Exploring Gut Microbiome Composition and Circulating Microbial DNA Fragments in Patients with Stage II/III Colorectal Cancer: A Comprehensive Analysis.

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) significantly contributes to cancer-related mortality, necessitating the exploration of prognostic factors beyond TNM staging. This study investigates the composition of the gut microbiome and microbial DNA fragments in stage II/III CRC.

Methods: A cohort of 142 patients with stage II/III CRC and 91 healthy controls underwent comprehensive microbiome analysis.

An unusual case of mechanical bowel obstruction due to cholecysto-intestinal fistula and impacted gallstone: A case report and literature review.

Gallstone ileus is a rare entity and constitutes an uncommon complication of gallstone disease. It is caused by the impaction of a gallstone in the gastrointestinal tract and may cause serious symptoms or even life-threatening complications. It should be part of the differential diagnosis of acute abdomen especially in patients presenting with signs and symptoms of bowel obstruction and known gallstone disease.

A Rare Case of Extended Retroperitoneal Biloma Due to Spontaneous Perforation of Common Bile Duct, Mimicking a Strangulated Right Inguinal Hernia: A Case Report and Literature Review.

BACKGROUND Biloma is the collection of bile outside the biliary tree as a result of visceral perforation. The most common site of disruption is the gallbladder, whereas common bile duct lesions usually occur following medical procedures or trauma. Spontaneous perforation of the common bile duct has been previously reported in the literature.

A rare giant gastric trichobezoar in a young female patient: Case report and review of the literature.

A bezoar is an aggregate of undigested foreign materials that accumulate in the gastrointestinal tract and may cause serious symptoms or even life-threatening complications. Trichobezoars, a subtype of bezoars, are a rare condition usually occurring in females with psychiatric disorders, with Rapunzel syndrome being an uncommon form of trichobezoar.

Ileocolic Intussusception in a Woman: A Case Report and Literature Review.

BACKGROUND Intussusception is a rare pathological entity in adults and remains a diagnostic challenge for clinicians, as it shares many clinical signs and symptoms with other morbid conditions (including appendicitis, abdominal hernias, colic, volvulus, and Meckel diverticulum). High clinical suspicion and use of appropriate imaging techniques are essential for early diagnosis and treatment of intussusception. Surgical intervention is the treatment of choice in cases of sustained and persistent invagination.

Gastric glomus tumor: a case report and review of the literature.

Introduction: Gastric glomus tumor is a rare mesenchymal neoplasm. There are only a few cases of the tumor showing malignancy, and there are no specific guidelines for the management of this entity.

Case Presentation: We present the case of a 53-year-old Caucasian male who was hospitalized for anemia.

Resectable Colorectal Cancer: Current Perceptions on the Correlation of Recurrence Risk, Microbiota and Detection of Genetic Mutations in Liquid Biopsies.

Metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) remains a highly lethal malignancy, although considerable progress has resulted from molecular alterations in guiding optimal use of available treatments. CRC recurrence remains a great barrier in the disease management. Hence, the spotlight turns to newly mapped fields concerning recurrence risk factors in patients with resectable CRC with a focus on genetic mutations, microbiota remodeling and liquid biopsies.

Right-sided strangulating diaphragmatic hernia in an adult without history of trauma: a case report.

Background: Diaphragmatic hernia involves protrusion of abdominal contents into the thorax through a defect in the diaphragm. This defect can be caused either by developmental failure of the posterolateral foramina to fuse properly, or by traumatic injury of the diaphragm. Left-sided diaphragmatic hernias are more common (80-90%) because the right pleuroperitoneal canal closes earlier and the liver protects the right diaphragm.

Multidimensional analysis of the learning curve for laparoscopic colorectal surgery in a regional hospital: the implementation of a standardized surgical procedure counterbalances the lack of experience.

Background: Although a larger proportion of colorectal surgeries have been performed laparoscopically in the last few years, a steep learning curve prevents us from considering laparoscopic colorectal surgery as the gold standard technique for treating disease entities in the colon and rectum. The purpose of this single centre study was to determine, using various parameters and following a well-structured and standardized surgical procedure, the adequate number of cases after which a single surgeon qualified in open surgery but with no previous experience in laparoscopic colorectal surgery and without supervision, can acquire proficiency in this technique.

Methods: From 2012 to 2019, 112 patients with pathology in the rectum and colon underwent laparoscopic colorectal resection by a team led by the same surgeon.

Functional brain networks of patients with epilepsy exhibit pronounced multiscale periodicities, which correlate with seizure onset.

Epileptic seizure detection and prediction by using noninvasive measurements such as scalp EEG signals or invasive, intracranial recordings, has been at the heart of epilepsy studies for at least three decades. To this end, the most common approach has been to consider short-length recordings (several seconds to a few minutes) around a seizure, aiming to identify significant changes that occur before or during seizures. An inherent assumption in this approach is the presence of a relatively constant EEG activity in the interictal period, which is interrupted by seizure occurrence.

Graph Theoretical Characteristics of EEG-Based Functional Brain Networks in Patients With Epilepsy: The Effect of Reference Choice and Volume Conduction.

