Robotic Techniques in Esophagogastric Cancer Surgery: An Assessment of Short- and Long-Term Clinical Outcomes

Background Robotic esophagogastric cancer surgery is gaining widespread adoption. This population-based cohort study aimed to compare rates of textbook outcomes (TOs) and survival from robotic minimally invasive techniques for esophagogastric cancer. Methods Data from the United States National Cancer Database (NCDB) (2010–2017) were used to identify patients with non-metastatic esophageal or gastric cancer receiving open surgery (to the esophagus, n = 11,442; stomach, n = 22,183), laparoscopic surgery (to the esophagus [LAMIE], n = 4827; stomach [LAMIG], n = 6359), or robotic surgery (to the esophagus [RAMIE], n = 1657; stomach [RAMIG], n = 1718). The study defined TOs as 15 or more lymph nodes examined, margin-negative resections, hospital stay less than 21 days, no 30-day readmissions, and no 90-day mortalities. Multivariable logistic regression and Cox analyses were used to account for treatment selection bias. Results Patients receiving robotic surgery were more commonly treated in high-volume academic centers with advanced clinical T and N stage disease. From 2010 to 2017, TO rates increased for esophageal and gastric cancer treated via all surgical techniques. Compared with open surgery, significantly higher TO rates were associated with RAMIE (odds ratio [OR], 1.41; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.27–1.58) and RAMIG (OR 1.30; 95% CI 1.17–1.45). For esophagectomy, long-term survival was associated with both TO (hazard ratio [HR 0.64, 95% CI 0.60–0.67) and RAMIE (HR 0.92; 95% CI 0.84–1.00). For gastrectomy, long-term survival was associated with TO (HR 0.58; 95% CI 0.56–0.60) and both LAMIG (HR 0.89; 95% CI 0.85–0.94) and RAMIG (HR 0.88; 95% CI 0.81–0.96). Subset analysis in high-volume centers confirmed similar findings. Conclusion Despite potentially adverse learning curve effects and more advanced tumor stages captured during the study period, both RAMIE and RAMIG performed in mostly high-volume centers were associated with improved TO and long-term survival. Therefore, consideration for wider adoption but a well-designed phase 3 randomized controlled trial (RCT) is required for a full evaluation of the benefits conferred by robotic techniques for esophageal and gastric cancers.

P-OGC87 Robotic Techniques in Esophagogastric Cancer Surgery: An Assessment of Short- and Long-term Clinical Outcomes

Background Robotic esophagogastric cancer surgery is gaining widespread adoption. This population-based cohort study aimed to compare rates of textbook outcomes (TO) and survival from robotic minimally invasive techniques for esophagogastric cancers. Methods Data from the United States National Cancer Database (NCDB) (2010-2017), was used to identify patients with non-metastatic esophageal and gastric cancers receiving open (esophagus, n = 11,442; stomach, n = 22,183), laparoscopic (esophagus (LAMIE), n = 4,827; stomach (LAMIG), n = 6,359) or robotic (esophagus (RAMIE), n = 1,657; stomach (RAMIG), n = 1,718) surgery. TO were defined as lymph nodes examined >15, margin-negative resections, length of stay <21 days, no 30-day readmission, and no 90-day mortality. Multivariable logistic regression and Cox analyses were used to account for treatment selection bias. Results Patients receiving robotic surgery were more commonly treated within high volume, academic centers and with advanced clinical T and N stage disease. From 2010 to 2017, TO rates increased for esophageal and gastric cancer treated by all surgical techniques. RAMIE (odds ratio (OR):1.41, (CI 95% : 1.27-1.58) and RAMIG (OR:1.30, CI 95% : 1.17-1.45) had significantly higher TO rates compared to open surgery. For esophagectomy, TO (hazard ratio (HR):0.64, CI 95% : 0.60-0.67) and RAMIE (HR:0.92, CI 95% : 0.84-1.00) were both associated with long-term survival. For gastrectomy, TO (HR:0.58, CI 95% : 0.56-0.60) and both LAMIG (HR:0.89, CI 95% : 0.85-0.94) and RAMIG (HR:0.88, CI 95% : 0.81-0.96) were all associated with long-term survival. Subset analysis in high volume centers confirmed similar findings. Conclusions Despite potentially adverse learning curve effects and more advanced tumor stages captured within the study period, both RAMIE and RAMIG, as performed in mostly high-volume centers, were associated with improved TO and long-term survival. Therefore, consideration for wider adoption but a well-designed phase III RCT is required to fully evaluate the benefits of robotic techniques in esophageal and gastric cancers.

