Public disclosure of surgeon's results – pituitary surgery

AbstractObjective. There are few agreed quantifiable outcome measures in pituitary surgery. The goal of this study is to present the measurement of resection volume after surgery for pituitary tumours as a surgeon-specific outcome measure that may have use in illustrating the performance of individual surgeons internally and externally, and contribute to quality improvement in pituitary surgery. Method. The authors used an existing validated method to measure the volume of pituitary tumours. This method was used to retrospectively assess the extent of resection (EOR) in all patients undergoing pituitary surgery for tumour volume reduction over a 3-year period in Leeds, UK. Three surgeons and two techniques (endonasal transsphenoidal surgery and conventional microscopic surgery) were compared. The results are summarised using Funnel plot methodology. Results. The overall mean EOR for the 3 years of study was 54%. There was no difference between endoscopic and microscopic techniques in terms of EOR. Signifi...