Author’s response to invited commentary “a perspective on the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Composite Score for evaluating esophagectomy for esophageal cancer”

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) launched its Adult Cardiac Surgery database in 1989 as a prospective clinical outcomes database for enhancing quality improvement and improving patient safety. Participation in ACSD is voluntary but includes more than 90% of centers performing cardiac surgery in the United States (1). In contrast the penetrance of the STS General Thoracic Surgery Database (GTSD), established in 2002, is far lower. This past year, the STS initiated voluntary public reporting of outcomes following pulmonary lobectomy for lung cancer, based on the mortality and morbidity risk model derived from the GTSD published by Kozower et al. (2)