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[Prospective multicenter study for quality management of breast cancer surgery].

Over the last 10 years a dramatic decrease became apparent in primary treatment of breast cancer in general surgical departments. A prospective 1-year observational study involving 84 surgical departments was carried out to describe the current therapeutic situation. A total of 1,416 patients undergoing primary surgical treatment for mammary carcinoma were recorded, and their data evaluated. 68.9% of the carcinomas were treated in departments with an annual case load for this disease of more than 20 operations, with 50% of them being operated on in 8 departments with a case load of 40-100 procedures per year. 94.4% of the carcinomas were confirmed histologically, and in 91% of the patients surgery was performed in curative intention. The rate of breast-preserving procedures was 40%, and breast amputations accounted for 60%. An analysis of the data allowed an evaluation of this specific patient group in the surgical departments. Deficits in terms of management quality are identified.

Adult↗

Anorectal melanoma.

Primary malignant melanoma of the anorectum is a rare and virulent malignancy associated with an extremely poor prognosis in spite of aggressive initial therapy. Fifty-one patients with this disease were treated at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center during the last 50 years and only six (12%) survived five years. This report views in detail 36 of the patients treated since 1950. In this group there was a female predominance (21 females, 15 males), and median age was in the 6th decade (range 27-75). Common presenting symptoms were pain, bleeding, mass or "hemorrhoids" of 1-12 months duration. In two-thirds, of the cases, a radical surgical approach was attempted. Other therapy included local excision alone or combined with groin dissection, local excision followed by delayed rectal resection and local tumor destruction by cryosurgery or fulguration. Mean survival was 21.5 months. Three patients had palliative treatment only with radiation therapy. Histopathologic study of 30 lesions showed that two-thirds were bulky or polypoid lesions and two-thirds showed junctional changes. The virulent prognosis of primary anorectal melanoma appears directly related to tumor size and thickness. Although all four of the five-year survivors had radical surgery, the three whose tumors could be measured had superficial lesions. In general, curative efforts by radical surgery were no more effective than local treatment by excision or cryosurgery. One patient, however, did have a thin lesion but also had nodal metastases and survived over five years after radical surgery. Although these data suggest that radical resection may cure patients with lesions thinner than 3 mm, it does not exclude the possibility that local excision might also be curative. For larger lesions that have not been cured by radical surgery, more conservative local approaches by excision or cryotherapy might be the optimum way of achieving local palliation.

Adult↗

Laparoscopic abdominoperineal resection and anterior resection with curative intent for carcinoma of the rectum.

BACKGROUND: Within a 5-year period, 380 rectal carcinoma patients undergoing laparoscopic abdominoperineal excision or laparoscopic anterior resection were recruited to a multicenter study by 23 institutions in Germany and Austria. This study was initiated by the Laparoscopic Colorectal Surgery Study Group. RESULTS: One hundred forty-nine patients (39.2%) underwent abdominoperineal resection (APR), and 231 patients (60.8%) were treated by anterior resection (AR). The mean operating time was 208 min, and the conversion rate was 6.1%. Intraoperative complications, mostly vascular or bowel injuries, were observed in 22 patients (5.8%). Overall, a total of 257 postoperative complications and problems occurred in 143 patients, resulting in a morbidity rate of 37.6%. In the AR group, the anastomotic leakage rate increased as the distance of the tumor from the anal verge decreased. The perioperative mortality rate was low (6/1.6%). Most of the patients received a high transsection of the inferior mesenteric artery with radical lymph node dissection (342/90.0%); the mean number of recovered lymph nodes was 13.0, with considerable variation among the individual institutions. Intraoperative tumor cell spillage was reported in 12 patients (3.2%). Sufficient follow-up findings are available for 288 (77%) patients. To date, 19 patients have sustained a local recurrence (6.6%), and 30 (10.4%) have developed distant metastases. Within the (admittedly limited) mean follow-up of 24.8 months, the overall survival rate is 86.6%, the disease-free survival (freedom from both local recurrence and distant metastases) rate is 62.4% for APR, with the corresponding rates for AR being 71.7 and 54.8%, respectively, as established by the Kaplan-Meier function. These data show no alarmingly high recurrence rates at this time. CONCLUSION: In principle, laparoscopic anterior resection with curative intent generates considerably more reservations than laparoscopic abdominoperineal resection, which is technically much easier to perform.

