Prognostic significance of the immuno-peritoneal cancer index in peritoneal metastatic patients treated with cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy.

PURPOSE: A valid comparison of immune function among different patients with different primary pathologies or even with different tumour burdens requires the common use of a reliable assessment of the patient's condition. The combined immuno-PCI system can translate a complex clinical situation into a simple point value to improve postoperative outcomes to assess the prognostic significance of combined immuno-PCI in peritoneal metastatic patients treated with cytoreductive surgery(CRS) and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy(HIPEC). PATIENTS AND METHODS: Four hundred twenty-four patients from the prospectively maintained database of Dokuz Eylul University Peritoneal Surface Malignancy Center were retrospectively analysed. In addition to the demographic findings and the well-known clinicopathologic factors, several systemic inflammation-based prognostic scores, including the modified Glasgow prognostic score (mGPS), CRP-albumin ratio (CAR), neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), neutrophil-thrombocyte ratio (NTR), and thrombocyte count, were all searched and stratified into scoring categories as prognostic determinants of surgical complications, final oncologic outcomes, recurrent disease, disease-free survival (DFS), and overall survival (OS). ROC analyses were performed, and cut-off values were obtained for all immune parameters by using the Youden index method. RESULTS: There were 314 (74%) women and 110 (26%) men. The median age was 56 (ranging from 18 to 86) years. The most frequent sites of peritoneal metastasis were colorectal (n = 204; 48%) and gynaecologic carcinomas (n = 187; 44%). Thirty-three patients (8%) had primary malignant peritoneal mesothelioma. The median follow-up was 37.8 (ranging from 1 to 124) months. The overall survival was 51.7%. The 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year survival rates were estimated as 80%, 48.4%, and 32.6%, respectively. PCI-CAR-NTR (1 to 3) (p < .001) scoring was an independent prognostic factor for DFS. In a Cox backwards regression analysis, anastomotic leak (p = .002), completeness of cytoreduction (p = .0014), number of organ resections (p = .002), lymph node involvement (p = .003), and PCI-CAR-NTR (1 to 3) scoring (p = .001) were found to be independently significant prognostic factors for overall survival. CONCLUSION: The PCI is a reliable and consistently valid prognostic factor to evaluate the tumour burden and tumour extent in patients treated with CRS/HIPEC. Staging the host by combining the PCI with an immunoscore may help to improve the outcomes of complications and overall survival in these complex cancer patients. The aggregate maximum immuno-PCI tool may be a better prognostic measure for outcome evaluation.

Urgent re-laparotomies in cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy.

BACKGROUND: The objective of the study was to evaluate the morbidity-mortality results in terms of immunscore factors and to predict the outcomes of urgent re-laparotomized patients treated with cytoreductive surgery (CRS) and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC). METHODS: Prospectively maintained database of 661 patients treated with potentially curative intent of CRS and HIPEC through the years of 2007 and 2020 was evaluated. URL was done for 28 (4.2%) patients as unplanned re-explorative surgery; 22 (78.6%) of them was female. The median age was 57 year (ranging, 24-76 years). There were 22 (78.6%) elderly patients over 65 years old. All standard clini-co-pathological characteristics, re-operative findings, and the morbidity-mortality results were analyzed. The well-known immunoscores such as neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), neutrophil-thrombocyte ratio (NTR), and CRP-albumin ratio (CAR) were determined. RESULTS: The main indication for URL was small bowel anastomotic leak (n=13, 46.4%). The abdominal wall disruption (n=5, 17.9%) was the second indication. The frequent localization of injured organ was again small bowel. The 28.6% of patients (n=8) were re-op-erated in early postoperative period (in 7 days), while as the rest of them (n=20, 71.4%) in 90 days. There was only one repeat-URL patient in this series. Many of the URL patients (n=16, 57.1%) had more than one co-morbidities. Delving into the overall group, there were Clavien-Dindo (C-D) Grade I-II complications in 104 (16.4%) patients and C-D Grade III-IV in 88 (13.9%) patients, whereas in URL patient group, C-D Grade III-IV complications were seen in 22 (78.6%). In this prospective cohort, the overall mortality rate was 3.2% (n=20) in patients who were not re-explored. Six (21.4%) patients were lost in URL patients, which the main reason for fail-ure-to-rescue was sepsis due to entero-enteral anastomotic leak. In four of them, multiple co-morbidities were affected the post-URL period of complex cancer care. Pre-URL median NLR, NTR, and CAR values were 9.12 (ranging, 1.72-37.5), 0.03 (ranging, 0.01-0.12), and 41.4 (ranging, 4.2-181.3), respectively. NLR and CAR values (4.71 and 28.8) estimated before pre-CRS were also significantly high (p=0.01 and p<0.01) in patients who were going to be operated for URL. These immunoscores values did not show any association in between pre-CRS and pre-URL mortal patients. CONCLUSION: The crucial decision-making factors at work were complex and complicated in 'unplanned' URL. The overall mor-bidity-mortality results seemingly depends on the severity and extent of peritoneal metastatic disease. Medically-unfit URL patients with high-risk factors should be selected to a vigilant monitoring and clinical care. Timely surgical intervention and intense management strategy are utmost important issues to lower morbi-mortality results in patients treated with URL.

