Search

Background Traumatic injury to the pancreas is rare but is associated with significant morbidity and mortality, including fistula, sepsis, and death. There are currently no practice management guidelines for the medical and surgical management of traumatic pancreatic injuries. The overall objective of this article is to provide evidence-based recommendations for the physician who is presented with traumatic injury to the pancreas. Methods The MEDLINE database using PubMed was searched to identify English language articles published from January 1965 to December 2014 regarding adult patients with pancreatic injuries. A systematic review of the literature was performed, and the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation framework was used to formulate evidence-based recommendations. Results Three hundred nineteen articles were identified. Of these, 52 articles underwent full text review, and 37 were selected for guideline construction. Conclusion Patients with grade I/II injuries tend to have fewer complications; for these, we conditionally recommend nonoperative or nonresectional management. For grade III/IV injuries identified on computed tomography or at operation, we conditionally recommend pancreatic resection. We conditionally recommend against the routine use of octreotide for postoperative pancreatic fistula prophylaxis. No recommendations could be made regarding the following two topics: optimal surgical management of grade V injuries, and the need for routine splenectomy with distal pancreatectomy. Level of evidence Systematic review, level III.

Background Shortly after bariatric surgery, insulin sensitivity improves and circulating Fetuin-A (FetA) declines. Elevated FetA may decrease insulin sensitivity by inhibiting insulin receptor autophosphorylation. FetA also mediates inflammation through toll-like receptor 4 and influences monocyte migration and macrophage polarization in the adipocyte. The role of dietary changes on FetA is unclear. It is also unknown whether changes in FetA are associated with adipocyte size, an indicator of insulin sensitivity. Methods Sleeve gastrectomy patients (n = 39) were evaluated prior to the preoperative diet, on the day of surgery (DOS) and six-weeks postoperatively. At each visit, diet records, anthropometrics and fasting blood were collected. Adipocyte diameter was measured in omental adipose collected during surgery. Results Although significant weight loss did not occur during the preoperative diet, HOMA-IR improved (p

As breast cancer screening rates increase, smaller and more numerous lesions are being identified earlier, leading to more breast-conserving surgical procedures. Achieving a clean surgical margin represents a technical challenge with important clinical implications. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is introduced as an intraoperative high-resolution imaging technique that assesses surgical breast tumor margins by providing real-time microscopic images up to 2 mm beneath the tissue surface. In a study of 37 patients split between training and study groups, OCT images covering 1 cm2 regions were acquired from surgical margins of lumpectomy specimens, registered with ink, and correlated with corresponding histologic sections. A 17-patient training set used to establish standard imaging protocols and OCT evaluation criteria showed that areas of higher scattering tissue with a heterogeneous pattern were indicative of tumor cells and tumor tissue in contrast to lower scattering adipocytes found in normal breast tissue. The remaining 20 patients were enrolled into the feasibility study. Of these lumpectomy specimens, 11 were identified with a positive or close surgical margin and 9 were identified with a negative margin under OCT. Based on histologic findings, 9 true positives, 9 true negatives, 2 false positives, and 0 false negatives were found, yielding a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 82%. These results show the potential of OCT as a real-time method for intraoperative margin assessment in breast-conserving surgeries. [Cancer Res 2009;69(22):8790–6]

Purpose: The surgical resident experience with trauma has changed. Many residents are exposed to predominantly nonoperative patient care experiences while on trauma rotations. Data from a large multicenter study were analyzed to estimate surgical resident exposure to trauma laparotomy, diagnostic peritoneal lavage (DPL), and focused abdominal sonography for trauma (U/S). Methods: Centers completed a self-report questionnaire on their institutional demographics, admissions, and procedure for a 2-year period (1998-1999). Results: A total of 82 trauma centers that provide resident teaching were included. The included centers represent over 247,000 trauma admissions. The majority of trauma centers (65.9%) had > 80% blunt injury. Although all centers performed laparotomies, other results were more variable. For U/S, 24.2% performed none at all and 47.0% performed fewer than two U/S examinations per month. For DPLs, 3.8% performed none and 66.7% performed fewer than two per month. Assuming 1 night of 4 on call, the average surgical resident training at a trauma center performing > 80% blunt trauma has the potential to participate in only 15 trauma laparotomies, 6 diagnostic peritoneal lavages, and 45 ultrasound examinations per year. In addition, the resident will care for an average of 500 blunt trauma patients before performing a splenectomy or liver repair. Conclusion: Surgical resident experience on most trauma services is heavily weighted to nonoperative management, with a relatively low number of procedures, little experience with DPL, and highly variable experience with ultrasound. These data have serious implications for resident training and recruitment into the specialty.

Breast cancer continues to be one of the most widely diagnosed forms of cancer in women and the second leading type of cancer deaths for women. The metastatic spread and staging of breast cancer is typically evaluated through the nodal assessment of the regional lymphatic system, and often this is performed during the surgical resection of the tumor mass. The recurrence rate of breast cancer is highly dependent on several factors including the complete removal of the primary tumor during surgery, and the presence of cancer cells in involved lymph nodes. Hence, developing means to more accurately resect tumor cells, along with the tumor mass, and ensure negative surgical margins, offers the potential to impact outcomes of breast cancer. The use of diffuse optical tomography has been applied for screening optical mammography applications as an alternative to standard x-ray mammography. The use of coherence ranging and coherent optical imaging in breast tissue has also found numerous applications, including intra-operative assessment of tumor margin status during lumpectomy procedures, assessment of lymph node changes for staging metastatic spread, and for guiding needle-biopsy procedures. The development, pre-clinical testing, and translation of techniques such as low-coherence interferometry (LCI) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) into clinical applications in breast cancer is demonstrated in these feasibility studies.