Abdomen↗

Exogenous reinfection as a cause of recurrent tuberculosis after curative treatment.

BACKGROUND: For decades it has been assumed that postprimary tuberculosis is usually caused by reactivation of endogenous infection rather than by a new, exogenous infection. METHODS: We performed DNA fingerprinting with restriction-fragment-length polymorphism analysis on pairs of isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from 16 compliant patients who had a relapse of pulmonary tuberculosis after curative treatment of postprimary tuberculosis. The patients lived in areas of South Africa where tuberculosis is endemic. Medical records were reviewed for clinical data. RESULTS: For 12 of the 16 patients, the restriction-fragment-length polymorphism banding patterns for the isolates obtained after the relapse were different from those for the isolates from the initial tuberculous disease. This finding indicates that reinfection was the cause of the recurrence of tuberculosis after curative treatment. Two patients had reinfections with a multidrug-resistant strain. All 15 patients who were tested for the human immunodeficiency virus were seronegative. CONCLUSIONS: Exogenous reinfection appears to be a major cause of postprimary tuberculosis after a previous cure in an area with a high incidence of this disease. This finding emphasizes the importance of achieving cures and of preventing anyone with infectious tuberculosis from exposing others to the disease.

Adult↗

ELISA (Embedding-Linked Interactive Single-cell Agent): an interpretable hybrid generative Artificial Intelligence agent for expression-grounded discovery in single-cell genomics.

Translating single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data into mechanistic biological hypotheses remains a critical bottleneck, as agentic AI systems lack direct access to transcriptomic representations while expression foundation models remain opaque to natural language. Here, we introduce ELISA (Embedding-Linked Interactive Single-cell Agent), an interpretable framework that unifies single-cell generative pretrained transformer expression embeddings with biomedical bidirectional encoder representations from transformers-based semantic retrieval and large-language model (LLM)-mediated interpretation for interactive single-cell discovery. An automatic query classifier routes inputs to gene marker scoring, semantic matching, or reciprocal rank fusion pipelines depending on whether the query is a gene signature, natural language concept, or mixture of both. Integrated analytical modules perform pathway activity scoring across 60+ gene sets, ligand-receptor interaction prediction using 280+ curated pairs, condition-aware comparative analysis, and cell-type proportion estimation, all operating directly on embedded data without access to the original count matrix. Benchmarked across six diverse scRNA-seq datasets spanning inflammatory lung disease, pediatric and adult cancers, organoid models, healthy tissue, and neurodevelopment, ELISA significantly outperforms CellWhisperer, a classical lexical retriever (BM25), and a random baseline in cell type retrieval (combined permutation test, $p < 2\times 10^{-5}$ for each), with particularly large gains on gene-signature queries (Cohen's $d = 5.98$ for mean reciprocal rank). ELISA replicates published biological findings (mean composite score 0.88), and generates candidate hypotheses through grounded LLM reasoning, bridging the gap between transcriptomic data exploration and biological discovery.

