Published papers

© 2020 Elsevier B.V. Background: There is little information on stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) results for brain metastases (BMs) in lung cancer patients ≥75 years of age. We aimed to reappraise whether SRS results for patients ≥75 (very elderly) differ from those of patients with 65−74 years old (elderly). Methods: This IRB-approved retrospective cohort study was based on our prospectively-accumulated database including 7351 consecutive patients undergoing gamma knife (GK) SRS performed for BMs by two highly experienced neurosurgeons during the 1998–2018 period. We selected a total of 2915 elderly patients (age ≥65 years, 39.7 % of the 7351) with lung cancers (902 females, 2013 males, median age; 72 [maximum; 96] years, 2441 NSCLCs, 474 SCLCs) for this study. Results: Post-SRS median survival times (MSTs, months) differed significantly between the two lung cancer types, NSCLC (9.0) and SCLC (7.2, p < 0.0001). In NSCLC patients, post-SRS MSTs were significantly shorter in the very elderly (9.7) than those in the elderly (7.8) group (p < 0.0001). However, in SCLC patients, there were no significant MST differences (7.3 vs 6.9, p = 0.52) between the two age groups. In both NSCLC and SCLC patients, neither crude nor cumulative incidences of secondary endpoints in the very elderly group, i.e., neurological death, neurological deterioration, local recurrence, repeat SRS, salvage whole brain radiotherapy and SRS-related complications, were shown to be unfavorable to those in the elderly group. Conclusions: Our results suggest that carefully-selected patients ≥75 years of age are not poor candidates for SRS as compared to those 65−74 years old.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of atheromatous aorta on thromboembolic complications after endovascular aortic aneurysm repair (EVAR) and to assess the risk factors for these complications.Materials and Methods: This retrospective study included patients who underwent EVAR for an abdominal aortic aneurysm at the Shizuoka Red Cross Hospital from 2007 to 2018. We defined atheromatous aorta as a thoracic shaggy aorta or abdominal aorta with neck thrombus. The main outcome was renal dysfunction and peripheral embolization (thromboembolic complications). We compared the incidence of thromboembolic complications between patients with normal aorta and atheromatous aorta. Moreover, we assessed the risk factors associated with thromboembolic complications in patients with atheromatous aorta.Results: Patients with atheromatous aorta had significantly more thromboembolic complications, such as renal dysfunction (24.5% vs. 3.9%; P<0.001) and peripheral embolization (12.3% vs. 0.0%; P<0.001) than those with normal aorta, respectively. We identified no risk factors associated with thromboembolic complications in patients with atheromatous aorta.Conclusion: Atheromatous aorta increases the risk of thromboembolic complications after EVAR. However, there is no established therapy for these thromboembolic complications. Further studies are necessary to determine the appropriate therapy, including appropriate preoperative medication, to prevent these complications.

© 2020, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. Introduction: Brain metastasis (BM) is one of the most important issues in the management of breast cancer (BC), since BMs are associated with neurological deficits. However, the importance of BC subtypes remains unclear for BM treated with Gamma Knife radiosurgery (GKS). Thus, we conducted a multicenter retrospective study to compare clinical outcomes based on BC subtypes, with the aim of developing an optimal treatment strategy. Methods: We studied 439 patients with breast cancer and 1–10 BM from 16 GKS facilities in Japan. Overall survival (OS) was analyzed by the Kaplan–Meier method, and cumulative incidences of systemic death (SD), neurologic death (ND), and tumor progression were estimated by competing risk analysis. Results: OS differed among subtypes. The median OS time (months) after GKS was 10.4 in triple-negative (TN), 13.7 in Luminal, 31.4 in HER2, and 35.8 in Luminal-HER2 subtype BC (p < 0.0001). On multivariate analysis, poor control of the primary disease (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.84, p < 0.0001), active extracranial disease (HR = 2.76, p < 0.0001), neurological symptoms (HR 1.44, p = 0.01), and HER2 negativity (HR = 2.66, p < 0.0001) were significantly associated with worse OS. HER2 positivity was an independent risk factor for local recurrence (p = 0.03) but associated with lower rates of ND (p = 0.03). TN histology was associated with higher rates of distant brain failure (p = 0.03). Conclusions: HER2 positivity is related to the longer OS after SRS; however, we should pay attention to preventing recurrence in Luminal-HER2 patients. Also, TN patients require meticulous follow-up observation to detect distant metastases and/or LMD.

Background:Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) has been performed more and more frequently in elderly patients with aortic stenosis. We investigated the association of in-hospital availability of TAVR on outcomes of surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) in the era of TAVR.Methods and Results:We utilized data from the Japan Adult Cardiovascular Surgery Database. Between October 2013 and December 2016, 9,330 patients aged ≥80 years underwent isolated SAVR or SAVR with coronary artery bypass grafting in 557 centers in Japan. We assessed the associations of in-hospital TAVR availability with operative mortality and composite complications adjusting for each patient's characteristics, JapanSCORE predicted the risk scores, and hospital volumes of SAVR using generalized estimation equation methods. Observed operative mortality rates were 3.4% in all centers, 2.0% in TAVR centers and 4.0% in non-TAVR centers. The multivariable analyses showed that TAVR centers had statistically significantly lower operative mortality compared with non-TAVR centers among all patients (odds ratio 0.60, 95% confidence interval 0.41–0.89, P=0.01) and among intermediate/high-risk patients (odds ratio 0.52, 95% confidence interval 0.32–0.85, P<0.01) but not among low-risk patients (odds ratio 0.82, 95% confidence interval 0.44–1.51, P=0.52).Conclusions:In-hospital TAVR availability was associated with better outcomes of SAVR among elderly patients. This association was statistically significant among intermediate/high-risk patients but not significant among low-risk patients.