• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.265-272
• /
• 2021

Purpose: Hypertrophic pyloric stenosis (HPS) is the most common cause of gastric obstruction in newborns. Extra-mucosal pyloromyotomy can be performed through a small laparotomy or laparoscopy. The aim of this study was to compare the two surgical techniques. We also analyzed the incidence of HPS in infants in the last 10 years in relation to the demographic trend of our province. Methods: We analyzed all the cases of HPS treated at our Unit between January 2010 and December 2019. The data were obtained from operating systems. Data about the demographic trends, in particular, the number of births and the population residing in the province of Verona from 2010 to 2019, were also retrieved. Results: During the study period, 60 patients were treated for HPS and met the inclusion criteria. Of these, 56 males and 4 females with an average age of 38±14 days at surgery were included. No differences were found in terms of the duration of surgery, post-operative complications, duration of hospitalization, and weight at the time of surgery. The only statistically significant data was the chlorine level in cases with and without post-operative vomiting (97±3.5 vs. 102±3.3 mmol/L, p<0.05). There was a lower incidence of HPS from 2014 to 2019; however, there was no significant evidence regarding the correlation between this and the reduced birth rate recorded in the province of Verona during the same period. Conclusion: Although laparoscopic pyloromyotomy is a highly complex procedure, it is a feasible alternative to the classic open technique.

• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.351-354
• /
• 2018

Congenital antral webs are a rare but relevant cause of gastric outlet obstruction in infants and children. The condition may lead to feeding refusal, vomiting, and poor growth. Due to the relative rarity of the disease, cases of congenital antral web are frequently misdiagnosed or diagnosed with significant delay as physicians favorably pursue diagnoses of pyloric stenosis and gastric ulcer disease, which are more prevalent. We report a case of an eight-month-old female who presented with persistent non-bilious emesis, feeding difficulties, and failure to thrive and was discovered to have an antral web. The web was successfully treated with endoscopic balloon dilation, which resolved her symptoms. Two years later, the patient remains asymptomatic and is thriving with weight at the 75th percentile for her age.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.82-87
• /
• 2007

Purpose: In gastric cancer patients with gastric outlet obstruction, there are several complications such as malnutrition and vomiting. Palliative enteral stenting is a less invasive procedure as compared with a gastrojejunostomy. The aim of this study was to determine whether there was a significant difference between patients that undergone palliative enteral slanting and patients that had received a bypass gastrojejunostomy. Materials and Methods: One hundred patients underwent palliative entering stenting and 3f patients were subjected to a surgical bypass gastrojejunostomy. We reviewed the medical records of the patients with gastric outlet obstruction secondary to far advanced gastric cancer that were diagnosed using a gastrofibroscope, UGI and abdominal CT, and were admitted to our institution between January 2000 and August 2006. The outcome of stent placement for gastric outlet obstruction was compared with palliative gastrojejunostomy during the same period. We excluded patients with recurrent gastric cancer and double cancer from this study. Results: There were significant differences between the group of patients that underwent slanting and the group of patients that received a gastrojejunostomy regarding the age of patients ($67{\pm}12$ vs. $57{\pm}9$, P<0.001) but not between the sex of the patients (M : F, 2 : 1 vs. 2 :1, P=0.637). The most common complication of stenting was tumor ingrowth (16/100, 16%) and the second most common complication was stent migration (14/100). Failure of the procedure occurred in only three patients. Twenty-three patients underwent re-slanting and one patient required open conversion with a gastrojejunostomy. The median time to the first meal was $4{\pm}2$ days in the stent group of patients and $6{\pm}2$ days in the gastrojejunostomy group of patients (P=0.001). The median postoperative hospital stays were 9 days in the stent group of patients and 15 days in the gastrojejunostomy group of patients (P=0.003). The mean survival periods were 11 months in the stent group of patients and 10 months in the gastrojejunostomy group of patients (P=0.937). Conclusion: There were no significant differences In the mean survival rates. An earlier first meal and a shorter hospitalization stay were found in the slanting group of patients compared to the bypass gastrojejunostomy group of patients. However, re-slanting was a concern due to tumor ingrowth and stent migration.

• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.89-92
• /
• 2000

Acute gastric volvulus is uncommon but surgically emergent. Normally, the stomach is held in position by four ligaments: gastrophrenic, gastrohepatic, gastrosplenic, and gastrocolic. In addition, relative fixation of the pylorus and esophagus provides further anchorage. A normal diaphragm also helps to prevent abnormal displacement of abdominal viscera and development of gastric volvulus. Volvulus may be organoaxial, mesenteroaxial, or a combination of both. Organoaxial volvulus is the rotation of the stomach around an axis extending from the hiatus of the diaphragm to the pylorus. Mesenteroaxial volvulus is the rotation of the stomach around an axis transecting the lesser and greater curvatures of the stomach. The symptoms of gastric volvulus depend on its type, the extent and degree of rotation and obstruction, and associated defects. Classic clinical features of acute gastric volvulus, as by Borchardt in 1904, include unproductive retching, acute, localized epigastric distention, and the inability to pass a NG tube. The presence and severity of these features depend on the degree of gastric obstruction of both the gastroesophageal junction and pyloric outlet. It may be suspected on plain abdominal radiographs and usually confirmed by upper gastrointestinal series. Acute volvulus requires immediate surgical repair, fixation to avoid recurrence, and correction of any underlying anatomic abnormality. Any associate defect should be repaired and the stomach must be fixed. The authors report a case of an 3-year-old girl who had a mesenterioaxial gastric volvulus.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.1-5
• /
• 2009

In the past, conservative bypass surgery was usually performed for palliation of malignant obstruction of the gastrointestinal tract. However, endoscopic stenting was developed recently, and technical advances and clinical experience have made it possible to establish stent implantation as one of the main treatment options. There are several advantages in stent implantation over bypass surgery, such as high feasibility and technical success rate, non-invasiveness, rapid symptomatic response, short hospitalization, and cost-effect benefits. Complications, such as stent ingrowth, stent injury by bile or acid, and migration, may occur and early re-insertion is frequently needed. Recently, diverse novel stents which are powered to predict stent migration or ingrowth have been developed and are being used in the clinical setting. In general, stent implantation is known to be beneficial in patients who are expected to survive <6 months, and surgical bypass may be more effective in patients who can survive >6 months. In this review, we have compared the technical feasibility, clinical outcomes, complications, and cost-benefit between stent implantation and bypass surgery, and determined the optimal treatment strategy in malignant upper gastrointestinal obstruction.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
• /
• v.37 no.10
• /
• pp.856-860
• /
• 2004

Interrupted aortic arch with concomitant intracardiac defects is a rare congenital anomaly that has an unfavorable natural course. We report a successful staged operation of interrupted aortic arch with apical muscular ventricular septal defect associating esophageal atresia with tracheoesophageal fistula in a 3-day-old neonate weighing 2.6 kg. We repaired esophageal atresia through the right thoracotomy and subsequently performed extended end-to-end anastomosis of the aortic arch with pulmonary artery banding through the left thoracotomy at same operation. The apical muscular VSD was repaired 87 day after first operation. The patient required multiple additional interventions before closure of the apical muscular ventricular septal defect, such as pyloromyotomy for idiopathic hypertrophic pyloric stenosis, anterior aortopexy for airway obstruction, and balloon aortoplasty for residual coarctation. She is now doing well.

• Journal of Digestive Cancer Research
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.39-41
• /
• 2015

We report a case of long term survival on trastuzumab based treatment. A 51-year-old man with dyspepsia received esophagogastroduodenoscopy on another hospital and was transferred for further evaluation under the impression of advanced gastric cancer, Borrmann type III, antrum, lesser curvature. After further studies in our hospital, the patient was diagnosed with advanced gastric cancer, adenocarcinoma, moderately differentiated with pancreas invasion and lymph node metastasis. Though he was recommended with chemotherapy, he refused and left for oriental herbal medicine. After 4 months, the patient was admitted through emergency room for hematemesis. Diagnosed with gastric outlet obstruction due to gastric cancer in the antrum, he underwent the placement of pyloric metal stent insertion. Immunohistochemical staining showed HER2-positive finding, and he was treated with palliative chemotherapy of trastuzumab, capecitabine, and cisplatin, 16 times during 11 months. The patient showed neutropenia after the therapy, so cisplatin was left out, and he received combination chemotherapy of trastuzumab and capecitabine, 34 times during 25 months. Response evaluation showed no remarkable change in extent of primary stomach cancer, lymph node metastasis, and regression of metastasis site, and the patient is continuing chemotherapy.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
• /
• v.31 no.4
• /
• pp.857-869
• /
• 2010