Generative Artificial Intelligence↗

Thoracoscopic resection of solitary lung metastases from colorectal cancer is a viable therapeutic option.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: The reported 5-year survival rate after pulmonary metastasectomy from colorectal carcinoma, usually accomplished through thoracotomy or median sternotomy, ranges from 9 to 47%. Video-assisted thoracoscopy (VAT) is employed routinely for many thoracic surgical procedures, but the main concern about this approach for resection of lung metastases is that VAT does not allow complete lung palpation to identify and remove metastases not detected by preoperative radiologic examinations. DESIGN: In this study, we reviewed our experience with thoracoscopic resection of single peripheral lung metastases from colorectal carcinoma with potentially curative intent. PATIENTS AND INTERVENTIONS: From July 1992 to September 1998, 24 patients (15 male, 9 female) with a mean age of 56 years, who previously had undergone resection for colorectal carcinoma and had a single limited and peripheral lung lesion identified by high-resolution CT, underwent thoracoscopic wedge resection of the lesions. RESULTS: No intraoperative complications developed. Three patients had minor postoperative complications successfully treated. In one case, we found a benign lesion, and this patient was excluded from the analysis. In the remaining cases, metastases from colorectal cancer were confirmed. The median follow-up was 29 months, ranging from 3 to 67 months. Thirteen patients (56.5%) developed recurrence of the disease, and 5 of them (21.7%) had local recurrence. Cumulative 5-year survival estimated by Kaplan-Meier method was 49.5%, not really different from the data reported in the literature. CONCLUSIONS: Thoracoscopic resection of single peripheral lung metastases from colorectal cancer with potentially curative intent seems effective and justified since the ultimate outcome of this highly selected group of patients seems to be not different from that obtained after a more invasive approach.

Adult↗

Utilization of health services among rural women in Gujarat, India.

This study examined the effects of four sets of factors on use of curative health services among rural women living in Gujarat, India. The sets of factors analyzed were as follows: (1) the demographic characteristics of the women; (2) the characteristics of the household in which they lived; (3) the characteristics of the environment in which they lived; and (4) the price and convenience of care. The study focused on rural married women aged 17-45 who had at least one child. Nested multiple logistic regressions were computed on cross-sectional data to assess the simultaneous influences of the independent variables on (1) reports of episodes of illness (2) use of curative services among rural women who reported an illness and (3) use of a specific service. Four types of service were examined as outcomes of interest, namely, private doctors, Aga Khan Health Services centres, government health centres, and traditional healers. Other things being equal, women's education, income, family structure and kinship affiliation were significant predictors of use of service. Women seemed to be more sensitive to travel time to the health service and its associated costs (purdah restrictions, transportation and time costs) than to the direct costs of service. Factors such as women's occupation and sanitation facilities, while associated with use of service in the expected direction, were not significant predictors of use of service. Implications for health planning are offered, including initiatives to implement health promotion and disease prevention programs in addition to increasing access to the existing health services. Avenues for future studies are suggested, particularly in regard to decision-making processes affecting the health-seeking behavior of rural women. It is recommended that such policies and studies should consider the cultural environment in addition to the existing pluralistic health system.

Adolescent↗

Radioimmunoguided surgery using iodine 125 B72.3 in patients with colorectal cancer.

Preliminary data using B72.3 murine monoclonal antibody labeled with iodine 125 suggested that both clinically apparent as well as occult sites of colorectal cancer could be identified intraoperatively using a hand-held gamma detecting probe. We report the preliminary data of a multicenter trial of this approach in patients with primary or recurrent colorectal cancer. One hundred four patients with primary, suspected, or known recurrent colorectal cancer received an intravenous infusion of 1 mg of B72.3 monoclonal antibody radiolabeled with 7.4 x 10 Bq of iodine 125. Twenty-six patients with primary colorectal cancer and 72 patients with recurrent colorectal cancer were examined. Using the gamma detecting probe, 78% of the patients had localization of the antibody in their tumor; this included 75% of primary tumor sites and 63% of all recurrent tumor sites; 9.2% of all tumor sites identified represented occult sites detected only with the gamma detecting probe. The overall sensitivity was 77% and a predictive value of a positive detection was 78%. A total of 30 occult sites in 26 patients were identified. In patients with recurrent cancer, the antibody study provided unique data that precluded resection in 10 patients, and in another eight patients it extended the potentially curative procedure.

