Atypical carcinoid tumours of the lung: prognostic factors and patterns of recurrence.

BACKGROUND: Atypical carcinoids (AC) of the lung are rare intermediate-grade neuroendocrine neoplasms. Prognostic factors for these tumours are undefined. METHODS: Our cooperative group retrieved data on 127 patients operated between 1980 and 2009 because of an AC. Several clinical and pathological features were studied. RESULTS: In a univariable analysis, T-status (p=0.005), N-status (p=0.021), preoperative M-status (previously treated) (p=0.04), and distant recurrence developed during the outcome (p<0.001) presented statistically significant differences related to survival of these patients. In a multivariable analysis, only distant recurrence was demonstrated to be an independent risk factor for survival (p<0.001; HR: 13.1). During the monitoring, 25.2% of the patients presented some kind of recurrence. When we studied recurrence factors in a univariable manner, sublobar resections presented significant relationship with locoregional recurrence (p<0.001). In the case of distant recurrence, T and N status presented significant differences. Patients with preoperative M1 status presented higher frequencies of locoregional and distant recurrence (p=0.004 and p<0.001, respectively). In a multivariable analysis, sublobar resection was an independent prognostic factor to predict locoregional recurrence (p=0.002; HR: 18.1). CONCLUSIONS: Complete standard surgical resection with radical lymphadenectomy is essential for AC. Sublobar resections are related to locoregional recurrence, so they should be avoided except for carefully selected patients. Nodal status is an important prognostic factor to predict survival and recurrence. Distant recurrence is related to poor outcome.

[A lung transplant in a woman with bronchiolitis obliterans following an allogenic bone marrow transplant]. / Trasplante pulmonar por bronquiolitis obliterante tras trasplante alogénico de médula ósea.

Graft-versus-host disease is a major complication for bone marrow transplant recipients and is often a cause of late mortality. It can affect any tissue, and involvement of the lungs--target organs of particular importance--can lead to chronic respiratory failure due to bronchiolitis obliterans. We report the case of a lung transplant in a woman who developed bronchiolitis obliterans after receiving a marrow transplant to treat bone marrow aplasia. Three years later, clinical course was satisfactory, with full functional recovery.

Percutaneous interventions on severe coarctation of the aorta: a 21-year experience.

Different percutaneous interventions can be used to treat coarctation of the aorta. However, a great amount of information is still needed regarding the long-term course. This article reviews our experience spanning 21 years in the percutaneous treatment of aortic coarctation. Four different conditions for treatment were considered. The first condition 1 (group 1) was balloon angioplasty in neonates and infants with untractable heart failure (n = 54; mean age, 1.2 +/- 1.4 months). After balloon angioplasty, most infants sustained significant clinical improvement. However, 9 patients died in the hospital (17%). As a result, we monitored the course of the 45 survivors during a mean period of 10 +/- 6 years (range, 1-19). During this follow-up period, 17 patients needed a single additional intervention on coarctation (8 underwent surgery and 9 were treated percutaneously). After this second treatment, 11 patients needed one or more further interventions. The actuarial survival probability was 83% at 19 years, with 43% of patients remaining surgery free and 23% reintervention free. The second condition (group 2) was balloon angioplasty in children and adults with coarctation of the aorta before the stenting era (n = 28; mean age, 13 +/- 8 years). After treatment, serial hemodynamic and angiographic studies were performed. The long-term relief was higher in patients with a discrete type of coarctation. The rate of late aneurysm formation was 6%. The third condition (group 3) was stent palliation in infants and children younger than the age of 6 years (n = 17; mean age, 2.1 +/- 1.7 years). The stent was implanted for nondilatable stenoses, as a nondefinitive procedure. Stent palliation provides complete initial relief in hypoplastic coarctations or life-threatening conditions. However, further stent expansion is required to ensure adequate stent diameter in the growing aortic wall. In addition, late intrastent proliferation may occur in small stent diameters (18%) and aneurysm formation in hypoplastic coarctations (18%). Both late complications can be managed percutaneously. The fourth condition (group 4) was stent repair of severe aortic coarctation in adults, adolescents, and children older than the age of 6 years (n = 73; mean age, 20 +/- 12 years). Significant relief was observed after treatment, which persisted at follow-up. One patient died at treatment (1.3%). After a mean follow-up of 5 +/- 3 years, all 72 patients remained symptom free and no restenosis or late aneurysm were detected.

