BackgroundRobotic-assisted laparoscopy is popularly performed for colorectal disease. The objective of this meta-analysis was to compare the safety and efficacy of robotic-assisted colorectal surgery (RCS) and laparoscopic colorectal surgery (LCS) for colorectal disease based on randomized controlled trial studies.MethodsLiterature searches of electronic databases (Pubmed, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library) were performed to identify randomized controlled trial studies that compared the clinical or oncologic outcomes of RCS and LCS. This meta-analysis was performed using the Review Manager (RevMan) software (version 5.2) that is provided by the Cochrane Collaboration. The data used were mean differences and odds ratios for continuous and dichotomous variables, respectively. Fixed-effects or random-effects models were adopted according to heterogeneity.ResultsFour randomized controlled trial studies were identified for this meta-analysis. In total, 110 patients underwent RCS, and 116 patients underwent LCS. The results revealed that estimated blood losses (EBLs), conversion rates and times to the recovery of bowel function were significantly reduced following RCS compared with LCS. There were no significant differences in complication rates, lengths of hospital stays, proximal margins, distal margins or harvested lymph nodes between the two techniques.ConclusionsRCS is a promising technique and is a safe and effective alternative to LCS for colorectal surgery. The advantages of RCS include reduced EBLs, lower conversion rates and shorter times to the recovery of bowel function. Further studies are required to define the financial effects of RCS and the effects of RCS on long-term oncologic outcomes.

Most primary intestinal natural killer (NK)-cell and T-cell lymphomas (PINKTL) in the Northern Europe are enteropathy-associated T-cell lymphomas, a complication of celiac disease, which is rare in the East. Primary intestinal NK-cell lymphoma is extremely rare and is poorly characterized. We investigated 30 cases of PINKTL from Taiwan with male: female at 2:1, median age at 55.5, 80% with jejunal/ileal involvement, 77% with perforation, 27% with multicentric tumors, and 67% at stage IE. All 7 cases tested for serum IgA anti-tissue transglutaminase were negative. Only 3 (10%) tumors showed enteropathy. Six (20%) were NK-cell lymphoma and 24 (80%) were T-cell lymphoma. The tumor cells in 21/30 (70%) cases were small to medium sized, which correlated with the coexpression of both CD8 and CD56. All tumors expressed at least 1 cytotoxic marker. All 6 NK-cell lymphomas were negative for betaF1, diffusely positive for Epstein-Barr virus-encoded mRNA (EBER), and polyclonal for T-cell receptor gene rearrangement. Five (22%) of the 24 T-cell tumors expressed betaF1, 8 (35%) of the 23 tumors were positive for EBER, and 20 (95%) of the 21 tumors were clonal for T-cell receptor. The overall 1-year survival was 36%. Univariate regression analysis showed that NK-cell lineage, multicentricity, and perforation were associated with poor prognosis. NK-cell lineage (P=0.037) was a poor prognostic factor by multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression analysis. PINKTL in Taiwan is predominantly not enteropathic with a high frequency of perforation, small to medium tumor cell size and cytotoxic phenotype. Primary intestinal NK-cell lymphoma carries a very poor prognosis, and is probably a distinct entity.

Carbonic anhydrase IX (CAIX) is reportedly overexpressed in several types of carcinomas and is generally considered a marker of malignancy. The current study investigated the association between membrane expression of CAIX and the clinicopathological characteristics in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) patients. The study used immunohistochemistry to examine CAIX expression in 271 OSCC specimens by tissue microarray (TMA) and assessed the effect of CAIX overexpression and knockdown on migration of oral cancer cells in vitro. We found that CAIX expression was associated with more advanced clinical stages (p = 0.030) and positive lymph node metastasis (p = 0.026). Importantly, CAIX expression was correlated with a poorer patient prognosis in a univariate survival analysis (p = 0.025). Moreover, CAIX suppression by small interfering RNA (siRNA) significantly reduced cellular migration in OECM-1 oral cancer cell. In conclusion, our study showed that the expression of CAIX in OSCC samples can predict the progression of OSCC and survival of OSCC patients in Taiwan.