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Surgical management of distant metastases.

Although the location of metastases is of prognostic importance in stage IV melanoma, as seen in the revised AJCC staging classification system and other studies, certain guiding principles apply to patients who have any stage IV disease. Close follow-up of any patient who has melanoma may identify surgically resectable metastatic disease, although this method is controversial. Components of this monitoring may include careful questioning to determine symptoms, such as cough, abdominal pain, or headaches; physical examination for evidence of skin, soft tissue, and lymph node metastases; and screening tools, such as radiographs and laboratory tests. Identifying patients who have metastatic disease at the earliest stage possible is crucial for surgical resection to be an option. Patients should also be thoughtfully evaluated for the possibility of a complete surgical re-section. Complete metastectomy, regardless of the anatomic site, confers survival advantages not seen with other treatment modalities. This aggressive surgical approach should be tempered with the knowledge that incomplete resections put patients at increased risk without any proven survival benefit, and should be reserved only for palliation of symptoms. Systemic adjuvant therapies for stage IV melanoma are evolving, but do not yet confer the survival advantage of complete surgical resection. Until novel drug therapies show efficacy and significantly prolong survival in patients who have stage IV disease, careful consideration should be given to a complete metastectomy if technically feasible.

Brain Neoplasms↗

Gastroesophageal carcinoma: individualized surgical therapy.

During the twentieth century, surgical management of gastroesophageal carcinoma was developed by an establishment of standard procedures with lymph node dissection according to the metastatic distribution. The "fear" of invisible micrometastasis caused surgeons to perform more aggressive resection with lymphadenectomy to control the disease locally. Although several promising results of extensive lymph node dissection have been reported, the prognostic benefits of extensive surgery have not been proven by prospective randomized trials. A novel technology to detect micrometastasis without extensive surgical resection is required to gastroesophageal carcinoma. The lymphatic mapping technique is one of the attractive candidates for a novel tool to approach this issue.

Esophageal Neoplasms↗

[Gastric adenocarcinoma in Zinsser-Cole-Engman syndrome].

Zinsser-Cole-Engman syndrome is a congenital dyskeratosis that produces cutaneus and hematologic alterations and, in 5% of patients, gastrointestinal neoplasms. We report the case of a 37-year-old man with this syndrome who was diagnosed with gastric adenocarcinoma. This case provides an example of the management that should be followed with these patients in order to identify neoplasms at stages in which treatment is curative.

Adenocarcinoma↗

Orthotopic liver transplantation for inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor of the liver hilum.

Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor is a rare gastrointestinal neoplasm. The authors report the case of a 5-year-old girl who initially presented with gastric outlet obstruction secondary to an inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor along the lesser gastric curvature. A subtotal gastrectomy and wedge resection of a left hepatic lobe nodule were performed. Obstructive jaundice developed one month postoperatively. Computerized tomography, percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography, and selective celiac and mesenteric arteriography showed a mass that involved the left hepatic lobe, with concomitant high-grade biliary obstruction and portal venous encasement. Percutaneous biliary drainage was performed. During laparotomy, the tumor was found to be unresectable, and the patient was referred to the Liver Transplant Service at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. A total hepatectomy with temporary portocaval shunt was performed, leaving the inferior vena cava in situ. At the back table, an ex vivo left trisegmentectomy was performed, followed by reimplantation of the posterior segment of the right hepatic lobe. The reimplanted liver segment functioned poorly, and completion hepatectomy with portocaval shunt was performed 24 hours postoperatively, because of severe coagulopathy, intraabdominal bleeding, and hemodynamic instability. The patient's condition stabilized, and she was listed for urgent liver transplantation. The anhepatic state was managed with intermittent plasmapheresis. She had transplantation 72 hours later, and was discharged from the hospital 3 weeks postoperatively after an uneventful recovery. She remains disease-free and has normal liver function 8 months after transplantation.

Child, Preschool↗

Treatment of cancer-related pain: when orally administered medications fail.

OBJECTIVE: To summarize the available pain-relieving interventions other than oral medications for cancer-related pain. DESIGN: The pertinent literature is reviewed, and the various options for treating pain in patients with cancer are discussed. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The appropriate situations for use of parenteral administration of opioids, spinal analgesia, neural blockade, and neurosurgical treatment are outlined, and the potential problems and complications associated with these techniques are described. RESULTS: The basic approach to the management of pain in patients with cancer is to begin treatment with less potent analgesic agents early and to progress toward use of more potent pharmaceutical agents, adjuvant drugs, and invasive procedures as needed for alleviation of pain. With parenteral administration of opioids, the dosage can be adjusted rapidly, and therapy can be continued even though a patient may have gastrointestinal dysfunction. A portable ambulatory infusion pump can be used in selected patients. The major advantage of spinal opioid analgesia is the intense analgesia provided with minimal side effects. The potential complications and the availability of treatment alternatives have limited the use of neurolytic blocks, which usually provide only temporary relief of pain. In carefully selected patients with pancreatic or other upper gastrointestinal neoplasms, however, neurolytic celiac plexus and splanchnic nerve blocks are effective. Patients who fail to respond to conservative interventions may be candidates for neurosurgical procedures, such as spinal cord, cortical, or brain-stem stimulation or neuroablative operations (most commonly, cordotomy). CONCLUSION: Cancer-related pain continues to be a major problem, and clinicians should be aware of the availability of effective treatment strategies and techniques. When orally administered medications fail to control pain or cause excessive side effects, patients should be referred to an appropriate specialist or medical center for consideration of other pain-relieving techniques.

