Multidisciplinary Team Decisions in Management of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm: A Service and Quality Evaluation

Daniel J Drayton; Susannah Howard; Christopher Hammond; Hilary L Bekker; David A Russell; Simon J Howell

doi:10.1016/j.ejvsvf.2022.01.005

Multidisciplinary Team Decisions in Management of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm: A Service and Quality Evaluation

EJVES Vasc Forum. 2022 Jan 13:54:49-53. doi: 10.1016/j.ejvsvf.2022.01.005. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Daniel J Drayton¹, Susannah Howard², Christopher Hammond², Hilary L Bekker³, David A Russell^{2

3}, Simon J Howell¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Anaesthesia, Leeds Institute for Medical Research, Clinical Sciences Building, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.
² Leeds Vascular Institute, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Leeds, UK.
³ Faculty of Medicine and Health, School of Medicine, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.

Abstract

Objective: To investigate whether decisions made by the multidisciplinary team (MDT) were implemented and review the MDT process to identify areas for improvement.

Methods: This was a retrospective service evaluation project. Consecutive cases of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) from vascular surgery MDT meetings were reviewed. MDT outputs were extracted and compared with implemented clinical management obtained from the electronic health record (EHR) to determine concordance. Cases were re-reviewed to understand reasons why planned management was not implemented.

Results: From 42 MDT meetings, 106 patients were identified. Twenty four patients were discussed at two MDTs and four patients were discussed three times. Of the 106 patients, 91 (85.8%) were treated as planned, seven (6.6%) declined planned management and opted for conservative management, four (3.8%) patients died before treatment, and four (3.8%) had alternative management for individual reasons. Of the patients discussed multiple times, 15 (53.6%) needed review by a consultant anaesthetist or additional investigations.

Conclusion: This service evaluation found a similar proportion of cases as in existing oncology literature where the MDT decision was not implemented. However, the natural history of AAA brings nuance to this finding. Facilitating patient preference is an important problem that will require future study. This evaluation resulted in local improvements to the MDT process for AAA.

Keywords: Abdominal; Aortic aneurysm; Clinical decision making; Multidisciplinary team; Vascular surgical procedures.