Impact of travel distance on receipt of indicated adjuvant therapy in resected non-small cell lung cancer.

Objective: We have previously demonstrated the negative impact of travel distance on adherence to surveillance imaging guidelines for resected non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The influence of patient residential location on adherence to recommended postoperative treatment plans remains unclear. We sought to characterize the impact of travel distance on receipt of indicated adjuvant therapy in resected NSCLC.

Technical Aspects of Robotic First Rib Resection.

Robot-assisted thoracoscopic surgery for the treatment of thoracic outlet syndrome is a novel approach that continues to increase in popularity due to advantages compared with traditional open first rib resection. Following publication of the Society of Vascular Surgeons expert statement in 2016, the diagnosis and management of thoracic outlet syndrome is favorably evolving. Technical mastery of the operation requires precise knowledge of anatomy, comfort with robotic surgical platforms, and understanding of the disease.

Robotic First Rib Resection and Robotic Chest Wall Resection.

Robot-assisted thoracoscopic surgery for the treatment of thoracic outlet syndrome and chest wall lesions are burgeoning topics on thoracic surgery. Following publication of the Society of Vascular Surgeons expert statement in 2016, the diagnosis and management of thoracic outlet syndrome is favorably evolving. Robot-assisted first rib resection is a novel approach to the surgical management of thoracic outlet syndrome that may have advantages compared with traditional open surgical approaches.

Detection of Circulating Tumor DNA in Plasma: A Potential Biomarker for Esophageal Adenocarcinoma.

Background: Recent literature has demonstrated the potential of "liquid biopsy" and detection of circulating tumor (ct)DNA as a cancer biomarker. However, to date there is a lack of data specific to esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC). This study was conducted to determine how detection and quantification of ctDNA changes with disease burden in patients with EAC and evaluate its potential as a biomarker in this population.

Multidisciplinary Therapy of Esophageal Cancer.

Multimodality therapy is the standard of care for locoregional esophageal cancers (greater than clinical T3 or Nþ), including Siewert type 1 and 2 gastroesophageal junction tumors. Induction regimen, chemotherapy only or chemoradiation, is an area of controversy and often institution-specific, as neither has shown to be superior. Response to induction therapy is an important prognostic marker.

Plasma circulating tumor DNA as a potential tool for disease monitoring in head and neck cancer.

Background: Recommendations for perioperative therapy in head and neck cancer are not explicit and recurrence occurs frequently. Circulating tumor DNA is an emerging cancer biomarker, but has not been extensively explored for detection of recurrence in head and neck cancer.

Methods: Patients diagnosed with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma were recruited into the study protocol.

Post-resection complications: abscesses, empyemas, bronchopleural fistulas.

The role of thoracic surgeons in the management of pulmonary infection has evolved over time as the medical treatments have improved. We herein review historical and current management for surgically-treated pulmonary infections-lung abscesses, empyemas, and bronchopleural fistulas. In particular, we review when the surgeons need to be involved for infectious cases, our algorithm/approach to empyemas, and summary of post-operative bronchopleural fistula in tuberculosis cases.

Simple multiplexed PCR-based barcoding of DNA for ultrasensitive mutation detection by next-generation sequencing.

Detection of extremely rare variant alleles within a complex mixture of DNA molecules is becoming increasingly relevant in many areas of clinical and basic research, such as the detection of circulating tumor DNA in the plasma of cancer patients. Barcoding of DNA template molecules early in next-generation sequencing (NGS) library construction provides a way to identify and bioinformatically remove polymerase errors that otherwise make detection of these rare variants very difficult. Several barcoding strategies have been reported, but all require long and complex library preparation protocols.

Simple, multiplexed, PCR-based barcoding of DNA enables sensitive mutation detection in liquid biopsies using sequencing.

Detection of cell-free DNA in liquid biopsies offers great potential for use in non-invasive prenatal testing and as a cancer biomarker. Fetal and tumor DNA fractions however can be extremely low in these samples and ultra-sensitive methods are required for their detection. Here, we report an extremely simple and fast method for introduction of barcodes into DNA libraries made from 5 ng of DNA.

Use of weighted reference panels based on empirical estimates of ancestry for capturing untyped variation.

Many association methods use a subset of genotyped single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to capture or infer genotypes at other untyped SNPs. We and others previously showed that tag SNPs selected to capture common variation using data from The International HapMap Consortium (Nature 437:1299-1320, 2005), The International HapMap Consortium (Nature 449:851-861, 2007) could also capture variation in populations of similar ancestry to HapMap reference populations (de Bakker et al. in Nat Genet 38:1298-1303, 2006; González-Neira et al.

Association studies of common variants in 10 hypogonadotropic hypogonadism genes with age at menarche.

Context: Although the timing of puberty is a highly heritable trait, little is known about the genes that regulate pubertal timing in the general population. Several genes have been identified that, when mutated, cause disorders of delayed or absent puberty such as hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (HH).

Objective: Because severe variants in HH-related genes cause a severe puberty phenotype, we hypothesized that common subtle variation in these genes could contribute to the population variation in pubertal timing.