Staging chest computed tomography and positron emission tomography in patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma: utility or futility?

OBJECTIVES: This study was conducted to determine if routine staging chest computed tomography (CT) or positron emission tomography (PET) scanning alters the clinical management of patients with newly diagnosed pancreatic adenocarcinoma. METHODS: All new pancreas cancers seen in medical oncology, radiation oncology and surgery from 1 June 2008 to 20 June 2010 were retrospectively reviewed. Patients with metastatic disease on chest CT or PET, that had been unsuspected on initial imaging, were identified. RESULTS: Pancreatic adenocarcinoma was present in 247 consecutive patients. Abdominal CT demonstrated metastases in 108 (44%) and localized disease in 139 (56%) patients. Chest CT and PET were not performed in 15 (11%) of these 139 patients. In the remaining 124 patients, CT imaging suggested resectable disease in 46, borderline resectable disease in 52 and locally advanced disease in 26 patients. Chest CT demonstrated an unsuspected lymphoma in one patient with borderline resectable disease and PET identified extrapancreatic disease in two patients with locally advanced disease. Chest CT and PET added no information in 121 (98%) of the 124 patients. CONCLUSIONS: The addition of chest CT and PET to high-quality abdominal CT is of little clinical utility; additional sites of metastasis are rarely found. As the quality of abdominal imaging declines, the yield from other imaging modalities will increase. Dedicated pancreas-specific abdominal CT remains the cornerstone of initial staging in suspected or biopsy-proven pancreatic cancer.

Venous thromboembolism prophylaxis in surgical patients: identifying a patient group to maximize performance improvement.

BACKGROUND: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) in surgical patients is a cause of increased morbidity, mortality, and cost of care. Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) prophylaxis reduces the risk of DVT or pulmonary embolism (PE), but not to zero, which is concerning because DVT/PE is being considered a serious reportable event. A study was conducted in January-June 2009 to test the hypothesis that most surgical VTEs occur despite the patient's receiving appropriate prophylaxis. METHODS: All patients with a surgical diagnosis-related group (DRG) who had a documented DVT/PE in 2008 were retrospectively reviewed. Each VTE episode was characterized as occurring during the index admission for surgery or being present on admission (POA). DVT prophylaxis compliance was measured in all patients who had a procedure at the institution, a 454-bed university teaching hospital, and those patients were classified in terms of compliance with our VTE protocols. Class 1 patients had VTE protocols followed; Class 2 patients had contraindications to VTE protocols documented; Class 3 patients should have received VTE prophylaxis but did not; and Class 4 patients had contraindications to VTE prophylaxis that were not documented. RESULTS: Some 156 (6.3%) of 2,474 surgical patients had a DVT/PE in 2008; for the 144 patients with complete records for review, 89 were candidates for VTE prophylaxis. Some 77 of the 89 patients had received appropriate VTE prophylaxis or had documented contraindications to prophylaxis. Eleven (12.4%) patients who should have received VTE prophylaxis did not. CONCLUSIONS: Compliance with VTE protocols continues to be less than 100%, and even when patients adhere to existing protocols VTE events continue to occur.

Hereditary pancreatitis.

Hereditary chronic pancreatitis (HCP) is a rare disease in which chronic pancreatitis develops in childhood. HCP has autosomal dominant inheritance with approximately 80% penetrance. Diagnostic criteria are not universally agreed upon but the EUROPAC trial defined it as two first-degree relatives or at least 3 second-degree relatives in two or more generations, with chronic pancreatitis for which there is no other etiology. The gene for HCP was originally identified on chromosome 7 and subsequently many other genes have been reported to be associated with HCP. To date, no single genetic alteration has been found that is necessary for the development of HCP. In a recent study, 81% of patients with HCP were found to have a mutation of the PRSS1 gene. Patients with HCP are at risk for developing exocrine and endocrine insufficiency and there is a 50-fold increased risk of pancreatic cancer in HCP patients as compared with the general population.

Management of borderline resectable pancreatic cancer.

Borderline resectable pancreatic cancer is an emerging stage of disease defined by computed tomogrpahy criteria, patient (Katz type B), or disease characteristics (Katz type C). These patients are particularly well suited to a surgery-last strategy with induction therapy consisting of chemotherapy (gemcitabine alone or in combination) followed by chemoradiation. With appropriate selection and preoperative planning, many patients with borderline resectable disease derive clinical benefit from multimodality therapy. The use of a standardized system for the staging of localized pancreatic cancer avoids indecision and allows for the optimal treatment of all patients guided by the extent of their disease. In this article, 2 case reports are presented, and the term borderline resectable pancreatic cancer is discussed. The advantages of neoadjuvant therapy and surgery are also discussed.

Portal vein resection.

The American Hepato-Pancreatico-Biliary Association and Society of Surgical Oncology published a consensus statement in 2009 on the subject of vein resection and reconstruction during pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD), and concluded that PD with vein resection and reconstruction is a viable option for treatment of some pancreatic adenocarcinomas. This article describes the current approaches and recent advances in the management, staging, and surgical techniques regarding portal vein resection. With proper patient selection, a detailed understanding of the anatomy of the root of mesentery, and adequate surgeon experience, vascular resection and reconstruction can be performed safely and does not impact survival duration. Isolated venous involvement is not a contraindication to PD when performed by experienced surgeons at high-volume centers as part of a multidisciplinary and multimodal approach to localized pancreatic cancer.

