A two-year retrospective study (January 1995 to December 1996) of 328 patients who underwent outpatient postoperative choledochoscopy is reported, 299 patients (91.2%) had retained biliary stones and 90 patients (30.1%) had stones located at the common bile duct. One hundred fourteen patients (46.8%) had primary stones. One hundred fourteen patients (38.1%) with multiple stones found at several locations required an average of 2 postoperative choledochoscopic sessions for complete clearance of biliary tree. Our overall clearance rate was 87 per cent. Only 8 patients (2.54%) had morbidities consisting of hemobilia and pain. (Author)

Human ; Hemobilia ; Common Bile Duct ; Cholelithiasis ; Biliary Tract ; Biliary Tract Surgical Procedures ; Pain

RATIONALE: The liver is the most common site of metastasis from colorectal cancer. Curative intent liver metastasectomy has shown improvement in overall survival. This manuscript will present the long-term oncologic outcomes of hepatic metastasectomy for colorectal cancer with resectable liver metastasis. METHODS: Data of patients with resectable liver metastases from colorectal cancer who underwent hepatic resection at the Philippine General Hospital over a 10-year period was reviewed. The primary outcome investigated was overall survival. RESULTS: Thirty patients were included in the study. The median overall survival was 20 months, with a 2-year and 5-year overall survival rate of 40% and 6.67% respectively. Eleven (36.67%) patients had disease recurrence, with a median disease-free survival of 16 months. A significant difference in survival was seen between patients with synchronous and metachronous liver metastasis (20.38 and 36.78 months respectively, p=0.0393) and in patients given adjuvant chemotherapy at any time in relation to the occurrence of the liver metastases versus patients who did not receive any adjuvant treatment (34.08 and 18.59 months respectively, p=0.0349). Trends towards improved overall survival were seen in patients 50 years old or less (36.86 versus 21.78 months, p=0.0837) and in patients with a clinical risk score of 2 or less (29.65 versus 19.62 months, p=0.1823), which may show significance in a higher powered study CONCLUSION Improved overall survival was observed among patients with colorectal liver metastases undergoing hepatic metastasectomy compared to no liver resection.
Metastasectomy ; Philippines

Background: Periampullary malignancies traditionally occur during the later decades of life, but casual observations at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) have shown more patients presenting at younger ages. Updates on the epidemiology and clinical features of these uncommon cancers may improve detection and result in better outcomes. Objective: The study aimed to describe the current epidemiology of adult patients diagnosed with periampullary malignancies seen in the past five years at the PGH Department of Surgery. Methods: Demographic and clinical data were obtained on patients with either pancreatic head, ampullary, distal bile duct, or duodenal cancer diagnosed from 2015 to 2019. Age and sex distributions, rates of symptom presentation, utilization of diagnostic modalities, and prevalence of comorbid conditions were analyzed per individual primary site and for the entire study population. Results: Two hundred seventy-seven patients were included in the study, comprised mostly of pancreatic head cancers (56.32%) followed by ampullary (19.86%), duodenal (9.75%), and distal CBD cancers (7.58%). The mean age of presentation was 59.30 years. 33.94% of cases occurred in the 6th decade of life, while 24.91% of patients were aged 50 years and below. There was a nearly equal distribution by sex (50.90% female, 49.10% male). Majority of patients presented with jaundice (89.65%) and abdominal pain (71.64%). CT scan was used to diagnose 71.48% of patients. We observed a higher prevalence of diabetes mellitus (21.32%), biliary stone disease (19.12%), and smoking history (36.88%) in the study group compared to the general Philippine population. Conclusion The epidemiology of periampullary malignancies at UP-PGH showed a younger age at presentation and an equal sex ratio compared to published data. Distributions of the primary sites, symptom frequency, and rate of associated comorbidities were consistent with previous findings from the literature.
Epidemiology

