Gut Microbiota Parameters Potentially Useful in Clinical Perspective

Interest in gut microbiota analyses is at an all-time high. Gut microbiota is thought to relate to an increasing range of diseases of interest to physicians and nutritionists. Overweight, obesity, response to diet, metabolic syndrome, low grade inflammation, diabetes and colon neoplasms could maybe be observed in microbiota if affordable markers were available. Possible biomarkers like the Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio, the Gram-positive/Gram-negative ratio, the Prevotella/Bacteroides ratio, and the Fusobacterium nucleatum/Faecalibacterium prausnitzii ratio are here reviewed in a narrative way in the attempt to highlight their possible future role in routine practice and clinically relevant diagnostics.

STUDY OF CANINE COLON NEOPLASMS USING TISSUE LUMINESCENCE ANALYSIS IN A HIGH-FREQUENCY ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD

Malignant tumors of the colon present a severe medical problem, and only their timely diagnosis can provide adequate therapy. In this work, we developed and tested a screen-ing method of endoscopic analysis of canine colon neoplasms by its luminescent glow stimulated by a high-frequency electromagnetic field. Observations were made on nine dogs with endoscopically detected tumors in the large intestine. Comparative analysis showed that benign tumor and healthy tissue areas glow at the edges in a high-frequency electromagnetic field, while malignant tumors glow over their entire site. The lumines-cence histogram of healthy tissues had a one-humped appearance, while malignant tu-mors demonstrated a double-humped character, and the brightness was higher in magni-tude. Histological analysis data confirmed the luminescence results. Research on dogs can be the basis for developing an endoscopic screening method of malignant tumors of the large intestine in humans.

Large intestine resection by intussusception

Falkenburg (Arch. F. Klinische Chirurg., Bd. 127) produced mainly in colon neoplasms.

Endoscopic mucosal resection and conventional polypectomy in colon adenomas

Aim: to compare the early and long-term results of endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR) and conventional polypectomy for benign epithelial colon neoplasmsPatients and methods: the retrospective study included 344 patients with histologically verified adenomas of the size of up to 40 mm in the colon, who underwent EMR or conventional polypectomy. Mucosectomy (EMR) was performed in 207 patients, while conventional polypectomy was performed in 137.Results: there were no significant differences in the postoperative morbidity rates between the methods (OR = 1.8; 95% CI = 0.7–4.8, p = 0.3). Fragmentation significantly more often occurred in the group of conventional polypectomy (OR = 3.5; 95% CI = 2.3–5.5, p = 0.001, especially when the size of the neoplasm was over 1 cm (OR = 3.1; 95% CI = 1.1–8.9 = 0.037). Recurrence occurred in 19/173 (10.9%) in 12 (8.3%) patients of the EMR group. In the polypectomy group, recurrence developed in 22 (23.1%) patients, in 24/108 (22.2%) cases at the site of the postoperative scar. It was found that the adenoma recurrence in the area of endoscopic excision occurs significantly more often after conventional polypectomy (OR = 2.3; 95% CI = 1.2–4.4; p = 0.016).Conclusion: EMR and conventional polypectomy both are the safe methods with low morbidity rates. However, the EMR is the preferred method of endoscopic excision for adenomas larger than 1 cm due to the fact that it allows for deeper and more complete resection of the tissue than conventional polypectomy.

Effectiveness and risk factors of endoscopic submucosal dissection for right colon neoplasms

Introduction. Endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) is a standard method of local excision of benign colon tumors. Nevertheless, it is not widely used because of its technical difficulty and risk of complication especially in right colon. The OBJECTIVE was to improve the results of treatment of patients with right colon neoplasms.Methods and materials. The results of 152 consecutive patients (median age 66 years, 88 female) with lateral spreading tumors (LST) were analyzed. Logistic regression was performed to evaluate risk factors of conversion and complications.Results. ESD as planned performed in 133 out of 152 patients. Conversion to bowel resection occurred in 19 cases. In the logistic regression model, lifting less than 3 mm (p=0.034) was independent risk factor of the conversion. Postoperative complications up to 30 days occurred in 5 out of 133 (3.8 %) of patients underwent ESD. There was no mortality after ESD. Severe fibrosis the base of the neoplasm was the only risk factor of postoperative complications (95 % CI=1.0—1.2; p=0.007). Final pathology revealed that 127 out of 133 patients (95.5 %) had adenomas and 6 out of 133 (4.5 %) patients had early adenocarcinomas. R0 resections was performed in 94/133 (70.7 %) cases.Conclusions. ESD is the safe and efficient method of local excision of benign right colon neoplasms. Unfavorable lifting (p=0.05) and submucosal fibrosis (p=0.007) are risk factors of ESD failure.

