In a study involving 77 patients with giant hiatal hernias, those undergoing anterior gastropexy experienced significantly lower recurrence rates of hiatal hernias and esophagitis compared to those without the procedure. Despite longer operating times for the gastropexy group, both groups showed no differences in post-operative complications. Symptom relief, including reductions in heartburn and reflux, was […]
Category: Upper Gastrointestinal Tract
High hospital volume reduces postoperative mortality after esophagectomy
A study examining 6,234 esophagectomy cases across 161 hospitals in Australia and New Zealand found a significant correlation between hospital surgical volume and in-hospital mortality. Mortality rates were lowest at 0.73% in high-volume hospitals performing 21 or more surgeries annually. In contrast, low-volume hospitals reported mortality as high as 5.71%. High-volume centers also demonstrated shorter […]
AI Model Outperforms Clinicians in Tumor Differentiation
An artificial intelligence model employing endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) has demonstrated effective differentiation between small gastric stromal tumors (GSTs) and gastric leiomyomas (GLs). Utilizing a dataset of 358 EUS images, the ResNet50 architecture achieved impressive area under the curve (AUC) values of 0.994 and 0.911 for micro and small tumors respectively. In comparison, clinicians and clinical […]
Optimal lymph node yield determined for accurate gastric cancer staging
A cohort study of 6,463 gastric cancer patients established new benchmarks for lymph node harvesting in gastrectomy. Results showed that just five lymph nodes (LNs) sufficed for CT1 patients to maintain a low risk of false negatives, while CT2 patients required 17 nodes. For CT3 and CT4 patients, even 35 nodes did not significantly reduce […]
Robotic surgery improves outcomes for hiatal and paraesophageal hernia repair
A study of 1,834 patients revealed a significant increase in the adoption of robotic surgery for hiatal and paraesophageal hernia repairs. Robotic techniques led to superior symptom resolution compared to open surgery, especially in larger hernias. Although overall rates for recurrence and reoperation remained low, robotic surgery exhibited a higher recurrence rate for large hernias […]
Lifestyle choices influence long-term survival post-gastric cancer surgery
A population-based study of 71,014 gastric cancer patients revealed that lifestyle behaviors significantly impact long-term mortality after curative gastrectomy, despite not affecting late recurrence. Notably, current underweight status and continued smoking increased mortality risk, while regular physical activity and maintaining a higher BMI post-surgery correlated with reduced mortality. Among the cohort, 8.1% experienced late recurrence, […]
Prehabilitation reduces postoperative pneumonia in esophagogastric surgery
A multimodal prehabilitation regimen improved postoperative outcomes for patients undergoing esophagogastric cancer surgery. Of 94 participants analyzed, those who completed at least 2 weeks of structured prehabilitation showcased a significant reduction in postoperative pneumonia compared to the control group. This research underscores the importance of tailored prehabilitation strategies in enhancing recovery and addressing complications in […]
Desflurane anaesthesia linked to better respiratory outcomes post-oesophagectomy
A retrospective study analyzed 21,080 patients undergoing oesophagectomy, revealing that desflurane anaesthesia resulted in lower rates of respiratory complications and ventilatory failure compared to sevoflurane and propofol. Patients receiving sevoflurane and propofol had significantly higher incidences of respiratory issues, with odds ratios of 1.13 and 1.43, respectively. Additionally, in-hospital mortality rates were lowest in the […]
Tumor response to neoadjuvant therapy predicts adjuvant chemotherapy benefits
In an analysis of 1887 patients with gastro-oesophageal cancer, only those with a partial response to neoadjuvant FLOT chemotherapy showed significant improvements in disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) when treated with adjuvant FLOT. Patients categorized as minimal responders or complete responders did not benefit from additional chemotherapy. This study suggests that assessing pathological […]
Post-treatment ctDNA and PET/CT predict response in esophageal cancer.
A prospective study involving 123 esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients demonstrates that post-treatment circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and PET/CT metrics can effectively differentiate those with pathological complete response (pCR) from non-pCR patients. The model, integrating ctDNA concentration and mean standardized uptake value (SUVmean), achieved areas under curves of 0.860 and 0.798 in discovery and validation […]