Intra-operative parathyroid hormone evaluation is superior to frozen section analysis in parathyroid surgery.

BACKGROUND: Surgery is currently the only treatment option for patients with primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT). Recently, minimally invasive parathyroidectomy (MIP) has begun to replace traditional bilateral neck exploration (BNE). OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to compare the results of parathyroidectomies performed in our hospital over the past decade that were guided by intra-operative parathyroid hormone (IOPTH) sampling or frozen section (FS) analysis. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Data on 697 patients who underwent parathyroidectomies in the Department of Endocrine Surgery, Dokuz Eylul University between January 2005 and 2018 were included in this study. Patients with malignancies other than thyroid papillary microcarcinoma and parathyroid cancer were excluded from the study. RESULTS: The concomitant use of neck ultrasound (US) and technetium 99m Sestamibi (99mTc MIBI) scintigraphy successfully localized the hyperfunctioning parathyroid glands in nearly 96% of cases. As compared with the IOPTH group, the operation time was longer in the FS group (p < 0.001), and the need for postoperative calcium (Ca) supplementation was higher (p < 0.001). The duration of hospitalization (days) was significantly higher in the FS group (4.2 ± 3.4 vs. 2.6 ± 1.9) as compared with that in the IOPTH group (p < 0.001). In addition, the recurrence rate in the FS group was significantly higher than that in the IPOTH group (p = 0.002). CONCLUSION: IOPTH sampling is a safe and effective method when performed by experienced surgeons and with appropriate preoperative screening. This study emphasizes that IOPTH sampling. We believe that the success in parathyroid surgery is due to three factors: correct indication, accurate localization and experienced surgeon.

Do the stump knotting technique and specimen retrieval method effect morbidity in laparoscopic appendectomy?

BACKGROUND: Stump closure is the most important part of a laparoscopic appendectomy (LA). Closing the appendix base with knot tying is the most cost-effective method. The defined risk factor for surgical site infection (SSI) after LA is the contamination of trocar entry area by inflamed appendicitis. This study aims to compare the single and double knot technique for stump control and specimen removal methods in LA. METHODS: The data of patients who underwent LA between January 2015 and January 2017 were obtained from prospectively collected database. Single and double knot technique, specimen removal method, operation duration, hospital stay, and perioperative-postoperative complications were compared. RESULTS: Extracorporeal double knot was used in 134 patients (63%), and single knot was used in 79 patients (37%). There was no difference between operation duration in the two groups (p=0.97). No stump leakage was observed in any patient. Intraabdominal abscess developed in three patients (1.4%). Appendix was removed from the abdomen directly in 101 patients (47%) and using specimen retrieval bag in 112 (53%). SSI developed in five patients (2.3%), and appendices of all of these five patients were removed from abdomen without using specimen retrieval bag. No SSI was detected in the group that used the specimen retrieval bag (p=0.02). CONCLUSION: Single or double knot(s) tying can be defined as safe and cost-effective stump closure method. The risk of developing SSI can be reduced using specimen retrieval bag.