The role of HIPEC in the treatment of peritoneal carcinomatosis from gastric cancer: between lights and shadows.

Gastric cancer is one of the most dreadful neoplastic diseases and remains the second cause of cancer death worldwide. Patients who develop peritoneal metastasis have a poor prognosis, with a median survival of less than 6 months. Despite being the cause of 60% of deaths from gastric cancer, peritoneal metastasis can still be considered a local disease and a local multidisciplinary approach can improve the prognosis even in this end-stage disease. At present, hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) is the most widely accepted treatment for peritoneal surface diseases and can be performed in patients with different stages of cancer and with various antitumoral drugs. We performed a systematic review of the current status of HIPEC in the treatment of gastric peritoneal metastasis in an attempt to obtain answers to the questions that still remain: do results differ with these different methods? Does HIPEC exert a significant effect on the intracavitary delivery of drugs? Which patients should be treated and which should not? What can we expect from this approach in terms of survival, morbidity, and mortality? On reviewing the literature, despite the lack of trials comparing the different methods, we found that HIPEC has been shown to be an effective tool whenever a complete or an almost complete resection of the peritoneal implants can be performed. Therefore, it is advisable to refer all at-risk patients to specialized centers to be enrolled in randomized trials to achieve truly reliable results.

The role of nutrition in the development of esophageal cancer: what do we know?

Cancer of the esophagus is the eighth most common cancer by incidence worldwide and ranks sixth as the most common cause of cancer death. It is unique among the gastrointestinal tract malignancies because it embodies two distinct histopatologic types, squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma. Which type of cancer occurs in a given patient or predominates in a given geographic area depends on many variables, including individual lifestyle, socioeconomic pressures, environmental factors and diet and nutrition. Generally for both squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma of the esophagus case-control studies provide evidence of a protective effect of fruits and vegetables. Here we review the role of nutrition in the etiology of esophageal cancer.

A case of relapsing secondary bladder adenocarcinoma after right colonic cancer.

BACKGROUND: A 71-year-old woman was referred to a surgical oncology clinic after CT raised suspicion for a bladder neoplasm. She had previously undergone right hemicolectomy and received adjuvant chemotherapy for pT3N1MX cancer of the cecum. A retroperitoneal recurrence had been deemed unsuitable for surgical resection, and had instead been treated with chemoradiation therapy. Follow-up CT raised suspicion for a possible bladder neoplasm. INVESTIGATIONS: CT, physical examination, urinalysis, cystoscopy with biopsy, pathological analysis and immunohistochemical analysis. DIAGNOSIS: Adenocarcinoma of the cecum metastatic to the bladder. MANAGEMENT: The patient underwent open bladder resection with total excision of the neoplasm and was administered adjuvant chemotherapy consisting of irinotecan and cetuximab. Subsequent recurrences at the same site were treated with transurethral resection, while chemotherapy was still in progress. At 7 months' follow-up, the patient remained alive, with no evidence of further recurrence.