Objectives : The aim of this study was to evaluate whether rats with non-obstructive antral dilation could be a useful tool resembling functional dyspeptic patients. We also investigated the effect of Bojoongikki-tang (BJ), and Youngkaechulgam-tang (YK) in antral dilated rats. Methods : Non-obstructive antral dilation was performed by first wrapping a non-absorbable rubber ring (D:6mm, W:4mm, T:1mm) around the 1st portion of the duodenum causing pyloric obstruction (PO). After 12 weeks, except for some PO group rats used for the control, the rubber ring was removed by performing another operation. The antral dilated rats (AD) were then divided into three groups, a non-treatment group (AD-NT), and two herbal medicine groups each given an extract solution containing 125 mg/kg of Youngkaechulgam-tang (AD-YK) or Bojoongikki-tang (AD-BJ) for 4 weeks. Then gastric contractility was evaluated by bowel sound measurement, and afterwards the changes of the weight, and morphologic changes of the stomach were evaluated for each group including the normal intact group (NI). Results : Loss of weight and enlargement of the stomach surface area was seen in the PO group. Decrease of gastric motility index was observed in the AD-NT group, while the increased surface area of the stomach was not significantly different from the PO group. Youngkaechulgam-tang seemed to increase gastric contraction, whereas Bojoongikki-tang showed no effect. Weight gain of rats was observed in both the AD-YK and AD-BJ groups, but there seemed to be no change of the dilated stomach surface area. Conclusions : The non-obstructive antral dilated rat seems to be an experimental pathologic model that reflects the gastric dysmotility similar to functional dyspeptic patients with antral dilation. Therefore patients with dysmotility-like dyspepsia with antral function disorders should be treated efficiently. As Youngkaechulgam-tang is shown to increase both gastric contraction and weight in antral dilated rats, it may be used for treating functional dyspepsia. However, Bojoongikki-tang should be used with caution in patients with gastric dysmotility.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
• /
• v.10 no.3
• /
• pp.141-148
• /
• 2010

We have always attempted to create a standard treatment protocol for patients with gastric cancer. However, many debates still exist regarding gastric cancer treatment. For the past 2 years, at the Annual Congress of the Korean Gastric Cancer Association, we have presented a grand symposium on the "Debates on the strategy for treating gastric cancer". In 2008, four major topics were discussed and voted on after discussion. The four major topics were proximal location treatment for early gastric cancer, management choices for pyloric obstruction with advanced gastric cancer, management of liver metastasis, and reconstruction methods after a distal gastrectomy. The opinions of the audience for six minor topics were expressed by an electronic voting system. In 2009, the four main topics were treatment for submucosal tumor sized around 2 cm, laparoscopic gastrectomy in T2N1 gastric cancer, choices for managing gastric lymphoma, and application of a pylorus preserving procedure for early gastric cancer at the antrum. The opinions of the audience for these six minor topics were expressed by an electronic voting system, as was conducted in 2008. It was good opportunity to identify a point of contact about the debates on managing gastric cancer. The results of these debates and studies will identify the best methods to treat patients with gastric cancer.

• Proceedings of the KOR-BRONCHOESO Conference
• /
• 1982.05a
• /
• pp.5.2-5
• /
• 1982

With the improvement of living standard and socioenvironmental change, esophageal stricture due to acetic acid, Hcl, insecticides and lye has led to decrease remarkably. Esophageal stricture has decreased because of immediate treatment and adequate management. However there are still sporadic incidents of esophageal stricture due to inadequate treatment and uncooperation of patients. The authors recently have experienced seven severe cases of esophageal stricture. All six patients were treated with 18-51 French Sippy esophageal dilating bougie. One patient was transfered to thoracic surgery department due to complete esophageal obstruction. Case 1. A 23 year old housewife who ingested Hcl for suicide. After Witzel's operation, she visited to dilate esophageal first constriction stircture due to swallowing difficulty postoperation 2 months later. We were treated successfully. Case 2. A case of esophageal stricuture in the second and third physiologic constriction part. The patient was 51 years old man who ingested lye accidently, and was dilated by bougination. Case 3. The patient was 43 year-old man who ingested acetic acid as a mistake and was treated inadequately at hopsital. Inspite of treatment, esophageal stricture developed at the third physiologic part. We are trying to dilate the esophagues now. Case 4. The patient was 55 year-old woman who had ingested Hcl for the purpose of suicidal attempt. 2 months later gastroduodenal anastomoisis due to pyloric region stenosis, the first physiologic constriction stricture was dilated successfully. Case 5. The patient was 41 year-old woman who ingested Hcl for suicide 4 months ago. There was indwelled orogastric tube for 1 month but esophageal stricture developed at the first and 3rd constriction part. She was treated by using a bougination. Case 6. An athlete 21 year old man, ingested acetic acid 2 spoonful per 3 days by purpose in order to soften the bone for last 14 months. There was complete esophageal obsturction in esophagogram and transferred to the thoracic surgery department. Case 7. A 3 year-old girl was ingested lye at a accident. She had a bougination for 16 months under the general anesthesia for dilation due to whole irregular esophageal stricture. She developed lower esophageal perforation, but healed eventually.