Antibodies, Monoclonal↗

Primary non-Hodgkin lymphoma of the spleen.

Primary splenic lymphoma is a relatively infrequent cause of splenomegaly, its reported incidence being less than 1%. Nonetheless, various series have reported on its occurrence and its unfavorable prognosis, but these series have reported data on heterogenous populations, including many patients with nodal or hepatic disease. We report on a series of nine patients with primary splenic lymphoma. None of these patients had biopsy-proven evidence of extrasplenic disease and were categorized as involving spleen only (stage 1) or spleen and splenic hilum (stage 2). In this series, classified by the recent N.C.I. working formulation, four patients had intermediate or high-grade histology and five patients had low-grade histology. There was no correlation between histological subtype and prognosis, nor could other factors be delineated to explain their favorable prognosis. The median survival in this group of patients was 7.48 years, and no evidence of relapse has been documented. The data suggest that primary splenic lymphoma, treated by splenectomy alone or combination therapy, may be potentially curative. Further studies should address the question of aggressive accurate staging in hopes of obtaining homogenous patient populations so that appropriate treatment in primary splenic lymphoma can be better defined.

Adult↗

Disease-free survival and recurrence after resection of colorectal carcinoma.

Recurrence data from a series of 1,315 colorectal cancer patients managed by one surgeon with potentially curative resection are presented. Complete follow-up information was available on 1,287 (98%) patients. At the time of the last recurrences, 164 and 232 months for rectal and colonic tumours respectively, the long-time recurrence rate was significantly (P = 0.001) higher for rectal tumours (42%) than for colonic (33%). Although local recurrences tended to be more common in rectal than in colonic tumours (18% compared to 15%), only those in contiguity with the operative area were significantly (P less than 0.005) more common in rectal tumours. Systemic recurrences were also significantly (P less than 0.025) commoner for rectal tumours. The greater recurrence rates in rectal tumours were associated with significantly (P less than 0.001) higher incidence of stage C tumours shorter recurrence-free survival in rectal stage C tumours (P = 0.001) and higher incidence of pulmonary metastases (P less than 0.001).

Colonic Neoplasms↗

Factors influencing distress in Indian cancer patients.

BACKGROUND: The current study set out to identify distress in cancer patients undergoing curative treatment within India. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This study was carried out to measure distress and contributory factors in 103 cancer patients undergoing treatment with curative intent. The patients were interviewed using the Distress Inventory for Cancer (DI-C). The data on social, demographic, clinical, treatment, and follow-up details was collected from case records. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The distress score for individual respondents ranged from 34 to 90 (mean 62.3). Patients with lower income, those who were single/widowed, or divorced, those living between 150 and 350 km (3-6 h commuting distance) from the cancer centre, presence of pain and patients with advanced tumours at presentation showed higher distress. A higher distress score correlated significantly with patients being lost to follow-up.

Cross-Sectional Studies↗

Commentary on maximal androgen blockade in prostate cancer: a theory to put into practice?

