Annals of surgical oncology
-
Most surgical training programs have no curriculum to teach palliative care. Programs designed for nonsurgical specialties often do not meet the unique needs of surgeons. With 80-hour workweek limitations on in-hospital teaching, new methods are needed to efficiently teach surgical residents about these problems. ⋯ With a reasonable time commitment, surgical residents are capable of learning about palliative and end-of-life care. Surgical residents think that understanding palliative care is a useful part of their training, a sentiment that is still evident 3 months later.
-
Editorial Comment
Retroperitoneal sarcomas--an SOS to colleagues in Europe.
-
Screening mammography has increased the number of patients diagnosed with ductal carcinoma-in-situ (DCIS) in the past 20 years. The Florida Cancer Data System is the largest single source incident cancer registry in the United States. We analyzed this registry to determine the changing incidence and treatment patterns for DCIS. ⋯ The incidence of DCIS has risen dramatically with the advent of screening mammography. Increasing numbers of these patients are treated with BCT, although a large proportion are still treated with mastectomy, in some cases combined with axillary dissection. Sentinel lymph node biopsy and tamoxifen are important components of therapy, the use of which is slowly increasing in the treatment of DCIS.
-
Bowel function is an important outcome after rectal cancer surgery that affects quality of life (QOL). Postoperative bowel function is often assessed with QOL instruments, but their ability to detect functional differences has not been evaluated. This study evaluated the efficacy of the European Organization for the Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Core (C)-30 and Colorectal (CR)-38 QOL instruments in identifying functional differences among patients undergoing sphincter-preserving surgery, grouped by clinical and treatment-related factors known to be associated with bowel function. ⋯ We found neither the EORTC C-30 nor CR-38 to be sensitive instruments in delineating differences in bowel function. The use of a validated instrument designed to assess function in patients with rectal cancer will more effectively and efficiently identify those patients with poor postoperative function.
-
The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic significance of the lymph node ratio between metastatic and examined lymph nodes (LNR) in patients with stage III colon cancer. ⋯ Ratio-based LN staging, which reflects the number of LNs examined and the quality of LN dissection, is a potent modality for prognostic stratification in patients with LN-positive colon cancer.