Rectal cancer is a common malignancy that continues to have a highly variable outcome, with local pelvic recurrence after surgical resection usually leading to incurable disease. The success of tumor excision depends largely upon accurate tumor staging and appropriate surgical technique, although the results of recent surgical trials indicate that evaluation of the involvement of the mesorectal...

PURPOSE The combination of radiotherapy and good quality surgery reduces local recurrence rate for rectal cancer patients. This study assesses the prognostic value of both intrinsic and radiotherapy-induced apoptosis and evaluates the relevance of radiotherapy for outcome of rectal cancer patients. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Tumor samples (1,198) were available from the Dutch Total Mesorectal Excisi...

A 67-year-old man was referred to our hospital with suspicion of rectal tumor, hilar tumor, and urinary tumor. Colonoscopic findings were intermittent nodular lesions with redness which were atypical to primary rectal cancer. Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography showed narrowing of the bilateral intrahepatic bile duct. However, the findings were improved 1 month later. Blood biochemis...

Three cases of incidental carcinoid tumors have been identified in the surgical margin of rectal adenocarcinoma resection specimens. In all cases the rectal carcinoids exhibited low-risk features, such as a tumor size <10 mm, no muscularis propria invasion and no lymph node involvement. No further excision was conducted and the three cases were followed up for 38, 26 and 14 months, respectively...

BACKGROUND Rectal leiomyosarcoma (LMS) is an extremely rare disease. Previously, LMS was not properly distinguishable from gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) until c-kit, a characteristic marker of GIST, was discovered in 1998. No standard therapeutic strategy for gastrointestinal LMS has been established except for surgical resection because of its rarity. Rectal LMS is often accompanied by...

UNLABELLED Optimal management of asymptomatic generalized rectal cancer is still the matter of debate. The aim of the study was to review stage IV rectal cancer patients who were treated in our clinic since 2000 till 2008 in order to evaluate the effectiveness of surgery. MATERIAL AND METHODS Fifty-two generalized rectal cancer patients treated with elective resection of primary tumor were id...

A 65-year-old woman who had undergone surgery for rectal cancer was referred to our hospital with an abnormal shadow on chest X-ray. Chest computed tomography (CT) revealed a 3-cm-diameter mass with ill-defined margins in the left lower lobe and a well-defined, 1-cm-diameter, round nodule in the right upper lobe. Transbronchial lung biopsy (TBLB) of the left lung tumor revealed metastatic adeno...

Granular cell tumor is a rare benign neoplasm most commonly appears in the head and neck region, especially in the tongue, cheek mucosa, and palate. Occurrence in limbs is even rarer. These tumors account for approximately 0.5% of all soft tissue tumors. Granular cell tumor can also affect other organs including skin, breast, and lungs. Local recurrence and metastasis is potentially higher in m...

PURPOSE We aimed to prospectively determine if analyzing pre- and post-chemoradiotheraphy (CRT) changes in the signal intensity (SI) and apperent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values from diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) can accurately predict complete responders for locally advanced rectal cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS Thirty patients (mean age, 54.3 years) with locally a...