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PTHrP could be a potential new therapeutic target for the reprograming of adipogenesis and adipose tissue expansion, thus possibly ameliorating the metabolic syndrome in obese subjects.

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Introduction: we assessed the results of laparoscopic cholecystectomy in 176 patients over the age of 70 years. Patients and methods: the study included all patients older than 70 years of age who underwent laparoscopic surgery cholelithiasis during the previous ten years. Variables studied included age, sex, type of operation (programmed/emergency), comorbidity, anesthetic risk, intraoperative cholangiography, conversion to open surgery, number of trocars, reoperation, residual choledocholithiasis, postoperative hospital stay, morbidity and mortality. Results: the study included 176 patients (23.29% men and 76.71% women). The mean age was 74.86 years. The mean hospital stay was 1.27 days, with 16.98% morbidity and 0.56% mortality. Conclusions: laparoscopic cholecystectomy is a safe procedure in older patients. It results in faster recovery, a shorter postoperative stay and lower rates of morbidity and mortality than open bile duct surgery.

Background: Many R0 pancreatic cancer (PDAC) resections are revealed to be R1 resection upon exact histological examination. Thus, the true prognostic importance of R0 vs. R1 resection for survival in PDAC is yet to be uncovered. Methods: Medical databases were screened for prognostic publications that reported adjusted hazard ratios (HR). Furthermore, our prospective institutional database was retrospectively screened for curative PDAC resections according to inclusion criteria (n=254 patients) between 07/ 2007 and 10/2014. Results: In the meta-analysis, R0 was associated with an improved overall survival [HR 1.45 (95%-CI 1.37-1.52)] and disease free survival ] in PDAC when compared to R1. Importantly, this effect was present only for pancreatic head resections, both in the meta-analysis [CRM1mm: HR 1.21 (1.05-1.39) vs. CRM1mm: HR 1.66 (1.46-1.89] and in our cohort (R01mm: 28.8 vs. 14.5 months, p<0.0001; R01mm, 41.2 vs. 16.8 months; p<0.0001). Moreover R1-resections were associated with advanced tumor disease, as indicated by larger tumor size, lymph node metastases, and extended resections. Multiple Cox proportional hazard model revealed G3, pN1, tumor size and R1 (0mm/1mm) as independent predictors of overall survival. Conclusion: R-Status is not a valid prognostic marker in publications before 2010 due to inhomogeneity of cohorts and of histopathological examination. Upon standardized pathological examination, R-status' prognostic validity is confined only to pancreatic head resections.