Prediction of miRNA-disease associations based on Weighted K-Nearest known neighbors and network consistency projection

MicroRNAs (miRNA) are a type of non-coding RNA molecules that are effective on the formation and the progression of many different diseases. Various researches have reported that miRNAs play a major role in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of complex human diseases. In recent years, researchers have made a tremendous effort to find the potential relationships between miRNAs and diseases. Since the experimental techniques used to find that new miRNA-disease relationships are time-consuming and expensive, many computational techniques have been developed. In this study, Weighted [Formula: see text]-Nearest Known Neighbors and Network Consistency Projection techniques were suggested to predict new miRNA-disease relationships using various types of knowledge such as known miRNA-disease relationships, functional similarity of miRNA, and disease semantic similarity. An average AUC of 0.9037 and 0.9168 were calculated in our method by 5-fold and leave-one-out cross validation, respectively. Case studies of breast, lung, and colon neoplasms were applied to prove the performance of our proposed technique, and the results confirmed the predictive reliability of this method. Therefore, reported experimental results have shown that our proposed method can be used as a reliable computational model to reveal potential relationships between miRNAs and diseases.

DOES LESION SITE AFFECTS OUTCOMES OF ENDOSCOPIC SUBMUCOSAL DISSECTION FOR COLON NEOPLASIA?

AIM: to assess results of endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) for colon neoplasms due to lesion site.PATIENTS AND METHODS: One-hundred thirteen patients (66 females, aged 65,7±11,0 years) with colon neoplasms which underwent ESD for one year (January 2017 – January 2018) were included in the study. All patients were divided in two groups depending on lesion site. The first group included patients with lesions in caecum, ascending colon and proximal third of tranverse colon, the second group – other colon parts and intraperitoneal part of the rectum. All patients underwent preoperative tests including colonoscopy, gastroscopy and transabdominal ultrasound. ESD included lesion marking, injection, circular incision and dissection. The results obtained were analyzed statistically using Graph Pad 7 for Mac. RESULTS: the 1st group included 61 (54.0%) patients and the 2nd – 52 (46.0%). Laterally spreading tumors (LST) were detected more often in the 1st group (56 patients of the 1st group vs 38 – in the 2nd, p=0.03). The lesion size in the 1st group was 31±13 (7-80) mm and 29±11 (8-76) in the 2nd one (p=0.3). Conversion from ESD to resection occurred in 9 (8.0%) patients, in 5 patients of the 1st group and in 4 – the 2nd one (p=1.0). The only reason for conversion was unfavorable lesion lifting (≤2 mm).Most of the lesions were removed en bloc, specimen fragmentation after ESD occurred in 10 (9.6%) patients: in 5 (9.0%) in the 1st group and in 5 (10.4%) in the 2nd (р=1.0). Intraoperative complications during ESD in the 1st group occurred in 2 (3.5%) cases and in 2 (4.1%) – in the 2nd (р=1.0). Postoperative complications were detected in 2 (1.9%) patients. Histopathology showed adenocarcinoma in 9 (8.0%) patients. Two (1.7%) patients produced local recurrence. CONCLUSION: ESD is a safe method removal of colon ademonas. The intra- and postoperative complications rate is 3.5% and 1.9% for the 1st and the 2nd group. Local recurrences occurred in 2,04%. Unfavorable lesion lifting (≤2 mm) in right colon is a risk factor for specimen fragmentation or conversion.

Autofluorescence Imaging Reflects the Nuclear Enlargement of Tumor Cells as well as the Cell Proliferation Ability and Aberrant Status of the p53, Ki-67, and p16 Genes in Colon Neoplasms

Background: Autofluorescence imaging (AFI) is useful for diagnosing colon neoplasms, but what affects the AFI intensity remains unclear. This study investigated the association between AFI and the histological characteristics, aberrant methylation status, and aberrant expression in colon neoplasms. Methods: Fifty-three patients with colorectal neoplasms who underwent AFI were enrolled. The AFI intensity (F index) was compared with the pathological findings and gene alterations. The F index was calculated using an image analysis software program. The pathological findings were assessed by the tumor crypt density, cell densities, and N/C ratio. The aberrant methylation of p16, E-cadherin, Apc, Runx3, and hMLH1 genes was determined by a methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction. The aberrant expression of p53 and Ki-67 was evaluated by immunohistochemical staining. Results: An increased N/C ratio, the aberrant expression of p53, Ki-67, and the altered methylation of p16 went together with a lower F index. The other pathological findings and the methylation status showed no association with the F index. Conclusions: AFI reflects the nuclear enlargement of tumor cells, the cell proliferation ability, and the altered status of cell proliferation-related genes, indicating that AFI is a useful and practical method for predicting the dysplastic grade of tumor cells and cell proliferation.