Perforation of appendiceal adenocarcinoma ex goblet cell carcinoid: a rare case.

Goblet cell carcinoid tumor is a rare form of carcinoid tumor of the appendix. It behaves more aggressively than classical carcinoid tumor of the appendix. Thus, special attention must be given to its disease course and treatment. Our case presentation is of a 68-year-old female who presented with abdominal pain. Computed tomography of her abdomen and pelvis showed a perforated appendicitis. She underwent an ileocectomy with pathological report showing a goblet cell carcinoid tumor of the appendix with negative lymph nodes. A subsequent colonoscopy done 5 months later showed no synchronous lesions and a healthy anastomosis. Given the limited amount of data available about goblet cell carcinoid tumors of the appendix, it is important to report all findings in an effort to improve our understanding and treatment approaches of this rare disease.

Portomesentric and splenic vein thrombosis (PMSVT) after bariatric surgery: a systematic review of 110 patients.

BACKGROUND: Portomesenteric and splenic vein thrombosis (PMSVT) is a rare but potentially serious complication after bariatric surgery. No study has systematically analyzed its incidence and risk factors. OBJECTIVES: To pool the data regarding PMSVT after bariatric surgery and determine its incidence and risk factors. METHODS: A meta-analysis and systematic review was conducted to retrieve studies on PMSVT after bariatric surgery. RESULTS: A total of 41 eligible studies including 110 patients with postbariatric PMSVT were enrolled; the estimated incidence rate based on 13 studies was .4%. The use of oral contraception was reported in 35.4% of patients, previous surgery in 61.1%, smoking in 37.2%, and history of coagulopathy in 43%. PMSVT mostly occurred after sleeve gastrectomy (78.9%) and within the first postoperative month (88.9%). Pneumoperitoneum pressure was>15 mm Hg in 6% of patients. The portal vein was the most commonly affected vessel (41.5%). Prothrombin 20210 mutation and protein C/S deficiency were the most common thrombophilic conditions. Unfractionated heparin (59.1%), vitamin K antagonists (50.9%), and low molecular weight heparin (39.1%) were the most common treatments for PMSVT. The morbidity and mortality rates for postbariatric PMSVT were 8.2% and 3.6%, respectively. CONCLUSION: PMSVT usually occurs within the first postoperative month and is mostly reported after sleeve gastrectomy. The portal vein is the most commonly involved vessel. A previous hypercoagulable state can be an important risk factor. Most patients can be treated with anticoagulation therapy. Further studies with comprehensive data review of patient information are required.

Enhanced resting-state dynamics of the hemoglobin signal as a novel biomarker for detection of breast cancer.

PURPOSE: The work presented here demonstrates an application of diffuse optical tomography (DOT) to the problem of breast-cancer diagnosis. The potential for using spatial and temporal variability measures of the hemoglobin signal to identify useful biomarkers was studied. METHODS: DOT imaging data were collected using two instrumentation platforms the authors developed, which were suitable for exploring tissue dynamics while performing a simultaneous bilateral exam. For each component of the hemoglobin signal (e.g., total, oxygenated), the image time series was reduced to eight scalar metrics that were affected by one or more dynamic properties of the breast microvasculature (e.g., average amplitude, amplitude heterogeneity, strength of spatial coordination). Receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) analyses, comparing groups of subjects with breast cancer to various control groups (i.e., all noncancer subjects, only those with diagnosed benign breast pathology, and only those with no known breast pathology), were performed to evaluate the effect of cancer on the magnitudes of the metrics and of their interbreast differences and ratios. RESULTS: For women with known breast cancer, simultaneous bilateral DOT breast measures reveal a marked increase in the resting-state amplitude of the vasomotor response in the hemoglobin signal for the affected breast, compared to the contralateral, noncancer breast. Reconstructed 3D spatial maps of observed dynamics also show that this behavior extends well beyond the tumor border. In an effort to identify biomarkers that have the potential to support clinical aims, a group of scalar quantities extracted from the time series measures was systematically examined. This analysis showed that many of the quantities obtained by computing paired responses from the bilateral scans (e.g., interbreast differences, ratios) reveal statistically significant differences between the cancer-positive and -negative subject groups, while the corresponding measures derived from individual breast scans do not. ROC analyses yield area-under-curve values in the 77%-87% range, depending on the metric, with sensitivity and specificity values ranging from 66% to 91%. An interesting result is the initially unexpected finding that the hemodynamic-image metrics are only weakly dependent on the tumor burden, implying that the DOT technique employed is sensitive to tumor-induced changes in the vascular dynamics of the surrounding breast tissue as well. Computational modeling studies serve to identify which properties of the vasomotor response (e.g., average amplitude, amplitude heterogeneity, and phase heterogeneity) principally determine the values of the metrics and their codependences. Findings from the modeling studies also serve to clarify the influence of spatial-response heterogeneity and of system-design limitations, and they reveal the impact that a complex dependence of metric values on the modeled behaviors has on the success in distinguishing between cancer-positive and -negative subjects. CONCLUSIONS: The authors identified promising hemoglobin-based biomarkers for breast cancer from measures of the resting-state dynamics of the vascular bed. A notable feature of these biomarkers is that their spatial extent encompasses a large fraction of the breast volume, which is mainly independent of tumor size. Tumor-induced induction of nitric oxide synthesis, a well-established concomitant of many breast cancers, is offered as a plausible biological causal factor for the reported findings.

Duodenal web associated with malrotation and review of literature.

Intestinal obstruction due to midgut malrotation in neonates is well known. The incidence of malrotation in newborns is around 1:500 and the symptomatic incidence is 1:6000 births. Duodenal web as a cause of intestinal obstruction is less common and is reported to be 1:10 000-1:40 000. Malrotation is known to be associated with other congenital obstructive anomalies including duodenal atresia, stenosis and duodenal web. But, intestinal obstruction due to malrotation associated with duodenal web has been reported only rarely with a few published cases in our literature review. We present a case of intestinal obstruction diagnosed in the prenatal period via sonogram. A plain X-ray of the abdomen after birth showed a distended duodenum with paucity of air distally suggesting duodenal obstruction. An exploratory laparotomy showed a duodenal web proximal to the sphincter of oddi. The patient also had an associated malrotation and underwent Ladd's procedure and appendectomy. The post-operative period was uneventful.