Automatic Recognition of Colon and Esophagogastric Cancer with Machine Learning and Hyperspectral Imaging

There are approximately 1.8 million diagnoses of colorectal cancer, 1 million diagnoses of stomach cancer, and 0.6 million diagnoses of esophageal cancer each year globally. An automatic computer-assisted diagnostic (CAD) tool to rapidly detect colorectal and esophagogastric cancer tissue in optical images would be hugely valuable to a surgeon during an intervention. Based on a colon dataset with 12 patients and an esophagogastric dataset of 10 patients, several state-of-the-art machine learning methods have been trained to detect cancer tissue using hyperspectral imaging (HSI), including Support Vector Machines (SVM) with radial basis function kernels, Multi-Layer Perceptrons (MLP) and 3D Convolutional Neural Networks (3DCNN). A leave-one-patient-out cross-validation (LOPOCV) with and without combining these sets was performed. The ROC-AUC score of the 3DCNN was slightly higher than the MLP and SVM with a difference of 0.04 AUC. The best performance was achieved with the 3DCNN for colon cancer and esophagogastric cancer detection with a high ROC-AUC of 0.93. The 3DCNN also achieved the best DICE scores of 0.49 and 0.41 on the colon and esophagogastric datasets, respectively. These scores were significantly improved using a patient-specific decision threshold to 0.58 and 0.51, respectively. This indicates that, in practical use, an HSI-based CAD system using an interactive decision threshold is likely to be valuable. Experiments were also performed to measure the benefits of combining the colorectal and esophagogastric datasets (22 patients), and this yielded significantly better results with the MLP and SVM models.

Effect of the Rehabilitation Program, ReStOre, on Serum Biomarkers in a Randomized Control Trial of Esophagogastric Cancer Survivors

BackgroundThe Rehabilitation Strategies Following Esophagogastric cancer (ReStOre) randomized control trial demonstrated a significant improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness of esophagogastric cancer survivors. This follow-up, exploratory study analyzed the biological effect of exercise intervention on levels of 55 serum proteins, encompassing mediators of angiogenesis, inflammation, and vascular injury, from participants on the ReStOre trial.MethodsPatients >6 months disease free from esophagogastric cancer were randomized to usual care or the 12-week ReStOre program (exercise training, dietary counselling, and multidisciplinary education). Serum was collected at baseline (T0), post-intervention (T1), and at 3-month follow up (T2). Serum biomarkers were quantified by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).ResultsThirty-seven patients participated in this study; 17 in the control arm and 20 in the intervention arm. Exercise intervention resulted in significant alterations in the level of expression of serum IP-10 (mean difference (MD): 38.02 (95% CI: 0.69 to 75.35)), IL-27 (MD: 249.48 (95% CI: 22.43 to 476.53)), and the vascular injury biomarkers, ICAM-1 (MD: 1.05 (95% CI: 1.07 to 1.66)), and VCAM-1 (MD: 1.51 (95% CI: 1.04 to 2.14)) at T1. A significant increase in eotaxin-3 (MD: 2.59 (95% CI: 0.23 to 4.96)), IL-15 (MD: 0.27 (95% CI: 0 to 0.54)) and decrease in bFGF (MD: 1.62 (95% CI: -2.99 to 0.26)) expression was observed between control and intervention cohorts at T2 (p<0.05).ConclusionsExercise intervention significantly altered the expression of a number of serum biomarkers in disease-free patients who had prior treatment for esophagogastric cancer.ImpactExercise rehabilitation causes a significant biological effect on serum biomarkers in esophagogastric cancer survivors.Clinical Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03314311).