Mesorectal fat area may serve as a useful predictor of the difficulty of total mesorectal excision for rectal cancer.

No abstract

The short- and long-term outcomes indicated that RALLD may be a useful modality for locally advanced low rectal cancer.

Background Skeletal muscle loss is associated with physical disability, nosocomial infections, postoperative complications, and decreased survival. Preventing the loss of skeletal muscle mass after gastrectomy may lead to improved outcomes. The aims of this study were to assess changes in skeletal muscle mass after total gastrectomy (TG) and to clarify the clinical factors affecting significant loss of skeletal muscle after TG. Patients and methods One hundred and two patients undergoing TG for primary gastric cancer underwent abdominal computed tomography before and 1 year after TG to precisely quantify postoperative changes in skeletal muscle and adipose tissue. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses identified clinical factors contributing to significant loss of skeletal muscle after TG.Results At 1 year after TG, the mass of both skeletal muscle and adipose tissue was reduced by 6.20 ± 6.80 and 65.8 ± 36.1 % of the preoperative values, respectively, and 26 patients (25.5 %) showed a significant loss of skeletal muscle of more than 10 %. Adjuvant chemotherapy with S-1 for C6 months (hazard ratio 26.61, 95 % confidence interval, 3.487-203.1) was identified as the single independent risk factor for a significant loss of skeletal muscle. Conclusions Skeletal muscle loss was exacerbated by extended adjuvant chemotherapy after TG. Further research should identify appropriate nutritional interventions for maintaining skeletal muscle mass and leading to improved outcomes.

The cutoff size for determining lateral lymph node metastasis was smaller in the CRT group than in the non-CRT group.

Our results suggest that RALS is technically feasible for rectal cancer and has good short- and long-term outcomes.

Adenocarcinoma arising from jejunal ectopic pancreas is very rare. We report a case of a 69-year-old female with adenocarcinoma arising from jejunal ectopic pancreas after resection of advanced colon cancer. She underwent right hemicolectomy for advanced ascending colon cancer (ypT3N0M0, stage IIA) after chemotherapy. Two and half years after colectomy, her tumor markers were elevated, and computed tomography revealed a mass measuring 20 × 20 mm in the small intestine, having an abnormal uptake of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose on 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography (18FDG-PET). Double-balloon enteroscopy revealed a submucosal tumor in the jejunum, and histopathology of biopsy specimens from that lesion showed ectopic pancreas without malignancy. Therefore, peritoneal metastasis from colon cancer concomitant with ectopic pancreas or adenocarcinoma arising from ectopic pancreas was considered as a differential diagnosis. She underwent laparoscopic jejunectomy. Pathological examination revealed a moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma arising from jejunal ectopic pancreas, not peritoneal metastasis from colon cancer. Even if histopathology of the biopsy specimen shows ectopic pancreas without malignancy, adenocarcinoma arising from ectopic pancreas should be considered when the tumor markers are elevated or the lesion has an abnormal uptake of 18FDG.

It is necessary to resect 10 cm of normal bowel both proximal and distal to the tumor and to perform D3 lymph node dissection for ≥ T2 colon cancer.