Publications by authors named "Elena Munoz-Forner"

Introduction: A positive surgical margin (R1 resection) is a relevant risk factor for local recurrence in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreas (PDAC). An intraoperative liquid biopsy (ILB) based on tumor cell mobilization could help to detect R1 resection intraoperatively.

Objective: To evaluate the potential role of the intraoperative circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and cluster mobilization on the R0/R1 detection.

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  • The study investigates two surgical approaches (no-touch vs. superior mesenteric artery) in patients undergoing pancreatoduodenectomy for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, focusing on circulating tumor cells during surgery.
  • *Patients were randomly assigned to each group, and samples were taken to measure tumor cell activity at different surgical stages.
  • *Results showed no significant differences in tumor cell mobilization or metastasis-free survival between the two approaches, but patients with tumor cell clusters mobilized during surgery had a higher rate of distant metastases within the first year.
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  • Breast cancer is prevalent among women, with 20-30% of patients developing metastases, primarily affecting the liver. Patients with liver metastases have a wide range of survival rates, influenced by various factors.
  • This study aimed to assess the long-term survival and disease-free outcomes for patients who had surgery for liver metastases stemming from breast cancer.
  • Results indicated that surgery can enhance long-term survival, with specific patient characteristics (like health status, hormone receptor positivity, and prior treatments) linked to improved outcomes.
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Activated hepatic stellate cells (aHSCs), the main perpetrators of liver fibrosis, are a promising therapeutic target in the treatment of chronic liver disease. During liver injury, HSCs transcend from a quiescent to a fibrotic phenotype, a process which involves major metabolic reprogramming with altered mitochondrial function. The antiretroviral drug Rilpivirine (RPV) has demonstrated a hepatoprotective and specifically antifibrotic effect in several animal models of chronic liver injury, as well as in vitro.

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  • Understanding how pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) progresses and developing targeted therapies is crucial, and this study involved 80 metastatic PDAC patients divided into discovery and validation groups to examine genetic variants.
  • Whole exome sequencing (WES) of tumor and plasma samples highlighted that actionable mutations were more prevalent in plasma, and associations with cellular organization pathways were found in patients with shorter survival.
  • Notably, KRAS mutations in plasma were linked to worse progression free survival, while significant reductions in KRAS variant allele frequency correlated with improved outcomes similar to KRAS-negative patients, emphasizing the relevance of immune response pathways in liver metastasis.
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Background: The effect of radiologic splenic vessels involvement (RSVI) on the survival of patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAC) located in the body and tail of the pancreas is controversial, and its influence on postoperative morbidity after distal pancreatectomy (DP) is unknown. This study aimed to determine the influence of RSVI on postoperative complications, overall survival (OS), and disease-free survival (DFS) in patients undergoing DP for PAC.

Methods: A multicenter retrospective study of DP was conducted at 7 hepatopancreatobiliary units between January 2008 and December 2018.

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  • The study focuses on the recurrence of isolated pancreatic metastases from Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC) and evaluates the outcomes of repeat pancreatic resections after initial surgery.
  • It involved a retrospective analysis of 131 resections in 116 patients from January 2010 to May 2020, comparing those who had single versus iterative pancreatic surgeries.
  • Results indicated that while disease-free survival (DFS) rates were slightly better in the iterative group, overall survival (OS) rates were similar for both groups, suggesting that repeat surgery is a viable option for managing RCC-related pancreatic metastases.
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Background: Textbook outcome is an interesting quality metrics tool. Information on textbook outcomes in distal pancreatectomy is very scarce. In this study we determined textbook outcome in a distal pancreatectomy multicenter database and propose a specific definition of textbook outcome-distal pancreatectomy that includes pancreatic fistula.

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Background: Mucinous cysts of the pancreas (MCN) are infrequent, usually unilocular tumors which occur in postmenopausal women and are located in the pancreatic body/tail. The risk of malignancy is low. The objective is to define preoperative risk factors of malignancy in pancreatic MCN and to assess the feasibility of the laparoscopic approach.

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Background: Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC) occasionally spreads to the pancreas. The purpose of our study is to evaluate the short and long-term results of a multicenter series in order to determine the effect of surgical treatment on the prognosis of these patients.

Methods: Multicenter retrospective study of patients undergoing surgery for RCC pancreatic metastases, from January 2010 to May 2020.

