Anticoagulation therapy prevents portal-splenic vein thrombosis after splenectomy with gastroesophageal devascularization

AIM:To compare the incidence of early portal or splenic vein thrombosis(PSVT) in patients treated with irregular and regular anticoagulantion after splenectomy with gastroesophageal devascularization.METHODS:We retrospectively analyzed 301 patients who underwent splenectomy with gastroesophageal devascularization for portal hypertension due to cirrhosis between April 2004 and July 2010.Patients were categorized into group A with irregular anticoagulation and group B with regular anticoagulation,respectively.Group A(153 patients) received anticoagulant monotherapy for an undesignated time period or with aspirin or warfarin without low-molecular-weight heparin(LMWH) irregularly.Group B(148 patients) received subcutaneous injection of LMWH routinely within the first 5 d after surgery,followed by oral warfarin and aspirin for one month regularly.The target prothrombin time/international normalized ratio(PT/INR) was 1.25-1.50.Platelet and PT/INR were monitored.Color Doppler imaging was performed to monitor PSVT as well as the effectiveness of thrombolytic therapy.RESULTS:The patients' data were collected and analyzed retrospectively.Among the patients,94 developed early postoperative mural PSVT,including 63 patients in group A(63/153,41.17%) and 31 patients in group B(31/148,20.94%).There were 50(32.67%) patients in group A and 27(18.24%) in group B with mural PSVT in the main trunk of portal vein.After the administration of thrombolytic,anticoagulant and antiaggregation therapy,complete or partial thrombus dissolution achieved in 50(79.37%) in group A and 26(83.87%) in group B.CONCLUSION:Regular anticoagulation therapy can reduce the incidence of PSVT in patients who undergo splenectomy with gastroesophageal devascularization,and regular anticoagulant therapy is safer and more effective than irregular anticoagulant therapy.Early and timely thrombolytic therapy is imperative and feasible for the prevention of PSVT.

Histopathological characteristics of needle core biopsy and surgical specimens from patients with solitary hepatocellular carcinoma or intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma

BACKGROUND Pathological manifestations of hepatic tumours are often associated with prognosis. Although surgical specimens(SS) can provide more information,currently, pre-treatment needle core biopsy(NCB) is increasingly showing important value in understanding the nature of liver tumors and even in diagnosis and treatment decisions. However, the concordance of the clinicopathological characteristics and immunohistochemical(IHC) staining between NCB and SS from patients with hepatic tumours were less concerned.AIM To introduce a more accurate method for interpreting the IHC staining results in order to improve the diagnostic value of hepatic malignancy in NCB samples.METHOD A total of 208 patients who underwent both preoperative NCB and surgical resection for hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) or intrahepatic cholangiocarcinomaRESULTS Morphologically, the presence of compact tumour nests or a cord-like structure in NCB was considered the primary cause of misdiagnosis of HCC from ICC. The kappa statistic showed a moderate agreement in histomorphology(k = 0.504) and histological grade(k = 0.488) between NCB and SS of the tumours. A 4-tier(+++,++, +, and-) scoring scheme that emphasized the focal neoplastic cell immunoreactivity of tumour cells revealed perfect concordance of CK19, GPC3 and HepPar1 between NCB and SS(k = 0.717; k = 0.768; k = 0.633). Furthermore,with the aid of a binary classification derived from the 4-tier score, a high concordance was achieved in interpreting the IHC staining of the three markers between NCB and final SS(k = 0.931; k = 0.907; k = 0.803), increasing the accuracy of NCB diagnosis C(k = 0.987; area under the curve = 0.997, 95%CI: 0.990-1.000; P< 0.001).CONCLUSION These findings imply that reasonable interpretation of IHC results in NCB is vital for improving the accuracy of tumour diagnosis. The simplified binary classification provides an easy and applicable approach.