The Efficacy of Intra-Arterial Plus Intravesical Chemotherapy Versus Intravesical Chemotherapy Alone After Bladder-Sparing Surgery in High-Risk Bladder Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Comparative Study

BackgroundDue to the poor prognosis, the treatment of high-risk bladder cancer (HRBC) remains controversial. This meta-analysis aims to access the efficacy of intra-arterial chemotherapy (IAC) combined with intravesical chemotherapy (IC) versus IC alone after bladder-sparing surgery in HRBC.MethodsA systematic search of PubMed, Cochrane Library databases, EMBASE (until June 2020) was conducted. PRISMA checklist was followed. The data were analyzed by RevMan v5.3.0.ResultsA total of five articles including 843 patients were studied. The analysis demonstrated that the IAC + IC group had a greater improvement of overall survival (P = 0.02) and significant reduction in terms of tumor recurrence rate (P = 0.0006) and tumor progression rate (P = 0.008) compared with the IC group. The recurrence-free survival in the IAC + IC group was significantly higher than that in the IC group (P = 0.004), but there was no significant difference in progression-free survival between the two groups (P = 0.32). In addition, the combination of IAC and IC significantly extended tumor recurrence interval (P = 0.0001) and reduced tumor-specific death rate (P = 0.01) for patients with HRBC compared with IC alone. For side effects related with IAC, although about half of the patients experienced some toxicities, most of them were mild and reversible (grades 1–2, 22.3% vs. grade 3–4, 2.7%), mainly including nausea/vomiting (P = 0.0001), neutropenia (P = 0.002), and alanine aminotransferase (P = 0.0001).ConclusionPatients with HRBC treated with IAC + IC after bladder-sparing surgery had a marked improvement in the overall survival, recurrence-free survival, time interval to first recurrence, tumor recurrence rate, tumor progression rate, and tumor-specific death rate than patients treated with IC alone. However, progression-free survival was not significantly correlated with treatment strategy. In addition, patients seemed to tolerate well the toxicities related with IAC. Systematic Review RegistrationPROSPERO, identifier CRD42021232679.

Neutrophil mediated postoperative photoimmunotherapy against melanoma skin cancer

Surgery is the primary treatment option for most melanoma, however, high tumor recurrence rate after surgical resection becomes the main cause of death in cancer patients. Development of efficient drug...

Renal function after nephron-sparing surgery versus radical nephrectomy in localized renal cell carcinoma (T1)

Objective: To evaluate renal function (GFR) after radical nephrectomy compared to partial nephrectomy in stage T1 renal cell carcinoma patients between 2005 and 2015. Material and Method: Retrospective chart review of 409 patients who were diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma (T1) and treated with radical nephrectomy (RN) or partial nephrectomy (PN) between 2005 and 2015 (RN=136, PN=92); 228 patients with pathologically confirmed pT1 remained for analysis and were then evaluated for their estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) after the surgery. Results: There were a total of 228 (149 males and 79 females) T1 RCC patients; 136 patients were T1a with RN (57.8%) and 92 with PN (42.2%). Median follow-up was 58 months and 35 months for the RN and PN groups. From the analysis, post-operative eGFR of the RN group was decreased from 77.49 to 59.61 ml/min/1.73m2 and the PN group was decreased from 78.85 to 69.9 ml/min/1.73m2. The comparative eGFR between the 2 groups at 1 month had a significant difference (p-value<0.05). eGFR at 3 months (50.24 in RN vs 64.67 in PN), 6 months (47.98 vs 64.51), 3 years (48.79 vs 67.22) and 5 years (52.63 vs 73.59) were also significantly altered between the 2 groups. The tumor recurrence rate was not significantly different between RN and PN. Conclusion: We found that patients treated with PN had superior post-operative renal function compared with RN. However, there was no difference in the tumor recurrence rate between the 2 groups after a follow-up of 10 years.

Clinical efficacy and safety of bone cement combined with radiofrequency ablation in the treatment of spinal metastases

Background To investigate the clinical efficacy and safety of bone cement combined with radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in the treatment of spinal metastases. Methods The medical records of patients with spinal metastatic tumor admitted to our hospital from January 2016 to December 2018 were retrospectively analyzed. Based on different surgical methods, the patients were divided into groups A (treated with RFA combined with bone cement) and B (treated with bone cement only). Group A included 35 patients with 47 segments of diseased vertebral bodies. Group B consisted of 52 patients with 78 vertebral segments. Pain, quality of life score, vertebra height, bone cement leakage, postoperative tumor recurrence, and complications were assessed 3 days and 1 and 6 months after surgery. Results All the patients had smooth operation without paraplegia, spinal cord injury, and perioperative death. Visual analogue scales (VAS) and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) scores of the two groups significantly improved 3 days and 1 month after surgery compared with those before surgery (P < 0.05), but no significant difference was observed between the two groups (P > 0.05). Six months after surgery, the VAS and ODI scores of patients in group A were lower than those in group B, with statistically significant differences (P < 0.05). The postoperative vertebral body height of the two groups significantly increased compared with that before surgery, and the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). Meanwhile, no significant difference was observed between the two groups (P > 0.05). Postoperative bone cement permeability in group A was 6.4%, and postoperative tumor recurrence rate was 11.4%. The permeability of bone cement in group B was 20.5%, and the tumor recurrence rate was 30.8%. The bone cement permeability and tumor recurrence rate in group A were lower than those in group B, with statistically significant differences (P < 0.05). Conclusions Bone cement combined with RFA for the treatment of spinal metastases can achieve good efficacy, desirable analgesic effect, low incidence of complications, small surgical trauma, and high safety. The proposed method has the value of clinical popularization and application.

