Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the second most common cause of cancer mortality worldwide. Liver resection is considered the pillar of curative treatment, although it is usually reserved for early-stage localized disease since the presence of metastases carries a poor prognosis. Despite advances in imaging, surgical techniques, and systemic therapy, the recurrence rate after oncologic resection remains high, even with localized disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) are mesenchymal tumors accounting for only a small fraction of all primary malignant tumors of the gastrointestinal tract. Histologically, GISTs are classified as epithelioid, spindle type, or mixed. We present a case of a 66-year-old male incidentally noted to have a pedunculated gastric mass along the lesser curvature of the stomach during a laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication and hiatal hernia repair.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVasc Endovascular Surg
November 2023
A 56-year-old female presented with a symptomatic giant fusiform mid-splenic artery aneurysm (7.3 x 6.4 cm).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGallbladder adenocarcinoma is a rare gastrointestinal malignancy and is associated with a poor prognosis. These malignancies are most often discovered incidentally in [Formula: see text]1% of all cholecystectomy procedures. We report an 80-year-old male patient with iron deficiency anemia, who underwent an unremarkable endoscopy and colonoscopy, and was subsequently found to have hemobilia discovered on capsule endoscopy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced a new voluntary episode payment model for major bowel surgery. The purpose of this study was to examine the financial impact of bundled payments for major bowel surgery.
Methods: An institutional database was retrospectively queried for all patients who underwent major bowel surgery between July 2016 and June 2018.
Objective: The colonic microbiota ferment dietary fibres, producing short chain fatty acids. Recent evidence suggests that the short chain fatty acid propionate may play an important role in appetite regulation. We hypothesised that colonic delivery of propionate would increase peptide YY (PYY) and glucagon like peptide-1 (GLP-1) secretion in humans, and reduce energy intake and weight gain in overweight adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVaccine-based immunotherapy can increase the overall survival of patients with advanced prostate cancer. However, the efficacy of vaccine-elicited anticancer immune responses is heavily influenced by the physical, nutritional, and psychological status of the patient. Given their importance, these parameters should be carefully considered for the design of future clinical trials testing this immunotherapeutic paradigm in prostate cancer patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObesity has become a major global health problem. Recently, attention has focused on the benefits of fermentable carbohydrates on modulating metabolism. Here, we take a system approach to investigate the physiological effects of supplementation with oligofructose-enriched inulin (In).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere is an increased interest in investigating the relationship between the gut microbiota and energy homeostasis. Probiotics are health beneficial microbes mainly categorised under the genus Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, which when administered in adequate amounts confer health benefits to the host, and have been implicated in various physiological functions. The potential role of probiotics in energy homeostasis is a current and an emerging area of research.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnn Surg Oncol
November 2007
Cancer Prevention is an emerging field, capturing the old traditional concept of anticipating the development of a major disease and preventing its full impact by early detection, treatment, or aborting the tumorigenic process by a "molecular vaccine" and alleviating the full impact of the disease. Surgeons are important clinician scientists who can carry this discipline forward and develop its full potential in the clinics and in the community. Advances in molecular biology, genetics, and other technologies have permitted seminal understanding of the carcinogenic pathways and identification of targets and intermediate end points in neoplasia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCancer Immunol Immunother
August 2007
Background: The cellular regulatory protein p53 is overexpressed by almost 50% of all malignancies making it an attractive target for a vaccine approach to cancer. A number of immunotherapy approaches targeting p53 have been evaluated successfully in murine models, but translation of these preclinical findings to the clinic has been unsuccessful. Prior studies in our laboratory employing murine models demonstrated that a modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) vaccine expressing murine p53 could stimulate p53 specific immunity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMorphological, biochemical, and molecular genetic studies were performed on an unknown anaerobic, catalase-negative, non-spore-forming, rod-shaped bacterium isolated from dog feces. The unknown bacterium was tentatively identified as a Eubacterium species, based on cellular morphological and biochemical tests. 16S rRNA gene sequencing studies, however, revealed that it was phylogenetically distant from Eubacterium limosum, the type species of the genus Eubacterium.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMetaplastic carcinoma of the breast, a neoplasm with both epithelial and mesenchymal elements, represents less than 1 per cent of all breast cancer. We reviewed the records of all patients diagnosed with localized metaplastic breast cancer from 1991 to 2003 at our institution. We identified 21 patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Therapy for breast cancer is accompanied by acute and chronic toxicity. Little research has been conducted to determine the impact of the mode of breast cancer detection on the likelihood of receiving different types of treatment. The objective of this study was to determine whether detection of breast cancer on screening mammography is associated with less-toxic therapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMultiple clinically applicable methods have been used to induce dendritic cells (DCs) to express whole cell tumor antigens, including pulsing DCs with tumor lysate, and mixing DCs with apoptotic or live tumor cells. Herein we demonstrate, using two different tumor systems, that these methods are equipotent inducers of systemic antitumor immunity. Furthermore, tumor lysate pulsed DC vaccines generate more potent antitumor immunity than immunization with irradiated tumor cells plus the classic adjuvant, Corynebacterium parvum.
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