Colorectal Cancer Stage at Diagnosis Before vs During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy

IMPORTANCE Delays in screening programs and the reluctance of patients to seek medical attention because of the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 could be associated with the risk of more advanced colorectal cancers at diagnosis. OBJECTIVE To evaluate whether the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was associated with more advanced oncologic stage and change in clinical presentation for patients with colorectal cancer. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This retrospective, multicenter cohort study included all 17 938 adult patients who underwent surgery for colorectal cancer from March 1, 2020, to December 31, 2021 (pandemic period), and from January 1, 2018, to February 29, 2020 (prepandemic period), in 81 participating centers in Italy, including tertiary centers and community hospitals. Follow-up was 30 days from surgery. EXPOSURES Any type of surgical procedure for colorectal cancer, including explorative surgery, palliative procedures, and atypical or segmental resections. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was advanced stage of colorectal cancer at diagnosis. Secondary outcomes were distant metastasis, T4 stage, aggressive biology (defined as cancer with at least 1 of the following characteristics: signet ring cells, mucinous tumor, budding, lymphovascular invasion, perineural invasion, and lymphangitis), stenotic lesion, emergency surgery, and palliative surgery. The independent association between the pandemic period and the outcomes was assessed using multivariate random-effects logistic regression, with hospital as the cluster variable. RESULTS A total of 17 938 patients (10 007 men [55.8%]; mean [SD] age, 70.6 [12.2] years) underwent surgery for colorectal cancer: 7796 (43.5%) during the pandemic period and 10 142 (56.5%) during the prepandemic period. Logistic regression indicated that the pandemic period was significantly associated with an increased rate of advanced-stage colorectal cancer (odds ratio [OR], 1.07; 95%CI, 1.01-1.13; P = .03), aggressive biology (OR, 1.32; 95%CI, 1.15-1.53; P < .001), and stenotic lesions (OR, 1.15; 95%CI, 1.01-1.31; P = .03). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE This cohort study suggests a significant association between the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the risk of a more advanced oncologic stage at diagnosis among patients undergoing surgery for colorectal cancer and might indicate a potential reduction of survival for these patients

Mortality and pulmonary complications in patients undergoing surgery with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection: an international cohort study

Background: The impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on postoperative recovery needs to be understood to inform clinical decision making during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This study reports 30-day mortality and pulmonary complication rates in patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: This international, multicentre, cohort study at 235 hospitals in 24 countries included all patients undergoing surgery who had SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed within 7 days before or 30 days after surgery. The primary outcome measure was 30-day postoperative mortality and was assessed in all enrolled patients. The main secondary outcome measure was pulmonary complications, defined as pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, or unexpected postoperative ventilation. Findings: This analysis includes 1128 patients who had surgery between Jan 1 and March 31, 2020, of whom 835 (74·0%) had emergency surgery and 280 (24·8%) had elective surgery. SARS-CoV-2 infection was confirmed preoperatively in 294 (26·1%) patients. 30-day mortality was 23·8% (268 of 1128). Pulmonary complications occurred in 577 (51·2%) of 1128 patients; 30-day mortality in these patients was 38·0% (219 of 577), accounting for 81·7% (219 of 268) of all deaths. In adjusted analyses, 30-day mortality was associated with male sex (odds ratio 1·75 [95% CI 1·28–2·40], p\textless0·0001), age 70 years or older versus younger than 70 years (2·30 [1·65–3·22], p\textless0·0001), American Society of Anesthesiologists grades 3–5 versus grades 1–2 (2·35 [1·57–3·53], p\textless0·0001), malignant versus benign or obstetric diagnosis (1·55 [1·01–2·39], p=0·046), emergency versus elective surgery (1·67 [1·06–2·63], p=0·026), and major versus minor surgery (1·52 [1·01–2·31], p=0·047). Interpretation: Postoperative pulmonary complications occur in half of patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection and are associated with high mortality. Thresholds for surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic should be higher than during normal practice, particularly in men aged 70 years and older. Consideration should be given for postponing non-urgent procedures and promoting non-operative treatment to delay or avoid the need for surgery. Funding: National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland, Bowel and Cancer Research, Bowel Disease Research Foundation, Association of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeons, British Association of Surgical Oncology, British Gynaecological Cancer Society, European Society of Coloproctology, NIHR Academy, Sarcoma UK, Vascular Society for Great Britain and Ireland, and Yorkshire Cancer Research

Pet's diseases and owner's anxiety: is the leash an umbilical cord?

Nowadays domestic animals take part to the family system and represent a fundamental element of its equilibrium. Therefore, pet’s symptoms or diseases may become stressors for owners. The aims of the present study were to evaluate if the management of a pet affected by a disease may influence the anxiety of the owner and if some pathologies or symptoms may affect owner’s anxiety more deeply. Eighty five owners of dogs and cats presented to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital “Mario Modenato” of the University of Pisa for dermatologic, gastro enteric and nephrological disorders were enrolled in the study through the administration of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Test (STAI). The questionnaire was anonymous and in accordance with privacy laws. Data were statistically analysed through the t-test and ANOVA test. Both men and women showed significantly higher values of trait anxiety (47.68±12.97 vs 43.07±8.05; p=0.04), compared to state anxiety (45.68±12.71 vs 38.9±9.89; p=0.03) but men presented significantly higher scores than women. No significant differences were found among owners concerning age and educational level. Cat’s owners showed significantly lower levels of anxiety than dogs ones and owners of nephropatic patients were less anxious than owners of gastroenteric and dermatologic subjects. The present data seemed to show that owner’s anxiety may be affected more or less deeply by pet’s disease, according to kind of disease, seriousness of symptoms and owner’s gender

