The One-Stop Aortic Surveillance Clinic

Abstract

BackgroundThe principle of interval ultrasound surveillance of small abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) is well established. The fundamental principle of surveillance is that repair of AAA is a serious undertaking and the risk of the operation outweighs the risk of rupture in aneurysms less than 5.5 cm. Surveillance is well established but requires multiple visits to both the surgical clinic and the ultrasound department.ReportThis report presents a system whereby the vascular surgeon is trained in the process of aortic sonography with a view to one-stop clinic assessment. After training of the main investigators in aortic sonography, the surgeons performed scans on the aortas of 80 consecutive patients and compared the scan result with the subsequent formal scan.DiscussionSurgical and radiographer scans correlate very closely. It is believed that the one-stop aortic surveillance model is safe, accurate, and improves both the patient journey and clinic throughput.

“One stop” clinic for upper gastrointestinal cancer—an alternative to “straight to test” referrals?

“…Although both straight-to-test and one-stop clinics have shown good results and are popular with patients and doctors [9,11,12,[14][15][16][17]20], the results of the current study demonstrate that one-stop clinics provide the benefit or swift diagnoses whilst eliminating the underutilisation of endoscopy appointments. It is for that reason that the authors of this study cautiously recommend the widespread adoption of one-stop UGI clinics.…”

“…A suggested way to speed up diagnoses of cancer and other pathology are "one-stop" clinics [9][10][11]. Although one-stop clinics were pioneered successfully in breast cancer surgery [10,[12][13][14][15][16], it is a model that has been used successfully in other specialties as well [9,11].…”

“…A suggested way to speed up diagnoses of cancer and other pathology are "one-stop" clinics [9][10][11]. Although one-stop clinics were pioneered successfully in breast cancer surgery [10,[12][13][14][15][16], it is a model that has been used successfully in other specialties as well [9,11]. Typically a patient attends the one-stop clinic and has investigations and a diagnosis within the premise of the clinic, all performed within one visit [9][10][11].…”

“…Although one-stop clinics were pioneered successfully in breast cancer surgery [10,[12][13][14][15][16], it is a model that has been used successfully in other specialties as well [9,11]. Typically a patient attends the one-stop clinic and has investigations and a diagnosis within the premise of the clinic, all performed within one visit [9][10][11]. One-stop clinics demonstrated excellent sensitivity and specificity in diagnosing cancer, whilst being cost-effective [10] and reducing the need for admission to hospital [9].…”