this study, we investigated the competency of clinical scoring systems in identifying patients who require tracheotomy and examined the degree of agreement between the surgeon's decision and the indications of various scoring systems. We identified 110 patients who were surgically treated for oral cancer. Of these, 67 patients (44 men and 23 women) who underwent resection and reconstruction were retrospectively analyzed. To derive the score, we evaluated the endpoint of the airway management score using clinical records and images. We divided the patients into two groups based on the Cameron and Gupta scores (tracheotomy and no-tracheotomy groups) and evaluated the degree of agreement with the surgeon's decision by calculating the κ coefficient. The κ coefficients of the Gupta and Cameron scores were 0.61 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.40–0.82) and 0.60 (95% CI: 0.38–0.82), respectively. The clinical evaluation of the κ coefficient indicated that the Cameron and Gupta scores agreed fairly with the surgeon's decision. In this study, the Cameron and Gupta scores fairly agreed with the decision of experienced surgeons and were confirmed as acceptable guides for making clinical judgments.