BioEnterics Intragastric Balloon: Clinical outcomes of the first 100 patients - A Turkish experience

Background The BioEnterics Intragrastric Balloon (BIB (R)) together with restricted diet has been used for the treatment of obesity and morbid obesity

N-Butyl Cyanoacrylate Versus Conventional Suturing for Fixation of Meshes in an Incisional Hernia Model

Background: Chronic pain and related complications reported after the use of perforating fixation devices in hernia surgery have led to the use of tissue sealants. Fibrin sealant is a feasible option for mesh fixation; however data on cyanoacrylate glues are limited. Methods: 32 Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into two groups and a 1.5 cm abdominal wall defect was created on each animal. The lesions were then repaired with 2 x 2 cm polypropylene meshes, fixed with n-butyl-cyanoacrylate in the first group and with polypropylene sutures in the second group. The rats were sacrificed on the 21st and 42nd days. The presence of infection, recurrence, and abdominal adhesions were evaluated, followed by biomechanical testing and histological examination. Results: No mesh infection or hernia recurrences were recorded. There was no statistically significant difference between neither the adhesion scores nor the mean broken pressure of the two groups. Cyanoacrylate sealing was found equivalent to suturing in terms of tissue ingrowth, fibrosis, inflammatory infiltration, abscess formation, and necrosis. Furthermore, cyanoacrylate resulted in less foreign body reaction. Conclusions: Mesh fixation by cyanoacrylate may be considered as an alternative to suture fixation

The additional value of FDG PET imaging for distinguishing N0 or N1 from N2 stage in preoperative staging of non-small cell lung cancer in region where the prevalence of inflammatory lung disease is high

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of PET imaging and compare it with the performance of CT in mediastinal and hilar lymph node staging in potentially operable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)

The sentinel lymph node can be successfully detected by the usage of lymphoscintigraphy and gamma-probe in cases of breast cancer Meme kanserinde lenfosintigrafi ve gama prob kullanimi i̇le sentinel lenf nodülü başari i̇le tespít edilebilir

The existance of the metastatic axillary lymph node is the most important prognostic factor that plays role in the decision of the risk of invasion of the disease and in the decision of the adjuvant therapy. The aim of our study is to detect the sentinel lymph node (SLN) in early stage breast cancer cases by injecting radioactive colloid followed by the usage of the gamma-probe and to determine the relations between the pathological results of the ones of the SLN and the other axillary nodes. This study was performed on 54 cases of early stage breast cancer prospectively. Tc-99 m renium sulfur colloid under lymphoscintigraphy (0.5 milicurie) was injected to the quadrant of the site of the tumor subdermally and scintigraphic spots were taken afterwards. Following the detection of the SLN by the help of the gamma-probe, standard axillary dissection (Level 1-2) was applied to the patient. The results were observed in concepts of overall accuracy, false-negative rate, identification rate. Among the 54 cases that were included in this study 42 (77.8%) cases were Stage I and 12 (22.2%) cases were Stage II. The tumor was localized in the lateral quadrants in 34 (62%), and in the medial quadrants in 15 (27%) of the cases. Axillary drainage was detected in 52 cases (96%) and in 47 (87%) of these cases drainage was detected to be only to the axilla. In 2 (3.7%) cases drainage was detected to be only to the mammaria interna. The mean number of SLN detected in our study was 2.27. In 42% of our cases only a single node was detected. The detectability of the SLN by the gamma-probe is 98.15%. The false negative ratio is 5.3%. The SLN gives the same results with axillary dissection. There should be a small false negative ratio in order to rely on SLN biopsy

Tumor-derived CTF1 (cardiotrophin 1) is a critical mediator of stroma-assisted and autophagy-dependent breast cancer cell migration, invasion and metastasis

Macroautophagy/autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved cellular stress response mechanism. Autophagy induction in the tumor microenvironment (stroma) has been shown to support tumor metabolism. However, cancer cell-derived secreted factors that initiate communication with surrounding cells and stimulate autophagy in the tumor microenvironment are not fully documented. We identified CTF1/CT-1 (cardiotrophin 1) as an activator of autophagy in fibroblasts and breast cancer-derived carcinoma-associated fibroblasts (CAFs). We showed that CTF1 stimulated phosphorylation and nuclear translocation of STAT3, initiating transcriptional activation of key autophagy proteins. Additionally, following CTF1 treatment, AMPK and ULK1 activation was observed. We provided evidence that autophagy was important for CTF1-dependent ACTA2/alpha-SMA accumulation, stress fiber formation and fibroblast activation. Moreover, promotion of breast cancer cell migration and invasion by activated fibroblasts depended on CTF1 and autophagy. Analysis of the expression levels of CTF1 in patient-derived breast cancer samples led us to establish a correlation between CTF1 expression and autophagy in the tumor stroma. In line with our in vitro data on cancer migration and invasion, higher levels of CTF1 expression in breast tumors was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis in patients. Therefore, CTF1 is an important mediator of tumor-stroma interactions, fibroblast activation and cancer metastasis, and autophagy plays a key role in all these cancer-related events