A Systematic Review of Minimally Invasive Trans-thoracic Liver Resection to Examine Intervention Description, Governance, and Outcome Reporting of an Innovative Technique.

Introduction: The number of laparoscopic liver resections undertaken has increased. However, lesions located postero-superiorly are difficult to access. This may be overcome by the novel use of trans-thoracic port(s).

A 4-gene signature predicts survival of patients with resected adenocarcinoma of the esophagus, junction, and gastric cardia.

Background & Aims: The incidence of esophageal and junctional adenocarcinoma has increased 6-fold in the past 30 years and 5-year survival remains approximately 20%. Current staging is limited in its ability to predict survival which has ramifications for treatment choices. The aim of this study was to generate and validate a molecular prognostic signature for esophageal adenocarcinoma.

Selective loss of TGFbeta Smad-dependent signalling prevents cell cycle arrest and promotes invasion in oesophageal adenocarcinoma cell lines.

In cancer, Transforming Growth Factor beta (TGFbeta) increases proliferation and promotes invasion via selective loss of signalling pathways. Oesophageal adenocarcinoma arises from Barrett's oesophagus, progresses rapidly and is usually fatal. The contribution of perturbed TGFbeta signalling in the promotion of metastasis in this disease has not been elucidated.

Massive urinary ascites after removal of a supra-pubic catheter: case report and review of the literature.

Urinary ascites is a rare diagnosis usually associated with intra-peritoneal bladder perforation. We present a case of massive urinary ascites in a patient who presented 1 week after a total abdominal hysterectomy and sacrocolpopexy. We discuss how the diagnosis was made, the mechanism of biochemical changes associated with urinary ascites and the management.

In vivo and in vitro evidence for transforming growth factor-beta1-mediated epithelial to mesenchymal transition in esophageal adenocarcinoma.

There is increasing evidence that epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) is involved in cancer progression. Because local invasion and metastasis occurs early in the pathogenesis of esophageal adenocarcinoma, we hypothesized that EMT may be important in this disease. Using immunohistochemistry in a well-characterized set of adenocarcinoma tissues, we showed down-regulation of epithelial markers (E-cadherin and cytokeratin 18) and up-regulation of mesenchymal markers (vimentin and alpha-smooth muscle actin) with concomitant transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1) expression at the invasive margin compared with the central tumor.