The Therapeutic Effect of the Combination of Intratumor Injection of Bleomycin and Electroresection/Electrocautery on the Hemangiomas in Hypopharynx and Larynx Through Suspension Laryngoscopy

Objectives: The treatment of hemangiomas in the hypopharynx and larynx can be challenging and stressful because of the high tumor recurrence rate. The objective of this study was to investigate the therapeutic effect of the combination of intratumor injection of bleomycin and electroresection/electrocautery on the hemangiomas in the hypopharynx and larynx through suspension laryngoscopy. Methods: With patients under general anesthesia, the hemangiomas were fully exposed through suspension laryngoscopy. After intratumor injection of bleomycin, in some patients, the hemangiomas were completely resected along the bottom of the tumor pedicle by polypus-forceps electroscalpel; for other patients, the hemangiomas were pinched and held, and then the whole-tumor tissues were cauterized and coagulated by the electroscalpel. Prior to commencing the study, all participants signed informed consents, and all procedures were approved by the hospital ethical committee. Results: There was almost no bleeding during the operations, no postoperative dyspnea, and no hemorrhage. The patients were followed up for 3 years; the 3-year cure rate was 97%. Conclusion: The hemangioma in the hypopharynx and larynx can be cured by a single-session treatment, using the combination of intratumor injection of bleomycin and electroresection/electrocautery through suspension laryngoscopy. Our method is reliable, affordable, and effective, and it could be widely applied in other hospitals.

Simple cholecystectomy versus radical resection for stage Ⅱ gallbladder cancer: a meta-analysis

Background: GBC was first reported more than two hundred years ago, but the poor therapeutic effect for GBC patients is still frustrating now, the 5-year survival rate is no more than 5%, and the mean survival time is only about half a year. The objective of this study was to evaluate the importance of radical resection in the treatment of Nevin II and T1b stage gallbladder cancer (stage II GBC) by analyzing the survival rate and tumor recurrence rate after accepting simple cholecystectomy (SC) and radical resection (RR).Methods: PubMed, Embase, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure and Wanfang databases was searched from inception to February 2016. Quality assessment was conducted in each of the available studies by using the validated Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale (NOS) for cohort and case-control studies. Publication bias was also assessed by using a funnel plot. The odds ratio (OR) and its 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were employed to estimated effect size. All statistical analyses were carried out using Rev Man 5.2 software.Results: A total of fifteen studies encompassing 424 patients meeting the search criteria were included. Pooled analyses revealed that comparing to simple cholecystectomy, radical resection can significantly increase the 1-, 3- and 5-year survival rate of patients with stage IIGBC (OR = 3.28, 95% CI: 1.83-5.89, P<0.0001; OR = 2.52, 95% CI: 1.49-4.28, P = 0.0006; OR = 3.19, 95% CI: 1.85-5.51, P<0.0001), and patients after radical resection have a significant lower tumor recurrence rate (OR = 0.30, 95% CI: 0.11-0.80, P = 0.02).Conclusions: The short- and long-term survival rate of patients with stage II GBC following radical resection is obviously higher than that of patients receiving simple cholecystectomy, and the tumor recurrence rate is obviously lower. Radical resection would be a better choice for stage IIGBC.

Transurethral Electric Coagulation Combined With Retroperitoneal Laparoscopic Nephroureterectomy for Upper Urinary Urothelial Carcinoma

Retroperitoneal laparoscopic nephroureterectomy (LNU) combined with transurethral electric resection of ipsilateral bladder cuff is widely accepted to treat the upper urinary tract urothelial carcinoma (UUT-UC). To reduce the local recurrence rate, we improved the procedure from electric resection to electric coagulation. From May 2008 to July 2012, of all the 156 retroperitoneal LNU patients, 76 cases (test group) were performed with LNU combined with electric coagulation, and 80 cases (control group) were with electric resection. For the clinical outcomes, the hospital stay in the test group was shorter (5.2 ± 2.6 days versus 8.2 ± 3.4 days; P &lt; 0.05), and the 1-year tumor recurrence rate was much lower (1.6% versus 13.3%, P &lt; 0.05). There was no difference in operation time and blood loss between groups. Retroperitoneal LNU combined with electric coagulation is technically feasible and safe with lower tumor recurrence rate and shorter hospital stay.