Analgesia↗

Alcohol, alcoholism, and cancer.

Certain types of cancer are clearly associated with alcohol abuse, although the role of ethanol in carcinogenesis--as a carcinogen, co-carcinogen, promoter, or "innocent bystander"--is not known with certainty. The impact of alcohol abuse on the management of the patient with cancer is also discussed.

Alcoholic Intoxication↗

Significance and management of local recurrences and limited metastatic disease in the abdomen.

The management of patients with synchronous or metachronous metastatic carcinoma, sarcoma, or melanoma in the abdomen requires a knowledge of the natural history of the disease and of the available treatment options. Patients with advanced malignant disease may be of marginal performance status yet may require large surgical procedures or combined modality therapy; the most challenging therapeutic decisions involve such patients. The authors highlight the role of surgery in selected patients with metastatic or recurrent malignancy as it is practiced at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Abdominal Neoplasms↗

[Practical notes for the evaluation of malignancy in digestive endocrine tumors].

For a long time, the assessment of malignancy risk and patient outcome in digestive endocrine tumors had to rely on sparse and mostly unconfirmed data. The 2000 WHO classification with its standardized scheme of pathologic report constitutes a framework facilitating the assessment of tumor malignancy and has been regarded to be useful for clinical purposes, providing the basis for proper patient management and for designing treatment protocols. The classification is based on a combination of pathological and clinical features with parameters specific for each organ in which the endocrine tumors originate. Three main categories are considered: 1) well differentiated endocrine tumors, further subdivided into tumors with benign and with uncertain behavior; 2) well differentiated endocrine carcinomas, low grade; and 3) poorly differentiated endocrine carcinomas, high grade. In this review the differential tumor characteristics between the above categories are summarized. The relevance of additional features as for tumor prognostication, chiefly the Ki67 proliferation index and malignancy associated genetic changes, is discussed with emphasis on the discrepancies emerging between tumors of foregut and midgut origin.

Diagnosis, Differential↗

[Gastro-intestinal endocrine tumors: morphological and clinicopathological characteristics].

Gastro-intestinal endocrine tumors constitute a heterogeneous group of tumors. Their clinical features, functional properties, and clinical course differ according to their site of origin. From a practical point of view, several topographical groups may be distinguished: (a) stomach, (b) duodenum and proximal jejunum, (c) ileum and caecum, (d) appendix, (a) colon and rectum. In each of these groups, a certain degree of tumor heterogeneity persists, especially between colon and rectal tumors, which would be better considered apart. In this review, we will describe the main functional, morphological and evolutive features of endocrine tumors in each of the topographical groups currently recognized.

Cecal Neoplasms↗

DNA adducts detected in human gastric mucosa.

Human gastrointestinal neoplasms are mostly developed from the mucosa, not from the adjacent muscle layer. DNA adducts in the mucosa and adjacent muscle layer of the non-tumoral part of stomach from 19 patients with gastric neoplasms and from six newborns were analyzed by 32P-postlabeling, and then compared them with those of representative colon or small intestine sample. Five kinds of mucosa-specific DNA adducts (G1-5) were found in all of the adult stomach samples, but were entirely absent from the adjacent muscle layers and from the newborn stomachs. In addition, several common background adducts were also present in both the mucosa and muscle layer. G2 was the same DNA adduct as Si2 in the small intestine and C1 in the colon, and G3 was the same as Si1 in the small intestine. Thus, it was demonstrated that the mucosa of the stomach was exposed to DNA-reactive substances.

Aged↗

Bioimpedance vector pattern in cancer patients without disease versus locally advanced or disseminated disease.

OBJECTIVE: Bioelectrical impedance vector analysis allows non-invasive evaluation of soft tissue hydration and mass through pattern analysis of vector plots as height, normalized resistance, and reactance measurements. METHODS: Whole-body impedance measurements were made with a single frequency (50 kHz) analyzer (BIA-101, Akern/RJL Systems) in 148 adult, white, male subjects 45 to 85 y old: 56 healthy control subjects, 31 cancer patients after surgical procedure (without disease), and 61 patients with locally advanced (30 patients) or disseminated (31 patients) disease with the same body mass index and age. All patients were free from antineoplastic treatment and active nutritional intervention. RESULTS: Mean vectors of cancer groups without disease and locally advance disease versus the control group were characterized by a comparable normalized resistance component with a reduced reactance component (separate 95% confidence limits, P < 0.05), indicating a comparable ionic conduction (hydration) with loss of dielectric mass (cell membranes and tissue interfaces) of soft tissues. Overlapping 95% confidence limits of their mean vectors indicated comparable electrical tissue properties in less versus more advanced disease. CONCLUSION: Monitoring vector displacement trajectory toward the reference target vector position may represent useful feedback in support therapy planning of individual patients.

Aged↗