Preoperative Carbohydrate Loading in Patients Undergoing Thoracic Surgery: A Quality-Improvement Project.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this project was to implement carbohydrate loading in patients undergoing thoracic surgery in an effort to decrease postoperative pain, nausea, and length of stay as a part of an enhanced recovery after surgery protocol. DESIGN: This quality-improvement project used a preintervention and postintervention design. METHODS: Carbohydrate loading was given to 50 patients before undergoing thoracic surgery. Chart review was performed for 47 patients who received standard preoperative instructions in the preintervention group as historical control. FINDINGS: Patients who received carbohydrate loading had a decreased use of opioids in the first 4 hours after surgery (P = .028) and decreased use of antiemetic medication in the first 24 hours after surgery compared with the preintervention group (P = .066). Patients who were instructed to consume carbohydrate loading complied 87% of the time. CONCLUSIONS: Carbohydrate loading can decrease postoperative nausea and pain in patients undergoing thoracic surgery.

Symptom Management for Patients With Esophageal Cancer After Esophagectomy.

CASE STUDY KD is a 67-year-old man with a medical history of hypertension, asthma, and a 20-pack/year smoking history who developed progressive dysphagia 8 months ago. Upon consultation with his primary care provider, he underwent an esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) for evaluation. A friable mass was visualized at the gastroesophageal junction, and biopsies confirmed adenocarcinoma of the esophagus. KD completed a staging evaluation with positron-emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT), which did not reveal distant metastatic disease. He also had an endoscopic ultrasound (EUS), which showed the tumor invading the muscularis propria and did not identify any enlarged regional lymph nodes (stage T3N0 disease). KD was referred to a medical oncologist and a radiation oncologist; he underwent concurrent chemoradiation therapy with docetaxel and fluorouracil and radiation therapy (50.4 Gy). KD was referred to thoracic surgery following restaging with PET/CT and EGD; there was no evidence of distant metastatic disease, and pathology findings revealed residual adenocarcinoma in one of the four esophageal biopsies. KD underwent Ivor Lewis esophagectomy and had a jejunostomy tube placed for nutritional requirements for 10 weeks as he adjusted to oral nutrition. Surgical pathology findings revealed residual adenocarcinoma with treatment effect; no malignancy was detected in the sampled regional lymph nodes. Four months later, KD presents with complaints of frequent postprandial diarrhea and reflux. He says he has been trying to lie down after meals due to palpitations and flushing. He is anxious about these symptoms and fearful about his long-term prognosis adjusting to the side effects of esophagectomy and would like to discuss lifestyle modifications.

The Toxicity and Benefit of Various Dosing Strategies for Interleukin-2 in Metastatic Melanoma and Renal Cell Carcinoma.

Interleukin-2 (IL-2) therapy has been used with success in curing meta-static renal cell carcinoma and melanoma in a small minority of patients. However, the benefits can be accompanied by severe toxicity. This review of the literature discusses varying doses of IL-2 and their associated re-sponse rates and the toxicities associated with treatment. The review also explores the maximally beneficial dose with the most tolerable side effects. Although the higher-dose regimens with a more frequent dosing schedule produce higher-grade toxicity, they were found to deliver the most durable and complete responses. It is recommended to use a higher-dose regimen (720,000 IU/kg every 8 hours for a maximum of 15 doses) and provide sup-portive care for toxicity, so patients can have maximal benefit from therapy.

Supratentorial extraventricular anaplastic ependymoma with extracranial metastasis.

Ependymoma is a relatively rare malignancy accounting for 2.0% of all primary central nervous system tumors in adults. Extracranial metastasis is a very uncommon complication of gliomas, especially of anaplastic ependymomas. The objective of this paper is to show that ependymomas can metastasize to soft tissue and lymph nodes as well as to share our approach to this challenge. We report a male patient with anaplastic ependymoma that recurred, metastasizing to the neck and lymph nodes. Metastatic disease was diagnosed based on clinical presentation of a palpable nodule on the right neck and diffuse cervical lymphadenopathies. A biopsy was obtained and pathology revealed anaplastic ependymoma. Whole-body fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography scan showed metastatic disease in the right mastoid region with diffuse uptake in the cervical lymph nodes. Clinical and radiologic response was achieved after three chemotherapy cycles of etoposide, cisplatin, vincristine, and cyclophosphamide. This case highlights extracranial metastasis to the soft tissue as an atypical presentation of recurrent anaplastic ependymoma. Other reported instances of extracranial metastatic ependymoma with this presentation are discussed. The possible metastatic pathways of intracranial disease are discussed. It also illustrates how extracranial disease remains stable with systemic chemotherapy.