Surgeons’ Volume-Outcome Relationship for Lobectomies and Wedge Resections for Cancer Using Video-Assisted Thoracoscopic Techniques

Table 1

Patient characteristics.

Procedure*	VATS lobectomy		VATS wedge resection
	All surgeons; (including thoracic)	Thoracic surgeons; (only)	All surgeons; (including thoracic)	Thoracic surgeons; (only)
Total 𝑁	716	546	1,982	1,350
(% of total 𝑁= 2,698)	(26.54%)	(20.24%)	(73.46%)	(50.04%)
Age average (SD)	66.68 (11.27)	66.51 (10.96)	61.09 (15.39)	61.37 (14.57)
<40	0.01	0.01	0.10	0.09
41–50	0.07	0.08	0.12	0.12
51–60	0.20	0.20	0.20	0.21
61–70	0.32	0.33	0.29	0.29
71–80	0.30	0.28	0.24	0.24
>80	0.10	0.10	0.06	0.06
Race
Caucasian	0.79	0.84	0.74	0.79
African American	0.07	0.07	0.08	0.09
Other	0.13	0.10	0.18	0.13
Gender
Female	0.55	0.55	0.53	0.53
Male	0.45	0.45	0.47	0.47
Marital status
Married	0.59	0.62	0.54	0.58
Unmarried	0.41	0.38	0.46	0.42
Insurance type
Commercial	0.07	0.07	0.07	0.07
Medicare	0.60	0.60	0.49	0.49
Medicaid	0.03	0.02	0.05	0.05
Managed care	0.28	0.30	0.35	0.35
Other	0.03	0.02	0.04	0.03
Malignancy indication**
Primary neoplasm of the lung	0.96	0.95	0.86	0.85
Metastases from other primary malignancy	0.04	0.05	0.14	0.15
Illness severity level
APR-DRG Severity Level (1, 2)	0.78	0.79	0.87	0.86
APR-DRG Severity Level (3, 4)	0.22	0.21	0.13	0.14

^*All procedures are inpatient. CPT and ICD codes for resections in Table 7.
**ICD codes for lung cancer in Table 8.