J. Van Dam

Detection of preinvasive cancer cells

More than 85% of all cancers originate in the epithelium that lines the internal surfaces of organs throughout the body. Although these are readily treatable provided they are diagnosed in one of the preinvasive stages, early lesions are often almost impossible to detect. Here we present a new optical-probe technique based on light-scattering spectroscopy that is able to detect precancerous and early cancerous changes in cell-rich epithelia.

Clinical outcome of the use of enteral stents for palliation of patients with malignant upper GI obstruction

BACKGROUNDnThe endoscopically placed enteral stent has emerged as a reasonable alternative to palliative surgery for malignant intestinal obstruction. This is a report of our experience with the use of enteral stents for nonesophageal malignant upper GI obstruction.nnnMETHODSnData on all patients who had undergone enteral stent placement were reviewed. Those with a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer were compared with another similar cohort of patients who underwent palliative gastrojejunostomy.nnnRESULTSnThirty-one procedures were performed on 29 patients (mean age 67.7 years). Thirteen (45%) were men and 16 (55%) women. The diagnoses were gastric (13.8%), duodenal (10.3%), pancreatic (41.4%), metastatic (27.6%), and other malignancies (6.9%). Malignant obstruction occurred at the pylorus (20.7%), first part of duodenum (37.9%), second part of duodenum (27.6%), third part of duodenum (3.5%), and anastomotic sites (10.3%). Twenty-nine (93.5%) procedures were successful and good clinical outcome was achieved in 25 (80.6%). Re-obstruction by tumor ingrowth occurred in 2 patients after a mean of 183 days. The median survival time for patients with pancreatic cancer who underwent enteral stent placement compared with those who underwent surgical gastrojejunostomy was 94 and 92 days, charges were

Observation of Periodic Fine Structure in Reflectance from Biological Tissue: A New Technique for Measuring Nuclear Size Distribution

9921 and

Non-optical, wire-guided echoscope (Esophagoprobe) markedly increases the rate of complete staging in patients with esophageal carcinoma

28,173, and duration of hospitalization was 4 and 14 days, respectively (latter 2 differences with p value < 0.005).nnnCONCLUSIONnEndoscopic enteral stent placement of nonesophageal malignant upper GI obstruction is a safe, efficacious, and cost-effective procedure with good clinical outcome, lower charges, and shorter hospitalization period than the surgical alternative.