Calorimetry-based profiling of blood plasma from colorectal cancer patients.

Background: Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), a highly sensitive technique for resolving thermally-induced protein folding/unfolding transitions, recently was recognized as a novel tool for disease diagnosis and monitoring. To further elaborate this approach we have applied DSC in a study of blood plasma from patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) at different stages of tumor development and localization.

Methods: Blood plasma from patients diagnosed with CRC was analyzed by DSC.

[Extensive right-sided hepatectomy for a metastatic process in patients operated on for colonic carcinoma].

Proceeding from experience with a large number of liver resections performed for single or multiple metastases atypical in appearance, including left lobectomies, a description is presented of wide right-sided hemihepatectomy, done for the first time (13 May 1997) in the surgical clinic of the National Oncological Center. The intervention is undertaken because of two metastases in the liver subsequent to radical operation for carcinoma of the sigmoid colon. The single stages of the operation are likewise described.

[The tumor markers CEA and CA-19.9 in patients with colorectal carcinoma].

The levels of two tumor markers--CEA and CA-19.9 were repeatedly determined in 146 patients with histologically verified colo-rectal cancer and in 58 healthy controls. The normal CA-19.

[A combined method for treating metastases of colorectal carcinoma to the liver].

The method is a combination of operative treatment of metastases in the liver and regional intra-arterial chemotherapy. The indications for operative treatment of the underlying tumor, the metastases in the liver and the regional chemotherapy are pointed out. Two groups of patients with colorectal cancer and remote metastases in the liver are presented: one received surgical treatment alone, the other combined therapy.

[Sexual disorders in men following radical operations on the rectum for carcinoma].

This is the first study in Bulgaria of postoperative sexual disorders following radical surgical operations for rectal cancer. The study group comprised 64 patients. Six months after the operation only 15 (24.

[A method for placing and using an indwelling epidural catheter for analgesia in incurable cancer patients].

Operative technique for implantation of indwelling epidural catheter produce of the firm "Braun" (Germany) is described. During the implantation the analgesics zone is checked with Lidocaine. The catheter pouch is fixed over a bone pad in a place well visible by the patient.

[The use of a new plastic method for consolidating a preternatural anus as prevention in paracolostomy hernias].

Once the stage of extraperitoneal evasion of the sigmoid has been achieved for definitive preternatural anus, transsection is made of the aponeurosis of m. obliqu. ext.

[The results of the formation of a new anal sphincter by using the mm. graciles in acquired anal incontinence].

The operative method of Pickrell for shaping a new anal sphincter from mm.graciles is described, emphasizing the refinements which the authors have introduced in it. In mobilizing the muscle, fascial fibers are left on both sides of the vascular-nervous bundle.

[The use of a new method for the restoration of duodenal passage following the partial extirpation of its wall in treating locally advanced tumors of the right half of the colon].

When excision of the tumor infiltration of the duodenum is followed by formation of a small defect, the authors apply a personal modification of two-story suture. Then the duodenal suture is fully covered with the serosa of the small-intestinal loop. Thus the suture is hermetically sealed and remains in a relative rest.

[The results of using a new surgical method in carcinomas located in the proximal portion of the lower third of the rectum].

A new type of abdomino-transanal resection of the rectum instead of its extirpation is being applied in tumors localized in the proximal part of the lower one third of rectum (5-6 cm from the anorectal line). For removing the whole lymph collector of the lower one third of the rectum the authors remove the levator tunnel as well. What remains intact is only the anal mucosa and the external anal sphincters.

[The results of using necessarily low anterior resections for carcinoma of the lower half of the middle third of the rectum].

Compulsively low anterior resection of rectum was performed in patients with tumor localized in the lower half of the middle one third of the rectum (7-10 cm from the anorectal line) and vague vascular arcades in the left half of the colon or having very fat meso. The following technique was applied: The left half of the colon was mobilized, releasing it from the gastrocolic junction, and the rectum--to the anal sphincters; One-stage anastomosis with step-like course of the catgut was performed, threading it previously to the posterior and lateral parts of the anastomosis and on the anterior wall--to the rectal stump only; when the anastomosis was performed, the catgut was passed through the upper pelvic diaphragmatic fascia as well. The method was applied on 19 patients; the first six of them had prophylactic transversostomy performed.

[The use of a transabdominal method in treating inguinofemoral hernia simultaneously with surgery of the rectum or sigmoid in carcinoma].

Detailed description is given of inguinofemoral herniotomy with subsequent plastic repair through transabdominal approach simultaneously with radical oncologic operation of sigmoid and rectum. The plastic repair is a two-stage procedure: The first stage consists of suturing the musculo-aponeurotic part of m. transversalis and m.