Plunging ranula in children: case report and literature review

Few cases of plunging ranulas (PRs) occur during childhood and the lesions are frequently misdiagnosed. Here, a PR in a child is reported along with a literature review. A seven-year-old female complaining of swelling in the midline neck, left-submandibular region, was evaluated. No oral cavity or major salivary glands abnormalities were detected. On palpation, a soft, painless, and fluid-containing mass was observed. The suspicion PR was performed by ultrasound. The diagnosis was confirmed with a histopathological examination. The lesion was removed with a cervical approach, without recurrence. PR is an uncommon condition in children under 10 years of age. Differential diagnosis depends on clinical examination and ultrasonography. A computed tomography-scan and magnetic resonance imaging can be performed if the diagnosis remains uncertain. In pediatrics, the key to success of the treatment may rely on the radical excision of the cyst and sublingual gland, via an intraoral or submandibular approach

Automated Wound Image Segmentation: Transfer Learning from Human to Pet via Active Semi-Supervised Learning

Wound management is a fundamental task in standard clinical practice. Automated solutions already exist for humans, but there is a lack of applications regarding wound management for pets. Precise and efficient wound assessment is helpful to improve diagnosis and to increase the effectiveness of treatment plans for chronic wounds. In this work, we introduced a novel pipeline for the segmentation of pet wound images. Starting from a model pre-trained on human-based wound images, we applied a combination of transfer learning (TL) and active semi-supervised learning (ASSL) to automatically label a large dataset. Additionally, we provided a guideline for future applications of TL+ASSL training strategy on image datasets. We compared the effectiveness of the proposed training strategy, monitoring the performance of an EfficientNet-b3 U-Net model against the lighter solution provided by a MobileNet-v2 U-Net model. We obtained 80% of correctly segmented images after five rounds of ASSL training. The EfficientNet-b3 U-Net model significantly outperformed the MobileNet-v2 one. We proved that the number of available samples is a key factor for the correct usage of ASSL training. The proposed approach is a viable solution to reduce the time required for the generation of a segmentation dataset

Pediatric laparoscopy and adaptive oxygenation and hemodynamic changes

Adaptive changes in oxygenation and hemodynamics are evaluated during pediatric laparoscopy. The children underwent laparoscopy (LAP Group, n=20) or open surgery (Open Group, n=10). Regional cerebral (rScO2) and peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2), heart rate (HR), diastolic (DP) and systolic pressure (SP) were monitored at different intervals: basal (T0); anesthesia induction (T1); CO2PP insufflation (T2); surgery (T3); CO2PP cessation (T4); before extubation (T5). At T1, in both the LAP and Open groups significant changes in rScO2, DP and SP were recorded compared with T0; a decrease in SatO2 was also observed at T5. In the LAP group, at T2, changes in HR related to CO2PP pressure and in DP and SP related to IAP were noted; at T4, a SP change associated with CO2PP desufflation was recorded. Open group, at T3 and T5 showed lower rScO2 values compared with T1. Pneuperitoneum and anesthesia are influent to induce hemodynamics changes during laparoscopy

Nucleolin expression has prognostic value in neuroblastoma patients

Background Neuroblastoma (NB) represents the most frequent form of extra-cranial solid tumour of infants, responsible for 15% of childhood cancer deaths. Nucleolin (NCL) prognostic value in NB was investigated.Methods NCL protein expression was retrospectively evaluated in tumour samples of NB patients at diagnosis and after chemotherapy. NCL prognostic value at mRNA level was assessed in a cohort of 20 patients with stage 4 NB (gPCR20, n = 20, discovery dataset) and in the MultiPlatform786 including 786 patients of all stages (validation dataset). Overall and event-free survival curves were plotted by Kaplan-Meier method and compared by log-rank test.Findings NCL protein, down-modulated after chemotherapy in association with features of neuroblastic differentiation, resulted statistically significantly overexpressed in NB tumours and higher in stage 4 compared to stage 1,2,3 patients. In the stage 4 patients cohort gPCR20, patients with high NCLmRNA expression revealed a statisticallysignificant lower survival probability than those with low NCL expression (OS: HR 4.1 95%CI I.2-13.8;p = 0.0215[Log-rank test], EFS: HR 4.1 95%CI 1.2-14.0, p = 0.0197[Log-rank test]). In the MultiPlatform786 (n = 786), multivariate analysis suggested that NCL expression has a statistically significant prognostic value even in the model adjusted for established prognostic markers. NCL expression significantly stratified also patients with >18 months and stage 4 tumour (OS: HR 1.8 95%CI 1.2-2.7, p = 0.0009[Log-rank test]; EFS: HR 1.7 95%CI 1.1-2.5, p = 0.002[Log-rank test]), patients with>18 months stage 4 with MYCN non amplified tumour[EFS: HR 2.3 95%CI 1.2-4.7, p = 0.01[Log-rank test]), and patients with MYCN non amplified and MYC high [OS: HR 11.9 95%CI 2.3-62.4, p = 0.003[Log-rank test]; EFS: HR 7.2 95%CI 1.6-33.4, p = 0.01[Log-rank test]). A statistically significant correlation between NCL and MYCN, MYC, and TERT was found in independent datasets (MultiPlatform786 (n = 786) and Agilent394 (n = 394). Gene set enrichment analysis revealed a statisticallysignificant positive enrichment of MYC target genes and genes involved in telomerase maintenance.Interpretation NCL is a novel and independent (adjusting for age, INS S stage, and MYCN status) prognostic marker for NB. Copyright (C) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V