Pancreatic pseudoaneurysms are possible complications of chronic pancreatitis. These may present as hemosuccus pancreaticus, a rare cause of upper gastrointestinal tract bleeding where a pseudoaneurysm erodes into an adjacent pseudocyst or pancreatic duct, manifesting as bleeding through the pancreatic duct into the duodenal papilla. We report a case of a 32-year-old male with a history of chronic pancreatitis presenting as intermittent upper gastrointestinal tract bleeding secondary to hemosuccus pancreaticus from a pancreatic pseudoaneurysm. The patient underwent multiple sessions of endovascular embolization, which successfully controlled the bleeding despite some failed attempts; thus, a potentially morbid last-resort surgery was avoided.
pseudoaneurysm ; chronic pancreatitis

Background: Metastatic pancreatic and periampullary adenocarcinoma is associated with a poor prognosis, with a life expectancy of less than one year at diagnosis, a 5-year survival rate of only 1-2%, and a median survival of 3 to 6 months. In the Philippines, pancreatic cancer is the 14th most common cancer and the 8th leading cause of cancer-related death, with over 153,000 cases and 92,600 deaths reported in 2020. Current literature suggests that in carefully selected patients, synchronous resection of primary pancreatic and periampullary adenocarcinoma with liver metastases can yield favorable surgical outcomes with low morbidity and mortality. However, survival outcome data for such cases within the Philippine population remain limited. Objective: To evaluate survival rates in patients with pancreatic and periampullary adenocarcinoma with oligometastasis who underwent pancreatic resection and metastasectomy at the Philippine General Hospital from 2011 to 2021. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted using data collected from the Department of Surgery’s electronic medical records, cross-referenced with the Philippine Statistics Authority’s death registry. Inclusion criteria included patients aged 19 and above with histologically confirmed pancreatic and periampullary adenocarcinoma with three or fewer metastases. Descriptive statistics were calculated, and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was used to determine overall survival rates. Results: Of the patients reviewed, 75% were female, with a median age of diagnosis of 60 years. Tumor locations included the pancreatic head (50% of cases), ampullary region (37.5%), and pancreatic body/tail (12.5%). The 1-year survival rate was 62.5%, the 2-year survival rate was 25%, and the median overall survival was 17.3 months, with a range from 7 to 28.8 months. Conclusion The findings suggest that synchronous resection of primary tumors and metastases may offer survival benefits for selected patients with metastatic pancreatic and periampullary cancers. However, further prospective clinical trials are necessary to confirm the potential survival advantage of this approach in a broader population.
metastasectomy

RATIONALE/OBJECTIVE

Hepatic Resection (HR) has emerged as a potentially curative treatment for HCC, particularly in Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer – B (BCLC-B) patients, even though Transarterial Chemoembolization (TACE) is the standard of care according to the BCLC staging system. This study aimed to investigate the characteristics, survival rates and outcomes of patients who underwent HR for HCC BCLC-B at a single center over a 10-year period.

METHODS

Patients who were diagnosed HCC BCLC-B and had undergone HR from January 2011 to December 2021 were analyzed. Only complete records with long-term follow-up were included in the study. The authors described patient characteristics, calculated overall survival rates, and assessed associations between patient, disease factors, and survival.

RESULTS

Of 344 patients who underwent HR, 20 of them had complete records with long-term follow-up. This cohort had a median age of 57, predominantly male (70%), exhibiting a median alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) level of 230.5 ng/mL and an average of 4 nodules. Lymphovascular invasion was evident in 65%, with 85% displaying negative primary tumor margins. Major hepatectomy was the primary procedure (50%), followed by bisegmentectomy (40%) and trisegmentectomy (10%). The 1, 2 and 3-year survival rates post-hepatic resection (HR) for HCC BCLC-B stood at 65%, 35% and 25% respectively.

CONCLUSION

The study shows that the institution’s treatment approach for BCLC-B HCC patients achieved acceptable 3-year survival rates, and the median overall survival rate observed are comparable with global data. This study highlights hepatic resection as a potential curative option for BCLC-B HCC patients.

Human ; Carcinoma, Hepatocellular ; Survival Rate ; Hepatectomy