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“app” for predicting hernia pain – Todd Heniford, 2012
I just came across this old story. I didn’t even have a “smart” phone when I had my hernia repair. I’ll see if i can find the app and see what it predicts should have happened.
Edit – I clicked through to the iTunes store and it’s stuck, looking for the app. I assume that the app did not do a good job, or that it worked very well, predicting chronic pain for 10-15% of the people who used it, and they discontinued it, in horror.
https://blogs.wsj.com/health/2012/03/28/new-app-to-forecast-pain-after-hernia-operations/
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This discussion was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by
Good intentions.
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This discussion was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by
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10 Replies
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Actually, one more last comment. I Googled “medical-industrial complex” and find that others have been using the term, for many years. It’s been a real concern. I can’t even pick out just one article.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Beware+the+medical-industrial+complex&rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS862US862&oq=Beware+the+medical-industrial+complex&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
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One last comment. Dr. Heniford is a big advocate of the Carolinas Comfort Scale, and developer, I believe. Ethicon uses the CCS in their marketing literature, along with the IMHR data. Read through the Ethicon pdf brochure and you’ll see its usage.
So, in sum, Dr. Heniford is essentially a partner, or subcontractor, for Ethicon, a J&J company. There is no way to explain this away. It’s just the way things are. Atrium Health is essentially partnered up with J&J. To paraphrase Eisenhower – “Beware the medical-industrial complex”.
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And here’s the brochure – https://atriumhealth.org/documents/cmc/clasp/ceqol-physician-brochure.pdf
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The blocking might be back. I wrote a long post (very long) but it didn’t get through.
Ethicon is a J&J company. Sometimes they use the names interchangeably.
https://www.jnjmedicaldevices.com/en-US/product-family/hernia-mesh-fixation
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Thank you Dr. Towfigh. I was able to find and download the app, on “appgrooves.com”, linked below. If I had used the app before I had my operation I would have been predicted to have a 4% chance of pain after repair. The app does not distinguish at all between the types of repair, or mesh or non-mesh. It lays everything on the skill of the surgeon, and the possibility of individual nerves being irritated. Objectively speaking, it’s even less discriminating than the usual reasons to use mesh.
Considered along with Dr. Heniford’s comments over the years about mesh, it doesn’t even look like he had a part in it. It’s very contradictory to his past and recent comments. I would not recommend it to anyone. It draws the patient in with its professional appearance and the supposed program behind it but, in the end, it’s the same advice – get the hernia repaired because you it will/might get bigger, and you might have a strangulated hernia and require emergency care.
It’s free and quick to download. Others should try it, with the symptoms they had before surgery and see what they get. I put all zeros in because that”s what I had. I only had pain after extreme activities, which is not really addressed in the app. I actually went for a 2 mile run a few days before my mesh implantation and felt fine. I got mine repaired “for the future” and because I wanted to get back to high level sports.
https://appgrooves.com/app/ceqol-inguinal-hernia-by-carolinas-surgical-innovation-group-llc
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The CeQOL app is available for download.
I don’t believe the app is in any way linked to J&J. The data is derived from an ETHICON (J&J) database, however.
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Where can a person get the app? Is it still available?
Any thoughts on why J&J doesn’t make their results available? In this era of informed consent it seems like it would be an easy and logical decision. Get those positive results out there so patients know what they are getting in to. What possible reason would they have for delaying, since the followup period is two years? They use the results in their marketing literature to sell product. It must be ready for disbursement. Of course they did just pay a huge amount for false advertising. Maybe they’ll change their brochures.
My questions are serious, if you have some insight it would be great if you could share it. It would be comforting to know that things really are changing. Thank you.
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Plus the results are only applicable to men.
Nevertheless, the rate of chronic pain predicted by the App is concerningly higher than expected.
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This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by drtowfigh.
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This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by
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Actually, the completion is December 2022 now. I assume that each extensions lets them avoid publishing the results. J&J is not what they seemed to be in the past. Maybe they’ve always been this way.
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Actually, digging farther, I see that it’s connected to the “International” Hernia Mesh Registry, which is actually just a tool that Johnson & Johnson created and is using for their benefit. It appears to be only J&J products and J&J has been cherry-picking the results, reporting vague good results in some of their sales literature. It was supposed to be done in 2019 but now they’ve extended the date out to the end of 2020.
Odd how these things that seem good, making progress, just circle around to the same old suspects when you follow them out.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00622583
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This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by Good intentions.
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This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by
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