Justiniano CF, et al. - Researchers investigated the differences in positive circumferential resection margin (CRM) at the surgeon and hospital levels and determined the effect on disease-specific survival. They analyzed 1,251 patients with stage I-III rectal cancer from New York State, 208 (17%) of whom displayed a positive CRM. Findings revealed wide variation in performance in positive CRM among surgeons and hospitals following risk adjustment. At hospitals with higher than expected cases of positive CRM, the majority (74%) of surgeons with higher than expected cases of positive CRM operated at least once. Worse disease-specific survival was observed for patients treated by surgeons with observed-to-expected (O/E) ratio > 1 and those treated at hospitals with O/E>1.