Early recurrence of ileocolic intussusception after successful air enema reduction: incidence and predisposing factors.

PURPOSES: Early recurrent ileocolic intussusception (RICI) is a rare event. We aimed to estimate the rate of RICI and identify predisposing factors for early recurrence for children treated in a tertiary-care academic medical center. METHODS: Consecutive children who were diagnosed with ileocolic intussusception (ICI) during the years 2005-2015 and had successful enema reduction were included. Demographic, clinical, imaging, and laboratory data were recorded for analysis. Ultrasound and fluoroscopy images were reviewed. Early RICI was defined as recurrence within 48 h. RESULTS: Two hundred forty-five episodes of intussusception in 210 patients, ages 2 to 77 months (mean 12.7), were included. Six patients (2.45%) had a RICI between 7 and 28 h (mean 17 h) after initial successful reduction. A total of 5/6 recurrences (83.3%) were in winter months. In the group without early recurrence, only 19.6% of the cases presented during the winter (p = 0.001). Mean age in the early recurrence group was 23 months compared to 12.4 months children with no early recurrence (p = 0.016). All other analyzed parameters were comparable for the groups. CONCLUSION: Early RICI is a relatively rare event that may not justify routine admission and long observation. The approach should be individual, based on the clinical picture.

Hepatic intra-arterial therapies in metastatic neuroendocrine tumors: lessons from clinical practice.

BACKGROUND: Liver metastases are common in patients with neuroendocrine tumors (NETs), having a negative impact on disease prognosis. The options for selective therapy in patients with unresectable multiple liver metastases are limited to TACE (transarterial chemoembolization), TAE (transarterial embolization), or SIRT (selective internal radiation therapy). AIM: To explore the clinical outcome, survival and safety of these therapies in NETs patients. METHODS: Retrospective case series of consecutive patients (mean age 56.6 years, 59% male) treated at two tertiary university medical centers from 2005 to 2015. RESULTS: Fifty-seven patients with G1, G2, and low G3 NETs with liver metastases were investigated (pancreatic NET (pNET), 24; small bowel, 16; unknown origin (UKO), 9; rectal, 3; lung, 3; and gastric, 2). Fifty-three patients underwent TACE, three patients underwent TAE, and one patient underwent SIRT. Clinical improvement and tumor response were observed in 54/57 patients (95%), together with marked decreased in tumor markers. The median time to tumor progression following the first treatment was 14 ± 16 months. The median overall survival was 22 ± 18 months, more pronounced in the pNET, followed by small bowel and UKO subgroups. There was a trend for a better survival in patients with disease limited to the liver and in whom the primary tumor was resected. CONCLUSION: Hepatic intra-arterial therapies are well tolerated in the majority of patients with NETs and liver metastases and associated with both clinical improvement and tumor stabilization for prolonged periods. These therapies should be always considered, irrespective of the presence of extrahepatic metastasis.

Automatic detection of new tumors and tumor burden evaluation in longitudinal liver CT scan studies.

PURPOSE: Radiological longitudinal follow-up of liver tumors in CT scans is the standard of care for disease progression assessment and for liver tumor therapy. Finding new tumors in the follow-up scan is essential to determine malignancy, to evaluate the total tumor burden, and to determine treatment efficacy. Since new tumors are typically small, they may be missed by examining radiologists. METHODS: We describe a new method for the automatic detection and segmentation of new tumors in longitudinal liver CT studies and for liver tumors burden quantification. Its inputs are the baseline and follow-up CT scans, the baseline tumors delineation, and a tumor appearance prior model. Its outputs are the new tumors segmentations in the follow-up scan, the tumor burden quantification in both scans, and the tumor burden change. Our method is the first comprehensive method that is explicitly designed to find new liver tumors. It integrates information from the scans, the baseline known tumors delineations, and a tumor appearance prior model in the form of a global convolutional neural network classifier. Unlike other deep learning-based methods, it does not require large tagged training sets. RESULTS: Our experimental results on 246 tumors, of which 97 were new tumors, from 37 longitudinal liver CT studies with radiologist approved ground-truth segmentations, yields a true positive new tumors detection rate of 86 versus 72% with stand-alone detection, and a tumor burden volume overlap error of 16%. CONCLUSIONS: New tumors detection and tumor burden volumetry are important for diagnosis and treatment. Our new method enables a simplified radiologist-friendly workflow that is potentially more accurate and reliable than the existing one by automatically and accurately following known tumors and detecting new tumors in the follow-up scan.

The role of hepatic trans-arterial chemoembolization in metastatic medullary thyroid carcinoma: a specialist center experience and review of the literature.

BACKGROUND: Liver metastases are relatively common in patients with metastatic medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC), carrying a negative impact on disease prognosis. The options for selective therapy of liver metastases in MTC patients are limited to catheter-guided procedures such as trans-arterial chemoembolization (TACE). Data regarding the effectiveness and safety of this procedure in MTC are limited. AIM: To explore the clinical outcome, survival and safety profile of TACE for liver metastases in a group of MTC patients. METHODS: Retrospective case series of patients treated at a single tertiary University Medical Center from 2005 to 2015. RESULTS: Seven consecutive patients (mean age 64.5 ± 10.9 years, 5 females) with histologically confirmed MTC with liver metastases were included. Metastatic involvement of the liver was less than 50% of the liver volume in all patients. The median size of the largest liver lesion was 40 ± 6.9 mm. The patients underwent in total 20 sessions of TACE. Clinical improvement as well as tumor response (PR) were observed in all patients. The median time to tumor progression was 38 months (range 8-126). Three patients were still alive at the end of the follow-up period (a median overall survival rate of 57 ± 44 months). CONCLUSION: TACE in MTC patients with hepatic metastases is usually well tolerated and induces both clinical improvement and tumor response for prolonged periods of time in the majority of patients. This therapeutic option should always be considered, irrespective of the presence of extrahepatic metastasis.