Surgery of small bowel melanoma metastases in the era of efficient medical therapies: a retrospective cohort study.

Surgery of small bowel melanoma metastases has to be reconsidered in the era of targeted treatments and immunotherapy. To retrospectively assess context and outcomes of small bowel melanoma metastases resections. All consecutive melanoma patients who underwent resection of small bowel metastases between 2011 and 2017, in a single referral center, were retrospectively analyzed through melanoma-specific survival (MSS). A total of 20 patients were included with a 47.8 months median follow-up. Before small bowel surgery, eight patients (40%) were asymptomatic while seven had anemia and five patients had abdominal pain. All resections were decided on tumor boards except for three surgeries performed in the emergency setting. In the whole cohort, MSS was 89.5 months with 50% of patients alive at the study endpoint. We classified surgical indications in three groups: (1) surgery as a pivotal treatment for mono- or oligo-metastases limited to the small bowel (n = 6); (2) salvage surgery for symptomatic patients in order to preserve their chances to switch to an active line of medical treatment (n = 8); and (3) surgery of small bowel dissociated metastatic progression for patients otherwise controlled (n = 6), aiming at keeping patients with the same treatment or active follow-up. In these three situations, the objective of surgery was usually met, and most patients had a long median MSS after surgery: 70.3 months, 89.5 months and 72.4 months, respectively. Although medical treatments have dramatically improved survival in metastatic melanoma, surgical control of life-threatening localization like small bowel metastases is often a condition for long survival.

Assessment of myocardial partition coefficient of gadolinium (λ) in dilated cardiomyopathy and its impact on segmental and global systolic function.

PURPOSE: 1) To assess the myocardial partition coefficient (λ) of gadolinium quantified using T1 mapping in dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM); and 2) to assess the impact of increased λ on left ventricular (LV) circumferential strain and ejection fraction in DCM. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Seventeen patients with DCM and 11 controls were prospectively included. All patients and controls underwent a 1.5 T MRI using: 1) cine to quantify LV volumes and function; 2) tagging to quantify circumferential strain in mid-LV; 3) T1 mapping before and 9 minutes after contrast injection to quantify R1, ΔR1, and λ; and 4) inversion recovery 3D Flash was used to assess late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) 10 minutes after Gd DOTA injection (0.2 mmol/kg). We used Student's t-test to compare means, Pearson's test for correlation assessment, and a mixed linear model to integrate the dependency between myocardial segments. RESULTS: No difference in median λ was measured between patients with (0.52 [interquartile range = 0.48-0.56]) and without enhancement on LGE (0.51 [0.47-0.54]; P = 0.07). Circumferential strain value measured in each segment was correlated with the λ measured in the corresponding segment (r = 0.55; P < 0.0001). Multivariate analysis revealed a significant link between the λ in each segment and circumferential strain (0.002 ± 0.001; P = 0.009) and also with ejection fraction (-0.001 ± 0.0008; P = 0.04). CONCLUSION: In DCM, λ correlates independently with circumferential strain and ejection fraction, suggesting that there is a link between λ and systolic function.