Surgical treatment of pulmonary metastases: experience with 40 patients.

AIMS: Combinations of surgery and chemotherapy have a favourable impact on survival in the treatment of disseminated neoplastic disease isolated to the lung. Sample and technical factors have made the reproduction of the published results difficult. METHODS: In this study we report experience over 10 years. RESULTS: From 1989 to 1999 40 patients underwent metastasectomy. Thirty received chemotherapy. The median survival is 51 months, similar to other published series. CONCLUSION: Survival benefit can be observed in small series of such cases.

Airway complications after lung transplantation: a review of 151 anastomoses.

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the incidence, treatment and follow up of airway complications after lung transplantation. METHODS: From October 1993 to April 2000, 104 lung transplants were performed in 101 patients. One hundred and fifty one bronchial anastomoses at risk were included in the study (29 single lung and 61 sequential double lung). Donor lungs were flushed both antegradely and retrogradely with Eurocollins. In the recipients, either a single or a sequential bilateral lung transplantation was performed when indicated. The bronchial anastomosis was telescoped and covered with peribronchial tissue in all cases. Postoperative fiberoptic bronchoscopic examinations were dictated by clinical grounds. Recipient variables were recorded and analyzed to assess possible differences between both complicated and non-complicated groups. RESULTS: Eight bronchial anastomotic complications (5.3%) occurred in six patients (6.8%). All complicated cases developed in sequential bilateral lung recipients (P=0.08): stenosis (n=5), granulation tissue (n=2), and bronchial dehiscence (n=1). Treatment consisted of lobectomy and subsequent completion pneumonectomy in one patient, rigid bronchoscopy dilation in two, balloon bronchodilation in two, laser debridement and stenting in one, and conservative therapy in two cases. One patient with severe sepsis and bronchial dehiscence died on day +30. The rest of the patients remain well so far. Airway complications were related to longer intubation periods (P<0.01). Other perioperative donor and recipient factors including the incidence of infections and acute rejection episodes, and actuarial survival, did not differ between groups. CONCLUSION: In our experience, the incidence of airway complications after lung transplantation is 5.3%. The careful surgical technique and organ preservation, the close surveillance of rejection and infection, and early postoperative extubation might play a role in reducing this incidence. Either surgical therapy or bronchoscopic dilation and stenting methods may contribute to resolve these complications.

[Perioperative morbimortality in pneumonectomy. Analysis of risk factors]. / Morbimortalidad perioperatoria de la neumonectomía. Análisis de los factores de riesgo.

UNLABELLED: Pneumonectomy continues to be associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine the mortality and morbidity rates after pneumonectomy and to analyze perioperative risk factors related to mortality. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The cases of 266 patients undergoing pneumonectomy between January 1986 and December 1997 were reviewed retrospectively: 241 patients with lung cancer, 4 with pulmonary metastasis, 9 with bronchiectasis and 12 with other benign diseases; 13% received neoadjuvant therapy. The bronchial stump was stapled in 92%, sutured in 8%, and covered with autologous tissue in 73%. Intrapericardial pneumonectomy was performed in 32%, pneumonectomy extended to the chest wall or diaphragm in 9%, and completion pneumonectomy was performed in 3%. We collected general demographic data, medical histories, pulmonary function data and surgical technique. Deaths and postoperative complications within the first 30 days after pneumonectomy were also known. RESULTS: Two hundred sixty-six pneumonectomies were performed [right 102 (38%); left 164 (62%)] in 249 men (93%) and 17 women (7%) who were 58 +/- 11 years of age (20 to 79 years). The rate of early postoperative death (30 days) was 5.6%. Mortality rates were higher among patients over 70 years of age (p = 0.045), diabetics (p = 0.038), patients undergoing neoadjuvant therapy (p = 0.031), those with FEV1 under 1,800 ml (p = 0.013), cases of right-sided pneumonectomy (p = 0.001), cases of extended pneumonectomy (p = 0.037) or those without coverage of the bronchial stump (p = 0.005). Mortality was also higher when complications appeared involving the bronchial stump (p < 0.01), heart (p < 0.001), respiration (p < 0.001) or digestion (p = 0.002). Overall morbidity was 40%. Surgical complications developed in 23%: postpneumonectomy empyema (10%), bronchopleural fistula (7%) (with no significant difference related to stapling or suturing), hemothorax (3%) and wound complications (3%). Twelve patients (4.5%) underwent second operations. Cardiac morbidity was 20% (atrial fibrillation in 12%), respiratory morbidity was 8% and other complications appeared in 19% of cases. CONCLUSION: In our experience, mortality after pneumonectomy is 5.6% with an overall complication rate of 40%, mainly due to surgical and cardiac complications. Coverage of the bronchial stump with autologous tissue reduces the risk of postoperative death due to fistula and/or empyema after pneumonectomy.