The negative sestamibi scan: is a minimally invasive parathyroidectomy still possible?

BACKGROUND: Tc-99-sestamibi scanning is utilized to determine whether patients with primary hyperparathyroidism (HPT) are candidates for minimally invasive parathyroidectomy (MIP). However, if the result of this scan is negative, many surgeons recommend bilateral parathyroid exploration because of possible multi-gland disease. The objectives of this study were to determine whether patients with primary HPT and negative sestamibi scans can benefit from additional imaging studies and are still potential candidates for MIP. METHODS: Between March 2001 and April 2006, 578 consecutive patients with HPT underwent parathyroidectomy by a single surgeon. Pre-operative sestamibi scans had been done in 458 (79%) of these patients, 90 (20%) of which had negative results. These patients formed our study cohort. RESULTS: Of the 90 patients, 60 (67%) had a single adenoma, 17 (19%) double adenomas and 13 (14%) 3- to 4-gland hyperplasias. In 74 (82%) patients, localization was further investigated with one or more studies including thallium subtraction scans (n = 30), ultrasound (n = 15) and intra-operative internal jugular venous sampling (n = 49). Additionally, the use of radio-guided techniques intra-operatively facilitated minimally invasive techniques. Of these 90 patients, 47 had positive results from preoperative studies, including 12 positive thallium, 5 positive ultrasound and 13 positive internal jugular sampling results. In addition, positive results were observed for 17 patients using radio-probe techniques in the operating room. Accordingly, minimally invasive techniques were attempted in these 47 patients; 42 (89%) had single adenomas and in 5 the technique was converted to bilateral exploration for double adenoma/hyperplasia. In the setting of a negative sestamibi, the sensitivities of thallium scans and ultrasound were 30% and 27%, respectively. The overall cure rate in the 90 patients with negative sestamibi scans was 99%. CONCLUSION: In patients with primary HPT and a negative sestamibi scan, most patients (67%) will have a single adenoma. These patients benefitted from additional localization tests, which yielded a positive result in 52% of patients. Therefore, even in the setting of a negative sestamibi scan, the majority of patients with primary HPT are still candidates for MIP.

Radioguided parathyroidectomy in patients with familial hyperparathyroidism.

BACKGROUND: In patients with sporadic hyperparathyroidism (HPT), radioguided parathyroidectomy (RGP) has been shown to facilitate intraoperative localization of parathyroid glands, reduced operative time, and improve patient outcomes. No studies have focused on the role of RGP in patients with familial HPT. METHODS: Between 3/01 and 6/05, 419 patients underwent RGP. Nineteen had familial HPT, including 12 with Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia (MEN), and 94 had sporadic HPT with parathyroid hyperplasia. All patients were injected with sestamibi pre-operatively and a gamma probe was used intraoperatively. Radiotracer counts were recorded prospectively. RESULTS: In patients with familial HPT, the gamma probe detected all abnormal parathyroid glands with a mean in vivo radiotracer count of 157 +/- 9% above background. Importantly, 5 patients (25%) had ectopic parathyroid glands localized by the probe in the thymus, thyroid and retroesophageal region. All resected hyperplastic parathyroid glands had ex vivo counts > 20%. All patients were cured after surgery with mean calcium and parathyroid hormone levels of 9.4 +/- 0.1 mg/dl and 31 +/- 7 pg/ml, respectively, and a mean hospital stay of 0.7 +/- 0.1 days. In comparing the 2 groups, while patients with familial HPT had lower pre-operative parathyroid hormone levels, the ex vivo radiotracer counts were significantly higher. CONCLUSION: RGP in patients with familial HPT is technically feasible and perhaps more sensitive than in patients with sporadic hyperplastic disease. The gamma probe efficiently localized all parathyroid glands including those in ectopic locations, and resulted in high cure rates and short hospital stays. RGP is a viable and useful technique in patients with familial HPT.

Treatment of advanced carcinoid tumors.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Carcinoid tumors often present with metastatic disease. Generally, these tumors can be treated conservatively. New evidence exists, however, that stage IV disease may be better managed with more aggressive medical and surgical treatment. Headway is also being made into understanding the associated fibrosis seen with advanced disease and in better understanding signaling pathways with the hope of offering future treatment options. RECENT FINDINGS: Recent literature has advocated for more aggressive surgical treatment of carcinoid tumors, especially in the setting of hepatic metastases and peritoneal carcinomatosis. Octreotide and lanreotide are further being described for treating metastatic carcinoids. Radiolabeled somatostatin analogues may prove to be as effective for treating carcinoids as for visualizing them. Other potential treatment modalities include pharmacologic activation of signaling pathways to control excess hormone production. Research into fibrosis - a cause of pain, bowel obstruction, retroperitoneal vascular constriction and right heart failure - has shown that serotonin and tachykinins may be the key mediators. SUMMARY: Patients with stage IV carcinoid tumors may benefit from more aggressive surgical management and new treatment modalities. The growing body of knowledge regarding important molecular signaling pathway may lead to new medical therapies and further understanding of the sequelae of excess hormone production.