It is well-established that both volume conduction and the choice of recording reference (montage) affect the correlation measures obtained from scalp EEG, both in the time and frequency domains. As a result, a number of correlation measures have been proposed aiming to reduce these effects. In our previous work, we have showed that scalp-EEG based functional brain networks in patients with epilepsy exhibit clear periodic patterns at different time scales and that these patterns are strongly correlated to seizure onset, particularly at shorter time scales (around 3 and 5 h), which has important clinical implications.

Acute diverticulitis in patients under 50 years of age.

Unlabelled: Acute diverticulitis typically occurs in patients over 80 years old. The last five years we observed an increased incidence of acute diverticulitis in patients under 50 years. The aim of this study is to evaluate the increased rate of patients under 50 years that are hospitalized due to acute diverticulitis.

Spontaneous adrenal hemorrhage. Report of two cases and review of pathogenesis, diagnosis and management.

Adrenal hemorrhage represents a relatively rare condition, usually associated with meningococcal septicemia. It is an underestimated cause of acute decompensation, multiorgan failure and death, usually diagnosed post-mortem. Depending on its etiology adrenal hemorrhage is categorized as traumatic and non-traumatic.

Necrotizing fasciitis associated with primary cutaneous B-cell lymphoma. A case report.

Unlabelled: Necrotizing fasciitis is a rapidly progressive and life-threatening infection of the deeper skin layers and subcutaneous tissues that moves along the facial planes.

Objectives: We present the rare case of a patient with necrotizing fasciitis associated with high malignancy b-cell lymphoma. Our purpose is to investigate the probable connection between the two pathologies and evaluate the importance of early surgical intervention.

Unsupervised detection and removal of muscle artifacts from scalp EEG recordings using canonical correlation analysis, wavelets and random forests.

Objective: This paper proposes supervised and unsupervised algorithms for automatic muscle artifact detection and removal from long-term EEG recordings, which combine canonical correlation analysis (CCA) and wavelets with random forests (RF).

Methods: The proposed algorithms first perform CCA and continuous wavelet transform of the canonical components to generate a number of features which include component autocorrelation values and wavelet coefficient magnitude values. A subset of the most important features is subsequently selected using RF and labelled observations (supervised case) or synthetic data constructed from the original observations (unsupervised case).

Synchronous mucinous adenocarcinoma of the recto sigmoid revealed by and seeding an anal fistula. (A case report and review of the literature).

Introduction: There are few cases of synchronous rectal adenocarcinoma revealed by an anal fistula. The diagnosis of synchronous mucinous adenocarcinoma of the recto sigmoid and anal canal remains difficult. The chronic anal fistula can be mistaken as the common manifestation of a benign perianal abscess or fistula.

Epileptic seizure onset correlates with long term EEG functional brain network properties.

We investigated the correlation of epileptic seizure onset times with long term EEG functional brain network properties. To do so, we constructed binary functional brain networks from long-term, multichannel electroencephalographic data recorded from nine patients with epilepsy. The corresponding network properties were quantified using the average network degree.

Automatic detection and removal of muscle artifacts from scalp EEG recordings in patients with epilepsy.

Automatic detection and removal of muscle artifacts plays an important role in long-term scalp electroencephalography (EEG) monitoring, and muscle artifact detection algorithms have been intensively investigated. This paper proposes an algorithm for automatic muscle artifacts detection and removal using canonical correlation analysis (CCA) and wavelet transform (WT) in epochs from long-term EEG recordings. The proposed method first performs CCA analysis and then conducts wavelet decomposition on the canonical components within a specific frequency range and selects a subset of the wavelet coefficients for subsequent processing.

Primary small bowel melanoma. A case report and a review of the literature.

Primary malignant melanoma originating from the small intestine is extremely rare. Only a limited number of cases are described in the literature. Most commonly small intestine is affected by metastatic tumors from other primary lesions.

Periodicity in functional brain networks: application to scalp EEG from epilepsy patients.

Seizure detection and prediction studies using scalp- or intracranial-EEG measurements often focus on short-length recordings around the occurrence of the seizure, normally ranging between several seconds and up to a few minutes before and after the event. The underlying assumption in these studies is the presence of a relatively constant EEG activity in the interictal period, that is presumably interrupted by the occurrence of a seizure, at the time the seizure starts or slightly earlier. In this study, we put this assumption under test, by examining long-duration scalp EEG recordings, ranging between 22 and 72 hours, of five patients with epilepsy.

Large presacral tailgut cyst with a carcinoid tumor in a male: report of a case.

Tailgut cysts are developmental hamartomas found in the presacral space. They are usually detected incidentally during physical examinations or imaging studies. However, they may cause symptoms due to compression of nearby organs.

Preoperative decision making for rectal cancer.

Background: Rectal cancer treatment has become multimodal as a result of significant advances in imaging, staging, surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. Multidisciplinary teams can incorporate these developments into tailor-made treatment plans and offer state-of-the-art services for rectal cancer patients.

Methods: We searched the MEDLINE and PubMed databases using the following keywords: "rectal cancer," "total mesorectal excision," "multidisciplinary treatment/team," "radiotherapy," "chemotherapy," and their combinations.