Is the tumor-stroma ratio a prognostic factor in gallbladder cancer?

SUMMARY OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to examine the prognostic effect of the tumor-stroma ratio, which has been shown to have prognostic value in various cancers, in patients with gallbladder cancer who have undergone curative resection. METHODS: The records of gallbladder cancer patients who underwent surgical treatment in our clinic between December 2005 and March 2021 were analyzed retrospectively. The hematoxylin and eosin-stained sections representing the tumors were evaluated under light microscopy to determine tumor-stroma ratio, and based on the results, <50% was defined as the stroma-rich and ≥50% as the stroma-poor groups. RESULTS: A total of 28 patients, including 20 females and 8 males, with a mean age of 64.6 years, were included in this study. Stroma-poor and stroma-rich tumors were detected in 15 and 13 patients, respectively. There was no statistically significant relationship identified between tumor-stroma ratio and advanced age, gender, serum levels of carbohydrate antigen 19-9 and carcinoembryonic antigen, incidental or nonincidental diagnosis, jaundice, adjacent organ or structure resection, tumor location, grades 1-2 or 3, T1/T2 or T3/T4, N0 or N1/N2, M stage, American Joint Committee on Cancer stage, lymphovascular invasion, and perineural invasion. The stroma-poor and stroma-rich groups had a 5-year survival rate of 30% and 19.2% and a median overall survival of 25.7 and 15.1 months, respectively, with no statistically significant difference between the groups (p=0.526). CONCLUSIONS: A low tumor-stroma ratio tended to be a poor prognostic factor in gallbladder cancer, although not to a statistically significant degree. This can be considered one of the preliminary studies, as further studies involving larger groups are needed.

When to remove the drainage catheter in patients with percutaneous cholecystostomy?

SUMMARY OBJECTIVE: The treatment for patients with acute calculous cholecystitis who have high surgical risk with percutaneous cholecystostomy instead of surgery is an appropriate alternative choice. The aim of this study was to examine the promising percutaneous cholecystostomy intervention to share our experiences about the duration of catheter that has yet to be determined. METHODS: A total of 163 patients diagnosed with acute calculous cholecystitis and treated with percutaneous cholecystostomy between January 2011 and July 2020 were reviewed retrospectively. The Tokyo Guidelines 2018 were used to diagnose and grade patients with acute cholecystitis. RESULTS: The mean age was 71.81±12.81 years. According to the Tokyo grading, 143 patients had grade 2 and 20 patients had grade 3 disease. The mean duration of catheter was 39.12±37 (1-270) days. Minimal bile leakage into the peritoneum was noted in 3 (1.8%) patients during the procedure. The rate of complications during follow-up of the patients who underwent percutaneous cholecystostomy was 6.9% (n=11), and the most common complication was catheter dislocation. Cholecystectomy was performed in 33.1% (n=54) of the patients at follow-up. Post-cholecystectomy complication rate was 12.9%. At the follow-up, the rate of recurrent acute cholecystitis episodes was 5.5%, while the mortality rate was 1.8%. The length of follow-up was five years. CONCLUSIONS: The rate of recurrence was significantly higher among the patients with catheter for <21 days. We recommend that the duration of catheter should be minimum 21 days in patients undergoing percutaneous cholecystostomy.

The relationship between positron emission tomography-computed tomography imaging and histopathological features of thyroid incidentalomas detected during follow-up for primary malignancy

Aim of the Study: While the rate of thyroid incidentaloma detected on positron emission tomography (PET) was reported as 4%, the malignancy rate was 14%–50%. We evaluated the thyroid nodules which were detected by PET-computerized tomography (CT) in cancer patients and analyzed the pathological results of those thyroid nodules diagnosed by fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) and their correlation with the maximum standardized uptake (SUVmax) value and PET imaging features. Materials and Methods: FNAB were performed for 40 thyroid incidentalomas. We analyzed the relationship between the histopathological findings and radiological features by Pearson's correlations and Chi-square-Fisher's exact tests to evaluate the factors associated with SUVmax. Results: The median SUVmax values were 5.4 for thyroid nodules. Totally, 14 malignancies were detected by FNAB (35%).The sensitivity and specificity of SUVmax value for diagnosis of malignancy were 87.5% and 52%, respectively. Positive and negative predictive values were 36.8% and 92.8%. The most common malignant and benign pathologies were classic variant papillary carcinoma and benign colloidal nodule. The median SUVmax was the higher in colon cancer thyroid metastasis and oncocytic neoplasia (SUVmax 14.5 and 13.6, respectively). Histopathological type was not related with nodule size but positively associated with categorical SUVmax(r = 0.318, P = 0.04) and negatively correlated with both the density of the thyroid nodule in PET-CT (r = −0.0042, P = 0.01) and density of nodule in ultrasound (USG) (r = −0.305, P = 0.05). Margin of the thyroid nodule in USG (P = 0.007) and internal component of the nodule in PET (P = 0.03) were found to be important factors to differentiate benign or malignant lesion. Conclusion: If the thyroid nodule is detected with flouro-2-deoxy-D-glucose uptake, to differentiate benign nodule from malignant, cytological examination is noteworthy to diagnose the more aggressive type of thyroid nodule and also thyroid metastasis from primary cancer