Surgical Technique Notes of Arterial Vascular Reconstruction During Kidney Transplantation: Personal Experience and Literature Review

Background

Arterial vascular anomalies in patients undergoing kidney transplantation (KT) are correlated with a higher incidence of early surgical complications, potentially causing graft loss. Arterial reconstruction allows patients to overcome these surgical challenges, thus minimizing the risk of poor outcomes. The aim of the present study is to retrospectively investigate the safety and effectiveness of the multiple arterial reconstruction technique with a Teflon patch in case of an unavailable aortic patch: to do so, surgical complications, graft function, and patient survival were evaluated.

Anisotropic Bladder Planning Target Volume in Bladder Radiation Therapy

Purpose

This study aimed to investigate 3 planning target volume (PTV) margin expansions and determine the most appropriate volume to be used in bladder preservation therapy when using daily cone beam computed tomography (CBCT). We aimed to establish whether a smaller PTV expansion is feasible without risking geographical miss.

Pinealectomy interferes with the circadian clock genes expression in white adipose tissue

Melatonin, the main hormone produced by the pineal gland, is secreted in a circadian manner (24‐hr period), and its oscillation influences several circadian biological rhythms, such as the regulation of clock genes expression (chronobiotic effect) and the modulation of several endocrine functions in peripheral tissues. Assuming that the circadian synchronization of clock genes can play a role in the regulation of energy metabolism and it is influenced by melatonin, our study was designed to assess possible alterations as a consequence of melatonin absence on the circadian expression of clock genes in the epididymal adipose tissue of male Wistar rats and the possible metabolic repercussions to this tissue. Our data show that pinealectomy indeed has impacts on molecular events: it abolishes the daily pattern of the expression of Clock, Per2, and Cry1 clock genes and Pparγ expression, significantly increases the amplitude of daily expression of Rev‐erbα, and affects the pattern of and impairs adipokine production, leading to a decrease in leptin levels. However, regarding some metabolic aspects of adipocyte functions, such as its ability to synthesize triacylglycerols from glucose along 24 hr, was not compromised by pinealectomy, although the daily profile of the lipogenic enzymes expression (ATP‐citrate lyase, malic enzyme, fatty acid synthase, and glucose‐6‐phosphate dehydrogenase) was abolished in pinealectomized animals.     

Giant right atrium and subvalvular pulmonary stenosis: A case report of an interesting combination

A 20‐year‐old Congolese woman presented with presyncope, dyspnea, and anasarca. Past medical history was unremarkable. Echocardiography revealed a rare combination of giant right atrium (RA), a dilated and hypertrophied right ventricle, subvalvular pulmonary stenosis (subPS), severe tricuspid regurgitation (TR), pericardial effusion and what appeared to be a spontaneously closed ventricular septal defect (VSD). Cardiac Magnetic Resonance and Cardiac Computed Tomography confirmed the findings excluding the presence of intra‐cardiac and extra‐cardiac shunt and other associated congenital anomalies. The patient underwent subPS resection, right atrioplasty, and tricuspid annuloplasty. Multimodality approach facilitated the detection of the abnormalities and provided clarity when determining the optimal surgical strategy.     

Neoadjuvant therapy in the treatment of hilar cholangiocarcinoma:Review of the literature

Cholangiocarcinoma(CCA) is a malignant tumor of the biliary system and includes, according to the anatomical classification, intra hepatic CCA(iCCA),hilar CCA(hCCA) and distal CCA(dCCA). Hilar CCA is the most challenging type in terms of diagnosis, treatment and prognosis. Surgery is the only treatment possibly providing long-term survival, but only few patients are considered resectable at the time of diagnosis. In fact, tumor's extension to segmentary or subsegmentary biliary ducts, along with large lymph node involvement or intrahepatic metastases, precludes the surgical approach. To achieve R0 margins is mandatory for the disease-free survival and overall survival. In case of unresectable locally advanced hCCA, radiochemotherapy(RCT) as neoadjuvant treatment demonstrated to be a therapeutic option before either hepatic resection or liver transplantation. Before liver surgery, RCT is believed to enhance the R0 margins rate. For patients meeting the Mayo Clinic criteria, RCT prior to orthotopic liver transplant(OLT) has proved to produce acceptable 5-years survivals. In this review, we analyze the current role of neoadjuvant RCT before resection as well as before OLT.