Impact of Different Treatment Modalities on the Outcome of Pancreatic Cancer.

OBJECTIVE: To analyze overall survival patterns of our pancreatic cancer patient population managed with a curative or palliative intent. STUDY DESIGN: Analytical study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY: Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, Lahore, from January 2000 till February 2015. METHODOLOGY: Aretrospective review of the data of all of our pancreatic cancer patients was performed, using the hospital information system. Patients with tumor other than adenocarcinoma or a histopathologic diagnosis not made at our hospital are excluded from the study, along with patients having an incomplete medical record for all included variables. The main outcome measure was overall survival in months from the date of diagnosis. All results were segregated and analyzed according to the intervention modality used, i.e. group A: surgery with curative intent, group B: Palliative chemotherapy, and group C: Supportive care. Results were controlled for the confounding variables including age, gender, significant comorbid conditions, stage of disease at initial presentation, tumor location, and histological grade. RESULTS: Among the 197 patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria, 21 (10.7%) were excluded as they were lost to follow-up. Overall Kaplan-Meier survival analysis gave a 56% one-year survival, 22% at 3- and 16% at 5-year. The subset analysis on Cox-regression survival plot showed inferior survival with advancing stage of the disease and a treatment less than definitive surgical resection and adjuvant chemotherapy. On Cox-proportional regression analysis, stage of the disease and treatment modality were only independent predictive factors for overall survival (p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Stage for stage, surgery with curative intent (group A) or palliative chemotherapy (group B) showed a trend towards improved survival as compared to supportive management (group C) alone. The results were more significant for surgical resection arm.

Morbidity analysis in minimally invasive esophagectomy for oesophageal cancer versus conventional over the last 10 years, a single institution experience.

BACKGROUND: There has been an increasing inclination towards minimally invasive esophagectomies (MIEs) at our institute recently for resectable oesophageal cancer. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of the present study is to report peri-operative and long-term procedure specific outcomes of the two groups and analyse their changing pattern at our institute. METHODS: All adult patients with a diagnosis of oesophageal cancer managed at our institute from 2005 to 2015 were included in this retrospective study. Patients' demographic and clinical characteristics were recorded through our hospital information system. The cohort of esophagectomies was allocated into two groups, conventional open esophagectomy (OE) or total laparoscopic MIE; hybrid esophagectomies were taken as a separate group. The short-term outcome measures are an operative time in minutes, length of hospital and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) stay in days, post-operative complications and 30 days in-hospital mortality. Complications are graded according to the Clavien-Dindo classification system. Long-term outcomes are long-term procedure related complications over a minimum follow-up of 1 year. Trends were analysed by visually inspecting the graphic plots for mean number of events in each group each year. RESULTS: Our results showed no difference in mortality, length of hospital and ICU stays and incidence of major complications between three groups on uni- and multi-variate analysis (P > 0.05). The operative time was significantly longer in MIE group (odds ratio [OR]: 1.66, confidence interval [CI]: 2.4-11.5). The incidence of long-term complication was low for MIE (OR: 1.0, CI: 133-1.017). However, all post-operative surgical outcomes trended to improve in both groups over the course of this study and stayed better for MIE group except for the operative time. CONCLUSION: MIE has overall comparable surgical outcomes to its conventional counterpart. Furthermore, the peri-operative outcomes tend to improve in our centre with the maturation of program and experience.

Clinical profile, treatment and survival outcomes of peadiatric germ cell tumours: A Pakistani perspective.

Germ Cell Tumours (GCTs) are rare tumours. Generally 80% are benign and 20% malignant with a bimodal age distribution. The retrospective study was conducted at Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan, and comprised all paediatric patients below 18 years of age who received treatment for histology-proven GCT from 2006 to 2014. Of the 207 patients, 98(42.3%) were males and 109(52.7%) were females. The most common GCT was yolk sac tumour in 90(43.5%) children followed by mixed GCT in 40(19.3%) and dysgerminoma in 34(16.4%). Gonads were most commonly involved in 165(79.7%) patients with metastasis in 24(11.6%) at presentation and recurrence in 26(12.5%) patients. Overall, 133(64.3%) patients are well and followed up at regular intervals and 55(26.5%) have been lost to follow-up with an expected overall 5-year median survival of 45%. Despite the distinct clinical profile of paediatric GCT, survival can be improved by early diagnosis, regimented treatment according to set guidelines, protocols and by improving follow-up.

Changes in oncological outcomes: comparison of the conventional and minimally invasive esophagectomy, a single institution experience.

Minimally invasive esophagectomy is becoming the routine procedure for resectable esophageal cancer. The aim of this retrospective study is to analyze the oncologic adequacy of these two procedures at our Centre. Out of 1252 registered esophageal cancer patients at our institute from 2006 to 2015, 206 patients who underwent a surgical resection with curative intent and a complete medical record were retrospectively evaluated thru hospital medical record system (HIS). Patients were allocated into the conventional open OE, and minimally invasive MIE and Hybrid esophagectomy groups. Primary outcomes are tumor recurrence and disease-free survival over a minimum follow-up of 1 year along with assessment of adequacy of pathological specimen in terms of lymph nodes harvested and clear longitudinal <1 cm and circumferential (≥1 mm) resection margins for patients with post-neo-adjuvant residual disease. Secondary endpoint is to look for trends in the adequacy of oncologic clearance in each group over the study period. Overall, there was no statistically significant difference (p > 0.05) between groups (OE vs. MIE vs. Hybrid) for median number of lymph nodes retrieved (13 vs.14 vs.15), resection margin positive disease (55.8 vs. 35.7 vs. 44 % of patients with any residual disease N = 103,50 %), or tumor recurrence (45.2 vs. 37.3 vs. 25 %). Disease-free survival over a mean follow-up of 2.3 years was higher in the conventional group (13.8 months vs. 9.7MIE and 11.8hybrid) without any statistical significance. Learning curve for MIE to achieve a comparable mean lymph nodes harvest to OE was 1 year, while pathological complete resection stayed persistently better with minimally invasive approach. Minimally invasive esophagectomy is found to be oncologically adequate and gives results matching their conventional analogue with an increasing experience.