Our study failed to demonstrate any clear advantage of routine postoperative immunonutrition in patients undergoing elective upper gastrointestinal surgery. Both enteral and parenteral treatment options showed similar efficacy, tolerance, and effects on protein synthesis. Parenteral nutrition composed according to contemporary rules showed similar efficiency to enteral nutrition. However, because of its cost-efficiency, enteral therapy should be considered as the treatment of choice in all patients requiring nutritional therapy.

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to establish the influence of time interval between preoperative hyperfractionated radiotherapy (5 × 5 Gy) and surgery on long-term overall survival (5 years) and recurrence rate in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer operated on according to total mesorectal excision technique.MethodsThe treatment group comprised 154 patients with locally advanced rectal cancer who were operated on between 1999 and 2006 in the 1st Department of General Surgery, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland. The data on survival has been systematically collected until 31st of December 2010. In addition, the following aspects were analyzed: the significance of time interval between the end of radiotherapy and surgical treatment and its influence on downsizing, downstaging, rate of curative resections, and sphincter-sparing procedures. Patients were qualified to preoperative radiotherapy 5 × 5 Gy and then randomly assigned to subgroups with different time intervals between radiotherapy and surgery: one subgroup consisted of 77 patients operated on 7–10 days after the end of irradiation, and the second subgroup consisted of 77 patients operated on after 4–5 weeks. Both groups were homogenous in sex, age, cancer stage and localization, distal and circumferential resection margins, and number of resected lymph nodes.ResultsThe 5-year survival rate in patients operated on 7–10 days after irradiation was 63%, whereas in those operated on after 4–5 weeks, it was 73%—the difference was not statistically significant (log rank, p = 0.24). A statistically significant increase in 5-year survival rate was observed only in patients with downstaging after radiotherapy—90% in comparison with 60% in patients without response to neoadjuvant treatment (log rank, p = 0.004). Recurrence was diagnosed in 13.2% of patients. A lower rate of systemic recurrence was observed in patients operated on 4–5 weeks after the end of irradiation (2.8% vs. 12.3% in the subgroup with a shorter interval, p = 0.035). No differences in local recurrence rates were observed in both subgroups of irradiated patients (p = 0.119). The longer time interval between radiotherapy and surgery resulted in higher downstaging rate (44.2% vs. 13% in patients with a shorter interval, p = 0.0001) although it did not increase the rate of sphincter-saving procedures (p = 0.627) and curative resections (p = 0.132).ConclusionsImproved 5-year survival rate is observed only in patients with downstaging after preoperative irradiation dose of 25 Gy.Longer time interval after preoperative radiotherapy 25 Gy does not improve the rate of sphincter-saving procedures and curative resections (R0) despite higher downstaging rate observed in this regimen.

Postoperative immunomodulating enteral nutrition may reduce respiratory complications and postoperative mortality in comparison to standard enteral nutrition. Despite this effect, it did not improve 6-mo and 1-yr survival in immunomodulation group. Probably the beneficial effect of immunomodulating enteral nutrition is too weak to be significant in such a number of patients.

Expression of hENT, RRM1, and dCK genes provides important prognostic information for PDAC patients treated with adjuvant gemcitabine.

Background: The aim of this study was the analysis of the influence of prognostic factors on short-and long-term outcomes of gastric cancer resection. Patients and Methods: A database of 709 patients who had gastric cancer resection between 2007 and 2015 was compiled. Results: Total gastrectomy (TG) and subtotal proximal gastrectomy (SPG) significantly increased the risk of overall complications (p=0.0015 and 0.0173, respectively) and surgical complications (p=0.0141 and 0.0035, respectively). Moreover the resection of an additional organ was an independent prognostic factor of overall complications (p<0.0001), systemic complications (p=0.0503), surgical complications (p<0.0001) and relaparotomy (p=0.0259). T stage (p<0.0001), N stage (p<0.0001), M stage (p<0.0001) and radical resection (p<0.0001) significantly affected 5year survival rates. Conclusion: Early diagnosis and radical resection was crucial in 5-year survival rates. However, the type of gastrectomy and the resection of an additional organ were the most important factors in short-term outcomes of treatment for such patients.Gastric cancer is the second most common cancer of the gastrointestinal tract in the world. In 2020, the incidence of new cases of gastric cancer was estimated at 1,089,103, with a mortality rate of 768,793 people globally. Unlike East Asia, gastric cancer is a relatively rare neoplasm in North America and some highly developed countries in Western Europe. However, even there it is one of the most common causes of death from malignant neoplasms (1). In Poland, the number of deaths from gastric cancer reaches 5000 per year. In 2018, 3155 men and 1745 women died from this in our country (2).Currently, the majority of publications concern aspects of multimodal therapy with pre-and perioperative chemotherapy, even in the presence of oligometastasis. Nevertheless, surgical resection is still the most effective treatment for such patients, and the principles of surgery of gastric cancer are usually well established (3)(4)(5).Although data from a large number of articles reveals the impact of prognostic factors on the prognosis of patients with gastric cancer resection, survival is significantly improved by the effectiveness of surgical treatment measured by short-term outcomes. Most reports involving prognostic factors for patients after gastric cancer resection focus on the 5-year survival rate. There are no in detail articles on the influence of prognostic factors on short-term outcomes of treatment such as overall complications, systemic complications, surgical complications, relaparotomy and perioperative mortality (6-30). There are many prognostic factors that could affect the short-term outcomes of gastric cancer resection including gender, age, location, histologic type, tumour staging, type of gastrectomy, number of retrieved lymph nodes or resection of an additional organ.In this study we carried out univariate and multivariate analysis of prognostic factors which, in addition to long-term outcomes (5-year survival), also affecte...