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Preoperative staging of clinical stage I rectal cancer can fail to diagnose T3 or nodal disease. Adjuvant treatment of these upstaged patients remains controversial.The objective was to identify predictors of clinical stage I rectal cancer upstaging and quantify rates of local and systemic recurrence.This was a retrospective cohort study.The study was conducted using the data from the United States Rectal Cancer Consortium, a registry of 1,881 rectal cancer resections performed at six academic medical centers.There were a total of 94 clinical stage I rectal cancer patients who underwent proctectomy without preoperative therapy.The primary measures were incidence of pathologic upstaging, recurrence (local and systemic), and overall survival.Among 94 clinical stage I patients who underwent proctectomy without preoperative therapy, 23 (24.5%) were upstaged by surgical pathology. There were 6 pT3N0 patients, 8 pT1-2N+, and 9 pT3N+. There were no significant differences in demographic or clinical characteristics between upstaged and non-upstaged patients. Of the 6 patients who were upstaged to T3N0 disease, none received adjuvant therapy and none recurred. Of the 17 patients who were upstaged to N+ disease, 14 (82%) received adjuvant chemotherapy and 6 (35%) received adjuvant chemoradiation. None developed a local recurrence, but 4 (24%) developed systemic recurrence, and 2 (12%) died of disease over a mean of 36 months follow-up. Among the 9 pT3N+ patients, the systemic recurrence rate was 33%, despite 8 of 9 patients receiving adjuvant fluorouracil, leucovorin, and oxaliplatin.Small sample size hinders ability to draw significant conclusions.One in four patients with stage I rectal cancer had unrecognized T3 or nodal disease found on operative pathology. Occult nodal disease was associated with worse outcomes, despite receiving adjuvant therapy. Systemic recurrence was more common than local recurrence. See Video Abstract at http://links.lww.com/DCR/B885.

Nanoliposomal irinotecan (nal-IRI) is a promising novel hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) agent given its enhanced efficacy against gastrointestinal tumors, safety profile, thermo-synergy, and heat stability. This report describes the first in-human phase 1 clinical trial of nal-IRI during cytoreductive surgery (CRS) and HIPEC.Patients with peritoneal surface disease (PSD) from appendiceal and colorectal neoplasms were enrolled in a 3 + 3 dose-escalation trial using nal-IRI (70-280 mg/mThe study enrolled 18 patients, who received nal-IRI during HIPEC at 70 mg/mIn this phase 1 HIPEC trial (NCT04088786), nal-IRI was observed to be safe, and PK profiling showed low systemic absorption overall. These data support future studies testing the efficacy of nal-IRI in CRS/HIPEC.

Recent advances in the treatment of neuroendocrine tumors (NET), including the combination regimen of capecitabine and temozolomide (CAPTEM), have mostly focused on grade 1 and 2 pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (pNET). We undertook a retrospective review of 38 patients with advanced NET treated with CAPTEM, including patients with non-pancreatic tumors as well as grade 2 and 3 tumors. O6-methylguanine DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) expression was assessed as a predictive biomarker. We found that CAPTEM demonstrated activity in patients with all grades and in pNET and non-pNET. Median progression free survival (mPFS) was 13.0 months (95% CI: 5.6-17.0) and median overall survival (mOS) 29.3 months (95% CI 17.7 - 45.3). Among evaluable patients, there were 11 (38%) partial responses, 15 (52%) stable disease, and 3 (10%) progressive disease for a disease control rate of 90%. A higher rate of partial responses occurred in patients whose tumors had low levels of MGMT expression (63%) compared to intermediate-high (17%) (p=0.19). Our results show that CAPTEM therapy is active in patients with NET including in previously treated patients and in those with poorly-differentiated histology. We observed a trend towards increased response rate, median PFS, and median OS in patients whose tumors had low MGMT protein expression.

Understanding the complexities of the liver has been a long-standing challenge to physicians and anatomists. Significant strides in the understanding of hepatic anatomy have facilitated major progress in liver-directed therapies--surgical interventions, such as transplantation, hepatic resection, hepatic artery infusion pumps, and hepatic ablation, and interventional radiologic procedures, such as transarterial chemoembolization, selective internal radiation therapy, and portal vein embolization. Without understanding hepatic anatomy, such progressive interventions would not be feasible. This article reviews the history, general anatomy, and the classification schemes of liver anatomy and their relevance to liver-directed therapies.