R1cis increases the incidence of local recurrence and shortens postoperative survival in patients with early-stage cholangiocarcinoma, although this prognostic effect was less severe compared with R1inv. R1cis should be avoided as much as possible in surgery for early-stage cancer, although it may be allowed in advanced tumors.

Background: Little is known about the effect of additional resection for a frozen-section-positive distal bile duct margin (DM) in perihilar cholangiocarcinoma. Methods: Patients who underwent surgical resection for perihilar cholangiocarcinoma between 2001 and 2015 were analysed retrospectively, focusing on the DM. Results: Of 558 consecutive patients who underwent frozen-section examination for a DM, 74 (13⋅3 per cent) had a frozen-section-positive DM with invasive cancer or carcinoma in situ. Eventually, 53 patients underwent additional resection (bile duct resection in 44 and pancreatoduodenectomy in 9), whereas the remaining 21 patients did not. Ultimately, R0 resection was achieved in 30 of the 53 patients (57 per cent). No patient who underwent additional resection died from surgical complications. The 44 patients with additional bile duct resection had a 5-year overall survival rate of 31 per cent. Overall survival of the nine patients who had pancreatoduodenectomy was better, with a 10-year rate of 67 per cent. Survival of the 21 patients without additional resection was dismal: all died within 5 years. Multivariable analyses identified nodal status and additional resection as independent prognostic factors (lymph node metastasis: hazard ratio (HR) 2⋅26, 95 per cent c.i. 1⋅26 to 4⋅07; bile duct resection versus no additional resection: HR 0⋅32, 0⋅17 to 0⋅60; pancreatoduodenectomy versus no additional resection: HR 0⋅08, 0⋅02 to 0⋅29). Conclusion: Additional resection for frozen-section-positive DM in perihilar cholangiocarcinoma frequently yields R0 margins. It offers a better chance of long-term survival, and thus should be performed in carefully selected patients. Prognostic factors in patients with a frozen-section-positive distal marginPrognostic factors were analysed in the 74 patients with a frozen-section-positive DM ( Table 2). On univariable analysis, microscopic venous invasion, pathological tumour

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BackgroundKnowledge concerning palliative care and the associated skills, including effective pain control, is essential for surgeons who treat cancer patients in daily practice. This study focuses on a palliative care training course that has been mandatorily conducted for all surgical residents of our hospital since 2009.MethodsWe evaluated the effectiveness of our mandatory palliative care training course by conducting a retrospective study of the patients' medical records and participants' questionnaire results and discussed the importance of palliative care education for surgical residents.ResultsAll 12 surgical residents who participated in the course in 2009 had graduated 4–9 years back. They were assigned to look after a total of 92 cases (average, 7.66 cases per resident) during the course. The purpose of care in most cases (92.3%) was to mitigate pain. Introducing analgesic adjuvants such as gabapentin or amitriptyline accounted for the largest part of initial interventions (23.9%) aimed at controlling cancer pain, followed by changes in route of administration or doses of prior opioid analgesics (21.7%). Interventions with opioid analgesics were conducted most frequently (47.7%). The overall pain improvement rate was 89.1%. We used a questionnaire after the course to evaluate its effectiveness.ConclusionsThe surgical residents stated that it was a meaningful course through which they gained practical knowledge on palliative care and that the experience would change their approach to home care.

Intraductal neoplasms of the bile duct are macroscopically characterized by exophytic or polypoid growth patterns and have a favorable prognosis. Although some tumors with a predominantly tubular microscopic pattern have been reported, they have not been well characterized clinicopathologically. The purpose of the present study was to compare the newly recognized cholangiocarcinoma with an intraductal tubular growth pattern and cholangiocarcinoma with an intraductal papillary growth pattern and to investigate the pathological and prognostic significance of the former. This study analyzed 161 patients with tumors with exophytic or polypoid growth patterns from a large series of 733 cholangiocarcinoma cases surgically resected from January 1998 to May 2013. The study patients were divided into two groups: those whose tumors showed a predominantly tubular growth pattern (n = 52) and those whose tumors exhibited a predominantly papillary growth pattern (n = 109). Tubular growth pattern was associated with combined vascular resection and the absence of macroscopic mucin. Several histological indexes were significantly higher for the tubular growth pattern than the papillary one, including tubular adenocarcinoma, depth of invasion, microscopic lymphatic invasion, venous invasion, perineural invasion, and necrosis. Although the survival curves overlapped (P = 0.693), the rate of liver metastasis was significantly higher for the tubular growth pattern than for the papillary one (P = 0.012). Genomic DNA analysis focusing on somatic mutations in codons 12 and 13 of KRAS and codon 600 of BRAF revealed only one (4%) KRAS and no BRAF mutation among the 25 tubular cases examined. In conclusion, the tubular growth pattern exhibited differences in some histologic indexes, in addition to a higher hepatic metastasis rate and a lower KRAS mutation frequency, compared with the papillary growth pattern, but no difference in prognosis was observed. The distinctiveness of this tubular neoplasm should be further examined in the future.