Appendix adenocarcinoma in an elderly patient from a nursing home.

Appendiceal malignancies are rare clinic entities. The clinical presentation of appendiceal malignancies is often atypical. Acute abdominal pain and acute appendicitis, which requires early surgical intervention, are the most common clinical presentations of appendiceal malignancies. In this case report, an adenocarcinoma of the appendix in a 64-year-old male from a nursing home has been presented. He had right lower quadrant pain for the last 5 days. On physical examination, he had significant guarding. Intravenous contrast-enhanced abdominopelvic tomography revealed no pathological features. Laparotomy under general anesthesia was scheduled. During exploration, a perforated appendicitis was observed. Formal appendectomy was performed. The patient was lost due to pneumonia and septic shock 5 days after surgical intervention. In addition, the natural history of the disease and its basic diagnostic and therapeutic aspects are discussed. Preoperative or intraoperative diagnosis may not be available for some patients. Thus, routine histopathological examination is essential for adequate diagnosis and treatment.

Anaesthetic Management for Appendectomy in a Patient with Situs Inversus Totalis.

Situs inversus totalis is a congenital syndrome, in which all the internal organs are in the opposite position, including dextrokardia. Most patients are asymptomatic and maintain their normal life. Kartagener syndrome may accompany situs inversus totalis. Diagnosis may be overlooked in patients with situs inversus totalis in emergency situations. Patients with this syndrome should inform the clinician as this will facilitate the diagnosis. Acute appendicitis is an emergency situation that would require urgent intervention. Appendicitis symptoms can be observed in the left lower quadrant of patients. We present a case concerning the anaesthetic management of a patient with situs inversus undergoing an emergency appendectomy.

Emergency thyroidectomy: Due to acute respiratory failure.

INTRODUCTION: Giant cervical and mediastinal goiter may lead to acute respiratory failure caused by laryngotracheal compression and airway obstruction. Here, we present a case admitted to the emergency service with a giant goiter along with respiratory failure and poor general health status, which required urgent surgical intervention. PRESENTATION OF CASE: A 71-year-old female admitted to the emergency room with shortness of breath and poor general health status resulting from a giant cervical swelling progressively increased during the last 7 years and constituted severe respiratory failure which has become severe in the last one month. A giant nodular goiter of the left thyroid lobe extending retrosternally, causing tracheal compression, limiting the neck movements was detected with clinical examination and bedside ultrasound. Emergency thyroidectomy was planned. Fiberoptic-assisted awake nasal intubation was performed in the operating room. Emergency total thyroidectomy was performed for the life-threatening respiratory failure. Postoperative period was uneventful. She was transferred from intensive care unit to the ward on postoperative day 3 and was discharged from the hospital on the postoperative 7th day. Benign multinodular hyperplasia was reported on the histopathological report. Patient was included in routine follow-up. DISCUSSION: In the present case tracheal destruction due to compression of the giant goiter was found in agreement with previous reports. Emergency thyroidectomy was performed after awake intubation since it is a common surgical option for the treatment of giant goiter causing severe airway obstruction. CONCLUSION: Respiratory failure due to giant nodular goiter is a life-threatening situation and should be treated immediately by performing awake endotracheal intubation following emergency total thyroidectomy.

Cholesterolosis in routine histopathological examination after cholecystectomy: what should a surgeon behold in the reports?

INTRODUCTION: Cholecystectomy is one of the most common surgical procedures. Postoperative investigation of cholecystectomy specimen has a great value since histopathological reports may document some entities with significant clinical consequences. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between cholesterolosis and the reports indicating some histopathological alterations in symptomatic cholecystitis. METHODS: This paper is based on a retrospective study. Histopathological reports of 432 cholecystectomy specimens between January 2011 and June 2013 were reviewed. Three reports were excluded due to perioperative diagnosis of cancer. Reports of 429 cholecystectomy specimens of the acute and symptomatic chronic cholecystitis patients were analyzed. Standardization of the reporting was questioned. Age, gender, histopathological wall thickness of gallbladder, reporting rates of acute inflammation, cholesterolosis, polypoid lesions, epithelial hyperplasia, gastric or intestinal metaplasia, dysplasia and incidental cancer were investigated and compared between patients with and without cholesterolosis. Reported rates of histopathological findings were comparable between patients under and over 60 years old and patients with and without reported cholesterolosis. RESULTS: Reported histopathological findings were presented as acute inflammation in 46 (10.7%), cholesterolosis in 79 (18.4%), gallbladder polypoid lesions in 7 (1.6%), epithelial hyperplasia in 16 (3.7%), metaplasia of any type in 34 (7.9%) of 429 patients. Dysplasia was excluded whereas one incidental gallbladder carcinoma was reported. Epithelial hyperplasia and metaplasia were found to be related to age. Gallbladder wall thickness was decreased with cholesterolosis. However, only a correlation between cholesterolosis and gender or metaplasia was noted. CONCLUSION: Recent study suggests that cholesterolosis is somehow associated with metaplasia. Thus, surgeons should carefully interpret the histopathology reports based on unusual or exceptional findings corresponding to the cholecystectomy specimens. Any abnormal finding in the reports should be investigated in terms of the progress of the pathology and also its clinical consequences.

Spontaneous splenic artery aneurysm rupture: mimicking acute myocardial infarct.

Spontaneous splenic artery aneurysm (SAA) is a rare but a life-threatening condition. Thus, early diagnoses may increase the chance of survival. A 52-year-old female patient was admitted to the emergency department with a pain that starts from the chest and epigastric region and radiates to back and left arm. The patient prediagnosed as having acute myocardial infarct and was under observation when acute abdomen and hemorrhagic shock developed. After further investigation, the patient was diagnosed as having SAA and has undergone a successful surgery. The patient was fully cured and discharged from the hospital on the seventh postoperative day. The patient originally presented with SAA, although she was primarily observed in the emergency department with acute myocardial infarct diagnosis because of similar symptoms and clinical findings to cardiovascular diseases. When changes in the clinical picture occurred, the patient was reevaluated and had undergone an operation because of SAA rupture. Therefore, physicians should take into consideration of aneurysm rupture in the differential diagnosis of the cardiovascular conditions; otherwise, the patient may lose his/her life.

Metastatic/resected lymph nodes ratio-based classification in gastric cancer.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Many studies have shown that the metastatic lymph node ratio, calculated by dividing the number of metastatic lymph nodes by the total number of lymph nodes, is an important prognostic factor in gastric cancer. In the present study, the applicability of the metastatic in the 1997 Tumor Node Metastasis system was investigated using our clinical data and discussed in light of the literature. METHODS: The study was performed on the 166 patients with gastric cancer in whom R0 resection could be performed and more than 15 nodes were resected. The possible effects of age, gender, location, type of resection, number of resected lymph nodes, depth of invasion, number of involved lymph nodes, tumor grade and metastatic on survival were analyzed. RESULTS: There was a direct correlation between the total number of nodes and the number of metastatic nodes (r: 0.319, p<0.0001). However, there was no correlation between metastatic and the total number of nodes (r: 0.0072, p: 0.354). Tumor location, size, depth of invasion, number of involved nodes and metastatic were found to be determinants of survival in univariate analysis. Cox regression analysis identified metastatic as the only independent prognostic factor. CONCLUSIONS: A new staging system based on metastatic will be resistant to stage migration and will include the surgical approach in staging. However, further studies are required to determine appropriate cutoff values and the best approach to patients with less than 15 resected nodes.