Correction of temperature variations in kinetic-based determinations by use of pruning computational neural networks in conjunction with genetic algorithms.

The joint use of genetic algorithms and pruning computational neural networks is shown to be an effective means for selecting the number of inputs required to correct temperature variations in kinetic-based determinations. The genetic algorithm uses a pruning procedure based on Bayesian regularization and is highly efficient as a feature selector; it provides quite good results in the generalization process without the need to use a validation set. The fitness function is defined as the sum of two subfunctions: one controls the learning ability of the network and the other its complexity. The training, pruning, and generalization processes were initially tested with simulated data in order to acquire preliminary information for the ensuing work with real data. The performance of the proposed method was assessed by applying it to the determination of the amino acid L-glycine by its classical spectrophotometric reaction with ninhydrin. A straightforward network topology including temperature as input (40+T:2:1 with 19 connections after the pruning process) was used to estimate the L-glycine concentration from kinetic curves affected by temperature variations over the range 60-75 degrees C, using kinetic data acquired up to only 1.5 half-lives. The trained network estimates this concentration with a standard error of prediction for the testing set of ca. 8%, which is much smaller than those provided by a classical parametric method such as nonlinear regression (even if kinetic data acquired at longer half-lives are used). Finally, a kinetic interpretation of the pruning process is provided in order to better demonstrate its potential for kinetic analysis.

[Sequential double lung transplant in Kartagener's syndrome]. / Trasplante bipulmonar secuencial en el síndrome de Kartagener.

Very few cases of lung transplantation have been described for patients with Kartagener's syndrome. We report the first case to be published in Spain. A 15-year-old girl with complete Kartagener's syndrome underwent sequential transplantation of both lungs. Due to the unusual distribution of the organs in this syndrome, the bronchial stumps of donor and recipient had to be distributed differently. With the initial technical difficulties overcome, the patient now leads a normal life two years after transplantation.

[Objective evaluation of a pediatric intensive care unit without continuous attendance (I)]. / Valoración objetiva de una UCI pediátrica de referencia sin atención continuada. (I).

Eight-hundred and nine consecutive admissions have been reexamined by means of analysis of record cards made out at the moment of discharge from the ICU, in which, among other data, the TISS and PSI maximum for the first six hours from admission are included. The results obtained are the following: 50% of the admissions were classified as medium care (PSI < 5, TISS < 20), 28% were grade IV (PSI > 12, TISS > 40), and half were of grade III with a PSI of 9.38 and a TISS of 20.29. The overall mortality was 8.9%. However, the mortality for grades III+IV was 13.4% and gave a good correlation with the PSI, but not with the TISS. The PSI/TISS ratio was 0.45 and the predicted mortality rate according to the PSI was 6.1% for grade III and greater than 12% for grade IV. We conclude the following: (1) Of the illness, 28% were grade IV. (2) We observed a deficient PSI/TISS ratio. (3) The evaluation has to be done by objective means in which the capability of carrying out different methodologies has not been taken into account.

[Infantile nephrosis. Microcystic renal disease (author's transl)]. / Síndrome nefrótico del lactante. Enfermedad microquística del riñón

Two siblings, male and female with nephrotic syndrome of neonatal onset are reported. Both parents were healthy as well as another 5 year-old brother. Both died under two months. Their clinical, biochemical and immunological data are described, and the more common causes of N.S. (i.e. syphilis, toxoplasmosis, tuberculosis) ruled out. Pathology was available only from one of the cases, and the lesions were comparable to those described by finnish authors as corresponding to "congenital" N.S. This report is an additional evidence of the presence of this entity out of Finland.