Incidence of port-site metastasis after undergoing robotic surgery for biliary malignancies

AIM： To investigate the incidence of clinically detected port-site metastasis （PSM） in patients who underwent robotic surgery for biliary malignancies. METHODS： Using a prospective database, the patients undergoing fully robotic surgery for biliary malignan- cies between January 2009 and January 2011 were in- cluded. Records of patients with confirmed malignancy were reviewed for clinicopathological data and informa- tion about PSM. RESULTS： Sixty-four patients with biliary tract cancers underwent robotic surgery, and sixty patients met the inclusion criteria. The median age was 67 year （range： 40-85 year）. During a median 15-mo follow-up period, two female patients were detected solitary PSM after robotic surgery. The incidence of PSM was 3.3%. Pa- tient 1 underwent robotic anatomatic left hemihepa- tectomy and extraction of biliary tumor thrombi for an Klatskin tumor. She had a subcutaneous mass located at the right lateral abdominal wall near a trocar scar. Patient 2 underwent robotic pancreaticoduodenectomy for distal biliary cancer. She had two metachronous subcutaneous mass situated at the right lateral abdomi- nal wall under a same trocar scar at 7 and 26 mo. The pathology of the excised PSM masses confirmed meta- static biliary adenocarcinoma. CONCLUSION： The incidence of PSIVls after robotic surgery for biliary malignancies is relatively low, and biliary cancer can be an indication of robotic surgery.

Blood exosomal micro ribonucleic acid profiling reveals the complexity of hepatocellular carcinoma and identifies potential biomarkers for differential diagnosis

BACKGROUND Hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide,but there is a shortage of effective biomarkers for its diagnosis.AIM To explore blood exosomal micro ribonucleic acids(miRNAs)as potential biomarkers for HCC diagnosis.RESULTS The principal component analysis suggested that daily alcohol consumption could alter the blood exosomal miRNA profiles of hepatitis B virus positive non-HCC patients through miR-3168 and miR-223-3p.The miRNA profiles also revealed the tumor stages of HCC patients.High expression of miR-455-5p and miR-30c-5p,which significantly correlated with better overall survival in tumor tissues,could also be detected in blood exosomes.Two pairs of miRNAs(miR-584-5p/miR-106-3p and miR-628-3p/miR-941)showed a 94.1%sensitivity and 68.4%specificity to differentiate HCC patients from non-HCC patients.The specificity of the combination was substantially influenced by alcohol consumption habits.CONCLUSION This study suggested that blood exosomal miRNAs can be used as new noninvasive diagnostic tools for HCC.However,their accuracy could be affected by tumor stage and alcohol consumption habits.

Four-soliton solution and soliton interactions of the generalized coupled nonlinear Schrodinger equation

Based on the generalized coupled nonlinear Schr¨odinger equation,we obtain the analytic four-bright–bright soliton solution by using the Hirota bilinear method.The interactions among four solitons are also studied in detail.The results show that the interaction among four solitons mainly depends on the values of solution parameters;k1 and k2 mainly affect the two inboard solitons while k3 and k4 mainly affect the two outboard solitons;the pulse velocity and width mainly depend on the imaginary part of ki(i=1,2,3,4),while the pulse amplitude mainly depends on the real part of ki(i=1,2,3,4).