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RJ Maureꢀe y col. Abordaje laparoscópico del cáncer de colon con metástasis hepáꢂcas . Rev Argent Cirug 2019;111(4):245-267
regard to the first question about disease progression, I will
repeat once again: the selection was so strict because most
of these patients underwent surgery without chemotherapy.
They had one or two simultaneous nodules. But answering
Dr. Lendoire’s question, the results were not favorable
in terms of the recurrence-free zone because we did not
select patients with chemotherapy that would have had a
better outcome; we included high risk patients, many with
T3, T4, N1 disease and those are the patients with poor
outcomes. That’s why a recurrence-free survival of 16% was
not high. And as for the lack of manual palpation, one of the
things we do is check the images thoroughly, not only the
tomography scan but also the diffusion weighted magnetic
resonance imaging, and we try to make a diagram and mark
well where the lesions are, where they were and where they
are, where they were before chemotherapy (not in this case)
and where they are in order to look for them. This is helpful
for laparoscopic ultrasound because we change the position
of the transducer in a convenient incidence to look for the
lesions and we see very small lesions. There is a diagram of
a cyst with a lesion that measures 1 centimeter and we use
the suprahepatic veins and the cysts as reference, until we
find the lesion. But sometimes we don’t find it and we have
to introduce our hand; if we have to convert, we do so. We
always tell the patients that if it is the procedure is not safe
for their lives, if it is not an oncologically safe procedure, we
will not use the laparoscopic approach. We can start with
laparoscopy and, if necessary, we convert to open surgery.
But yes, we can use the hand.
Oscar M. Mazza: Firstly, I want to join in the congratulations
on this work and for bringing it to the Academia. I will ask
you about the management strategy because I believe it is
something we share in this institution, a simultaneous and
laparoscopic approach if possible. But I wanted to go a little
further into the design of the study and ask some pending
questions. You started saying that you could not find any
randomized prospective trial supporting any strategy; I
believe that this prospective trial will never exist; it will be
very difficult nowadays to find experienced centers in colon
and liver surgery, performing minor resections by open
surgery. It would be very difficult to justify an open procedure
in everyday practice when another strategy is technically
feasible. But you start from a rather ambitious premise of
trying to demonstrate a null hypothesis: the simultaneous
laparoscopic colon and liver approach is worse than the open
approach. One tries to ignore this null hypothesis which is
difficult to answer in a series of patients; therefore, the first
question is: how many patients similar to those you operated
on at the institution during the study period underwent open
surgery, perhaps by natural selection of the treating team or
by the surgeons’ preference? Because that population could
be used as controls in another study. In our institution, the
laparoscopic approach is similar to the open approach and
is just as safe; therefore, we can rule out the null hypothesis
because, among your conclusions, you say that the approach
is safe but you show an incidence of anastomotic leaks
of 14.5-15% versus a historical incidence of 7.9%. Does
that historic 7.9% correspond to colon surgery alone or to
simultaneous colon surgery with open rectal surgery? And
the third and almost existential question is that, in view of
that 14% of anastomotic leaks, have you taken any measure
in your daily practice to protect the anastomosis?
but I do not have the exact number of open surgeries, but
the number of laparoscopic sequential surgeries will be
presented at the Congress, God willing. Anyway, the number
is small. And I completely agree: prospective studies are very
difficult to carry out; there are two prospective studies with
results in ORANGE and COMET-OSLO. In both, no differences
were observed with regards to both types of approaches;
but we all know that the biologies are very different in each
patient. Tumors can be more aggressive, more differentiated
or N1, with K-RAS or without mutations. It is not just about
tumor anatomy, of a single lesion or an uncomplicated tumor,
so I think it is very difficult to perform a well conducted
randomized study, but it is worth trying. And with respect
to anastomotic leaks, this work, as I have said, is biased due
to the low number of patients and the long period of time
involved. Only one of the three anastomotic leaks resolved
spontaneously and two required percutaneous drainage. Two
of them occurred in the rectum; that is why we are so cautious
with the rectum, but if we consider only two dehiscences, the
percentage falls to almost 7%; then it is very difficult. We ask
ourselves if the approach only increases the development of
dehiscences or also of perihepatic collections. In those two
bowel reconstructions we also had a fluid collection. We
don’t have an answer for that.
Emilio G. Quiñonez: First of all, I congratulate Dr. Maurette
for the presentation of the work and I also thank him for
sending me the manuscript for reading. I believe that,
besides the approach used, one must be convinced that the
simultaneous surgery is the treatment of choice. Since the
study published 15 years ago by the Hospital Italiano in the
Journal of the American College of Surgeons in 2002, many
coloproctologists and liver surgeons still doubt about this type
of procedure due to training issues, but we are absolutely
convinced that this is a very good approach. I think that the
approach is very interesting to discuss in the Academia, but
we should first think which strategy to use rather than focus
on the simultaneous approach. Unfortunately, one has to
adapt to the environment where one works beyond one’s
beliefs; our hospital is a high-complexity healthcare center
and receives patients referred from other institutions, so
probably many of our patients have undergone resection
of the primary tumor before arriving at our hospital and we
cannot perform the simultaneous approach as we would
like. I have two questions to ask. First question: the average
hospital length of stay was 8 days, which is quite similar to
our results in open surgery. Although these groups are not
comparable, in your experience, if these time intervals are
prolonged, do you think you can improve the length of stay or
is it related with other aspects that do not emerge from work?
The second question is left for reflection: at a time when
cost-effectiveness is discussed, both in public and private
healthcare systems, I would like to ask you if you feel that,
independently of the advantages from the medical-care point
of view, costs will be higher with the laparoscopic approach,
and one should discuss in a not too distant future whether
these costs justify this type of approach. Of course, in my
opinion, and in the opinion of the unit where I work, it clearly
has advantages, but I would like to know your appreciation.
Thank you very much.
Rafael J. Maurette: Thank you very much, Dr. Quiñonez. I
agree with what Dr. De Santibañes said at the beginning: this
is changing and it’s going to keep on changing. Nowadays,
the oncologist requests: “Do not operate, let me do three
cycles of chemotherapy, and see how the patient responds”.
Even for accessible lesions, because that selects tumor
aggressiveness and biology, and the incidence of recurrence
will no longer be of 16% because nowadays most patients
undergo three months of chemotherapy, unless the lesion
is very small. In the meantime, if complications develop, we
do not use stents, we resect the tumor. Two years ago, we
implanted stents to all the patients; things have evolved and
I don’t know if the indication of the simultaneous approach
will be the same in 3-4 years. Maybe the indication changes
with these targeted treatments, but this approach is possible
Rafael J. Maurette: Thank you very much, Dr. Mazza. We
would have liked so, and in fact we will present a study at
the Argentine Congress of Surgery comparing simultaneous
laparoscopic approach with sequential approach in
synchronous metastases. We have some cases approached
by laparoscopy and our colorectal surgeons have great
experience with laparoscopic colectomy, so they usually
start with laparoscopy. Liver resection is quite difficult and
implies a major hepatectomy, so colorectal surgeons start
and then we continue via a comfortable subcostal incision.
Sometimes, in cases of open surgery, a right-sided incision
is used for both right hemicolectomy and hepatectomy