Gross morphologic features of surgical specimen in rectal cancer patients with pathological complete response following neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy: A cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: pathological complete response (pCR) is achieved in 10%-30% of rectal cancer patients following neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy and surgery. Residual mucosal abnormalities, which make patients ineligible for nonoperative management, may not be an accurate indicator of the pCR. The purpose of this study was to report the gross findings of rectal cancer patients with pathological complete responses. METHODS: This study was conducted at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. A total of 130 patients with rectal adenocarcinoma, treated by neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy, followed by surgical resection between March 2007, and March 2017, with a surgical pathology report of pCR, were included. Patients' demographics and pretreatment tumor characteristics were collected from the medical records. Data regarding residual mucosal abnormalities were extracted from postoperative surgical pathology reports. Abnormal findings were reported as "ulcer" or " non-ulcerative lesion". RESULTS: One hundred and fifteen patients (88.5%; 95% CI: 81.7%-93.4%) had at least one abnormal finding in the gross examination, including ulcer or non-ulcerative lesion (any mucosal abnormalities other than ulcers, including polyps, telangiectasia, etc.). Patients with higher-stage tumors had a higher chance of having an ulcerative lesion (p = 0.05). Younger patients tended to have deeper layers of involvement (p = 0.013). Patients with different gross findings were not significantly different regarding baseline characteristics, except for the pretreatment stage, where patients with a higher stage had higher odds of having ulcerative lesions. CONCLUSIONS: Most rectal cancer patients achieving a pCR exhibit abnormalities on gross examination. The higher pretreatment stages were significantly associated with gross abnormalities especially ulcers.

Visfatin level in patients with colorectal adenoma.

BACKGROUND: Visfatin is an adipocytokine secreted by visceral adipose tissue. It has been shown that adipocytokines may contribute to the induction of carcinogens and progression of tumors. Previously, we found a significant increase in the visfatin serum level in colorectal cancer patients. Herein, we investigated if this cytokine increases in patients with colorectal adenoma as a precursor of colorectal cancer. METHODS: In this case-control analytic study, a total of 34 patients diagnosed with colorectal adenoma and 35 disease-free controls were included. Adenomas were also categorized based on their location within the colon. Visfatin serum levels were measured in all cases and controls using enzyme- linked immunosorbent assay kits. In order to compare visfatin levels between groups a twotailed t-test was considered. Pearson correlation was also used to assess the relationship between visfatin levels and other measured variables. RESULTS: Patients included 18 male (53%) and 16 female (47%) with a mean±SD age of 48.3±10.96 years and controls were 18 male (51%) and 17 female (49%) with a mean±SD age of 51.6±12.52 years. There were no significant difference in terms of the visfatin level between the two groups (6.7±3.01 ng/ml for patients and 6.8±2.49 ng/ml for controls, p>0.05). Except for a significant correlation between the BMI and visfatin level (p=0.041), no other correlation was detected. We found no significant difference between the levels of visfatin in each location of adenoma comparing the healthy controls (p>0.05 in all comparisons). There was no statistical difference between the locations groups in terms of visfatin level as well (p>0.05). CONCLUSION: Visfatin serum level does not significantly increase in patients with colorectal adenoma. Site of adenoma within the colon or rectum does not seem to play an important role in this regard as well.