Publications by authors named "Rebecca J Brais"

Pancreatic cancer is known for its typically late presentation and poor survival rates, with overall 5-year survival of less than 5%. The role of chemotherapy alone or with radiotherapy in the management of locally advanced tumors continues to be an area of debate.We report a case of locally advanced, pancreatic adenosquamous carcinoma that was initially deemed unresectable intraoperatively.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Ischemia/reperfusion injury (IRI) that develops after liver implantation may prejudice long-term graft survival, but it remains poorly understood. Here we correlate the severity of IRIs that were determined by histological grading of time-zero biopsies sampled after graft revascularization with patient and graft outcomes. Time-zero biopsies of 476 liver transplants performed at our center between 2000 and 2010 were graded as follows: nil (10.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Pancreato-biliary malignancies often present with locally advanced or metastatic disease. Surgery is the mainstay of treatment although less than 20% of tumours are suitable for resection at presentation. Common sites for metastases are liver, lungs, lymph nodes and peritoneal cavity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Current practice to diagnose pancreatic cancer is accomplished by endoscopic ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) using a cytological approach. This method is time consuming and often fails to provide suitable specimens for modern molecular analyses. Here, we compare the cytological approach with direct formalin fixation of pancreatic EUS-FNA micro-cores and evaluate the potential to perform molecular biomarker analysis on these specimen.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF