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On April 8, 2020, after nearly 3 months of battling against the outbreak of COVID-19, Wuhan, where the pandemic began, began easing lockdown restrictions. However, given that asymptomatic carriers could continue to lead to transmission of COVID-19 during the very early stages, the endoscopists have taken precautions and conduct risk assessments to perform endoscopic intervention in this transition stage. Here, we have reported an urgent ERCP in a patient with acute pancreatitis secondary to JPDD-related biliary stone. Based on our experiences, the objective is to provide practical suggestions for the safe resumption of ERCP procedures in the setting of the COVID-19 pandemic with specific focus on patient risk assessment, personal protection equipment (PPE), and dress code modalities, all of which have been implemented in our hospital to reduce the risk of viral transmission.
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OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the performance of probe-based confocal laser endomicroscopy (pCLE) in diagnosis of gastric lesions. METHODS: An outpatient department- (OPD-) based retrospective study was conducted for patients with suspected upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract lesions who underwent pCLE between 2014 and 2016 at a tertiary hospital in China. Final diagnosis was based on the histopathological reports. CLE reports were compared to histopathological reports to evaluate the diagnostic ability, including sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and diagnostic accuracy. RESULTS: 322 of 380 patients were diagnosed with gastric lesions via pCLE, including inflammation and benign ulcers (n = 110), atrophy and intestinal metaplasia (n = 152), intraepithelial neoplasia (n = 27), adenocarcinoma (n = 27), and lymphoma (n = 6). In total, the diagnostic ability of CLE in evaluation of gastric lesions showed sensitivity 72.4% (95% confidence interval (CI): 67.1-77.2%); specificity 93.1% (95% CI: 5.6-8.4%); PPV 72.4% (95% CI: 67.1-77.2%); NPV 93.1% (95% CI: 5.6-8.4%); and accuracy 88.9% (95% CI: 87.3-90.4%), respectively. We further observed the capability of pCLE in diagnosing six gastric lymphoma showing those affected mucosa densely infiltrated with identical and round-shaped abnormal cells. Immunohistochemistry analysis confirmed one patient with diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (DLBCL) and five with mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma. CONCLUSION: pCLE is an accurate tool for the detection of gastric lesions and shows optimal values of sensitivity and negative predictivity. Moreover, combining pCLE with white light endoscopy (WLE) may be a promising adjunct to conventional biopsy sampling in evaluating GI tract with suspected lymphoma.
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The prevalence of acute colorectal obstruction at the hospital setting is high. There is need for improvement in the quality of colonoscopy for relieving obstruction. A retrospective, uncontrolled, open-label study was conducted, with the aim of documenting the causes of acute colorectal obstruction and the quality of colonoscopy practice in managing obstruction at a university hospital in China. A total of 61 adult patients with acute colorectal obstruction treated with urgent colonoscopy between February, 2011 and January, 2016 were identified at the Endoscopic Unit of Tongji Hospital (Wuhan, China). The technique success rate was the primary outcome. The etiology was mainly related to malignant diseases, including colorectal cancer in 53 patients (86.9%) and advanced peritoneal serous carcinoma leading to extrinsic colonic compression in 1 patient (1.6%). Benign causes of obstruction included foreign bodies in 3 patients (4.9%) and fecal impaction in 2 patients (3.3%); furthermore, anastomotic strictures were found in 2 patients (3.3%). The technique success rate was 98.4% (60/61). All colorectal cancer patients who underwent urgent colonoscopy were admitted to the Department of Surgery for placement of a self-expanding metallic stent; 1 patient who had an extracolonic malignancy underwent placement of a transanal colonoscopic decompression tube as palliative therapy and 2 patients with anastomotic strictures underwent endoscopic balloon dilation. Furthermore, colonoscopy was used for extracting the foreign body, as well as removing fecal stones in all the patients. In conclusion, urgent colonoscopy as a minimal invasive approach is associated with certain advantages for diagnosing and managing acute colorectal obstruction. Furthermore, experienced operators achieved a better outcome when managing colorectal obstruction.