The population at risk of prostate cancer is on the increase, and so is public awareness of this disease. There has been an unresolved controversy surrounding the benefits of maximal androgen blockade (MAB) as a valid approach to treatment of non-curative prostate cancer since it was first proposed in 1945. How are we to interpret the data on MAB in order to give each patient the best advice on treatment? Studies of MAB using medical castration (luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone [LHRH] analogue plus antiandrogen) vs. LHRH analogues alone are inconclusive when viewed collectively, although the largest showed objective benefits for MAB. The remaining studies have insufficient power to show the expected effect size. Studies of MAB using surgical castration plus antiandrogen vs. surgical castration alone also gave inconsistent results, although a meta-analysis is in favor of MAB on objective criteria of response. Among trials of MAB using an LHRH analogue vs. surgical castration alone, one is positive and the remaining two are neutral for MAB. No study shows MAB to be worse than either medical or surgical castration alone. An overall meta-analysis shows a trend for benefit with MAB but is not statistically significant. The existing data have strongly suggested that there may be a particular benefit for certain subgroups of patients (including those with minimal disease) but numbers studied have been too small to allow valid conclusions. The INT 0105 trial in progress may permit firmer conclusions to be drawn on this and other questions. In the meantime one of the drawbacks to current MAB regimens is the exchange of modest clinical advantages for the side effects of nilutamide and flutamide. Given that the disease is noncurative, improved quality of life is the main goal of therapy, and excellent tolerability of treatment is fundamental to this. In a comparative trial, bicalutamide (Casodex) was more effective than flutamide (each in combination with an LHRH analogue) in terms of time to treatment failure and produced a significantly lower incidence of diarrhoea. In conclusion, the evidence supports early use of adequate hormonal treatment, and this should mean either medical or surgical castration, ideally augmented by an antiandrogen. Tolerability of the antiandrogen is a key consideration in gaining an improvement in quality of life with MAB.

Androgen Antagonists↗

[The distribution of selected cardiac risk factors in employed and studying youths in the rural region of Steiermark (Austria)].

Demographic data, components of lifestyles such as risk behavior, health complaints, illnesses and utilization of preventive and curative services were surveyed through a health survey conducted in 79 selected rural communities of Styria between 1989 and 1933. Our research focussed on the stratification of cardiovascular risk factors such as smoking, high blood pressure, unhealthy nutrition, low physical activity and obesity in adolescents employed or attending school. The sample comprises 1239 adolescents divided into two groups: 651 were employed and 588 were in school. We could show that even at such a young age significant differences occur in the distribution of cardiovascular risk factors between these two groups. The employed adolescents were far more stressed than those of their age group attending school. Generally, the females are less strained than the males. Our results suggest that efficient programs to prevent cardiovascular disease need to specifically focus on the various life contexts of young people. Such programs should start at an early date.

Adolescent↗

Value of plasmapheresis in hepatic encephalopathy.

Plasmapheresis is used for treating the complications of liver failure. We performed plasmapheresis on 6 children with hepatic encephalopathy resulting from acute hepatic failure and prospectively assessed its effects on neurologic and electrophysiologic (electroencephalography and evoked potentials) function. Clinical improvement was observed in 3 of 6 patients; changes in the serum ammonia value or the results of initial electrophysiologic tests did not predict the patient response. Two patients underwent transplantation after neurologic improvement was produced by plasmapheresis; however, despite plasmapheresis, 4 patients progressed to brain death. Our data demonstrate that plasmapheresis may transiently improve the encephalopathy of acute hepatic failure but is not curative alone. Therefore, plasmapheresis may be a useful adjunct in the treatment of liver failure, potentially improving the pretransplantation status of the patient.

Brain Stem↗

Bioinformatics and cellular signaling.

The understanding of cellular function requires an integrated analysis of context-specific, spatiotemporal data from diverse sources. Recent advances in describing the genomic and proteomic 'parts list' of the cell and deciphering the interrelationship of these parts are described, including genome-wide location analysis, standards for microarray data analysis, and two-hybrid and mass spectrometry approaches. This information is being collected and curated in databases such as the Alliance for Cellular Signaling (AfCS) Molecule Pages, which will serve as vital tools for the reconstruction and analysis of cellular signaling networks.

Cell Physiological Phenomena↗

Effect of catheter ablation on quality of life of patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation.