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The possibility of modelling diagnostic images in three dimensions (3D) in pancreatic surgery is a novelty that provides us multiple advantages. A better visualization of the structures allows us a more accurate planning of the surgical technique and makes it easier the surgery in complex cases. We present the case study of a borderline pancreatic head adenocarcinoma patient to illustrate the advantages of 3D modelling in complex pancreatic surgery.

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The possibility of modelling diagnostic images in three dimensions (3D) in pancreatic surgery is a novelty that provides us multiple advantages. A better visualization of the structures allows us a more accurate planning of the surgical technique and makes it easier the surgery in complex cases. We present the case study of a borderline pancreatic head adenocarcinoma patient to illustrate the advantages of 3D modelling in complex pancreatic surgery.

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  • A 76-year-old male underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy due to acute cholecystitis, revealing chronic cholecystitis and a thickened cystic duct.
  • An anatomical pathology analysis found high-grade dysplasia at the cystic duct's distal edge, prompting an endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) that showed a suspicious lesion near the bile duct junction.
  • A follow-up surgery involved resecting the extrahepatic bile duct and lymph nodes, resulting in a definitive diagnosis of pancreaticobiliary intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasia with high-grade dysplasia and confirmed free margins.
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Background: Multivisceral resection (MVR) is sometimes necessary to achieve disease-free margins in cancer surgery. In certain patients with pancreatic tumors that invade neighboring organs these must be removed to perform an appropriate oncological surgery. In addition, there is an increasing need to perform resections of other organs like liver not directly invaded by the tumor but which require synchronous removal.

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Colorectal cancer is one of the most frequent cancers in the world and between 50% and 60% of patients will develop colorectal liver metastases (CRLM) during the disease. There have been great improvements in the management of CRLM during the last decades. The combination of modern chemotherapeutic and biological systemic treatments with aggressive surgical resection strategies is currently the base for the treatment of patients considered unresectable until few years ago.

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Background: Parastomal evisceration is a very uncommon complication of stomas with only few cases reported in the literature. This complication can be developed in the early postoperative period due to technical aspects of stoma creation, but late parastomal evisceration appearing after 6 months from surgery is an exceptional condition. Herein, we present a rare case of a patient with late parastomal evisceration.

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  • The study aimed to compare the effectiveness of percutaneous cholecystostomy (PC) versus emergency cholecystectomy (EC) in treating acute calculous cholecystitis (ACC) in elderly and high-risk patients.
  • Results indicated that PC led to higher 30-day and 90-day mortality rates, longer hospital stays, and more readmissions compared to EC, although it had a lower overall complication rate.
  • Further analysis of a higher-risk subgroup revealed similar trends, with both procedures showing increased risk of severe complications in patients with ACC lasting longer than three days.
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Objective: To compare the rates of R0 resection in pancreatoduodenectomy (PD) for pancreatic and periampullary malignant tumors by means of standard (ST-PD) versus artery-first approach (AFA-PD).

Background: Standardized histological examination of PD specimens has shown that most pancreatic resections thought to be R0 resections are R1. "Artery-first approach" is a surgical technique characterized by meticulous dissection of arterial planes and clearing of retropancreatic tissue in an attempt to achieve a higher rate of R0.

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Introduction: iatrogenic bile duct injury (IBDI) is a complication with a high morbidity after cholecystectomy. In recent years, endoscopy has acquired a fundamental role in the management of this pathology.

Methods: a retrospective study of IBDI after open cholecystectomy (OC) or laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) of patients treated in our center between 1993 and 2017 was performed.

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Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors represent less than 5% of all pancreatic tumors. They are a heterogeneous group of neoplasms with a diverse behavior and prognosis. Pancreatic vasoactive intestinal polypeptide tumor (VIPoma) is an exceptional tumor within this group due to its low incidence.

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"Artery-first approach" encompasses different aspects for the surgical treatment of pancreatic cancer. It is a surgical technique or set of techniques which share in common the dissection of the main arterial vasculature involved in pancreatic cancer, before any irreversible surgical step is performed. On the other hand it represents the need for a meticulous dissection of the arterial planes and clearing of the retropancreatic tissue between the superior mesenteric artery, the common hepatic artery and portal vein in an attempt to achieve R0 resections.

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Introduction: To establish quality standards in oncologic surgery is a complex but necessary challenge to improve surgical outcomes. Unlike other tumors, there are no well-defined quality standards in pancreatic cancer. The aim of this study is to identify quality indicators in pancreatic oncologic surgery in Spain as well as their acceptable limits of variability.

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