BACKGROUND: Although improved quality of life is one of the primary aims of catheter ablation for paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, there is a paucity of published data on this topic. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of curative catheter ablation on the quality of life of patients with symptomatic, drug-refractory paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. METHODS: This was a prospective nonrandomized study of 63 consecutively enrolled patients (49 men and 14 women, age 56 +/- 7 years). Patients were excluded from the study if they had significant structural heart disease. The ablation strategy consisted of systematic isolation of all pulmonary veins, followed by limited linear ablation in the atria comprising left isthmus ablation (between the left inferior pulmonary vein and lateral mitral annulus) and cavotricuspid isthmus ablation. Patients completed quality-of-life questionnaires comprising the SF-36 and Symptom Checklist at baseline and 3 and 12 months following ablation. RESULTS: Fifty-four patients (86%) were free of symptomatic recurrence at 12-month follow-up. Successful ablation resulted in a significant improvement of all eight subscales of the SF-36 and of symptom frequency and severity scores of the symptom checklist at 3 months. This improvement was maintained at 12 months. CONCLUSIONS: Combined pulmonary vein isolation and linear atrial ablation has a high success rate for cure of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. Successful curative catheter ablation of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation significantly and persistently improved quality of life during long-term follow-up. This improvement in quality of life was accompanied by a significant reduction in arrhythmia symptom frequency and severity.

Atrial Fibrillation↗

Management of locally advanced prostate cancer: past, present, future.

PURPOSE: Historically advanced prostate cancer had been treated with androgen ablation. With the evolution of radiation therapy it was shown that some patients with advanced but nonmetastatic disease could be cured or at least have progression delayed. Subsequently a series of studies demonstrated that the combination of radiation and androgen ablation resulted in improved results over those of radiation therapy alone, although the failure rate was still high. This review explores the continued evolution in the treatment of high risk disease. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The published literature on treatment for high risk prostate cancer was reviewed. RESULTS: Adding androgen ablation to radiation decreased the failure rate from 79% to 67% in older studies and 55% to 25% in more recent studies. Most contemporary studies of higher radiation doses showed further improvement with a failure rate of 20% to 40%. The results of adding an implant boost appears to have decreased the failure rate further to 30% or less in most studies. There is now great interest in exploring chemotherapy or biological agents as adjuvant therapy to try to improve the results further. The role of surgery in these patients is also awaiting further clarification. CONCLUSIONS: Radiation therapy has been the primary mode of curative therapy for high risk prostate cancer for 3 decades. Much progress has been made. Evolving data suggest that radiation will continue to have the primary role in treatment in these patients in the future.

Antineoplastic Agents↗

Loss of p27 expression and microsatellite instability in sporadic colorectal cancer.

BACKGROUND: The role of the loss of p27 protein expression in the oncogenesis of colorectal cancer is still in debate. In this study, we prospectively examined the immunohistochemical expression of p27 in 108 consecutive colorectal cancers, and we analysed the relationship with the results, the clinicopathological data, microsatellite instability (MSI) and other genetic alterations of tumours. METHODS: Unselected patients (108) who underwent curative colorectal resection for sporadic colorectal cancer in a three-year period were evaluated for MSI using 6 microsatellite markers, and for the presence of p27, p53, Fhit, Mlh1 and Msh2 proteins by means of immunostaining. The relationships between these markers were analysed. p27 protein expression was examined for association with disease recurrences and survival. RESULTS: Lack of p27 expression was noted in 33 out of 108 (30.5%) colorectal cancer cases (P<0.05). This altered expression was significantly higher in proximal cancers (P<0.05), mucinous tumours (P<0.001), poorly differentiated histology (P<0.01), cancers with MSI (P<0.05), tumours with altered expression of Mlh1 (P<0.01), of Msh2 (P<0.05), and of Fhit (P<0.01). Overall survival was better in the patient group with altered level of phenotypic p27 expression, although the difference does not reach statistical significance (P=0.069). The analysis performed only for patients with tumour at stage II showed significantly better survival when the tumour exhibited altered p27 expression (P<0.02). CONCLUSIONS: The results of the present study support the hypothesis that altered expression of p27 may be part of the genetic pathway involving MSI, which is responsible for the development of some colorectal cancers.

Adenocarcinoma↗