Background Endoscopic retrograde appendicitis therapy (ERAT) is a new and minimally invasive technique for the treatment of acute appendicitis. This study aimed to assess the efficacy and clinical outcomes of ERAT versus laparoscopic appendectomy for patients with uncomplicated acute appendicitis. Methods We adopted propensity score matching (1:1) to compare ERAT and laparoscopic appendectomy in patients with uncomplicated acute appendicitis between April 2017 and March 2020. We reviewed 2880 patients with suspected acute appendicitis, of whom 422 patients with uncomplicated acute appendicitis met the matching criteria (ERAT 79; laparoscopic appendectomy 343), yielding 78 pairs of patients. Results The rate of curative treatment within 1 year after ERAT was 92.1 % (95 % confidence interval [CI] 83.8 % to 96.3 %). The percentage of patients recording visual analog scale values of ≤ 3 for pain at 6 hours after treatment was 94.7 % (95 %CI 87.2 % to 97.9 %) in the ERAT group, which was significantly higher than that in the laparoscopic appendectomy group (83.3 %; 95 %CI 73.5 % to 90.0 %). Median procedure time and median hospital length of stay were significantly lower in the ERAT group compared with the laparoscopic appendectomy group. At 1 year, the median recurrence time was 50 days (interquartile range 25–127) in the ERAT group. The overall adverse event rate was 24.4 % (95 %CI 14.8 % to 33.9 %) in the laparoscopic appendectomy group and 18.4 % (95 %CI 9.7 % to 27.1 %) in the ERAT group, with no significant difference between the two groups. Conclusion ERAT was a technically feasible method of treating uncomplicated acute appendicitis compared with laparoscopic appendectomy.
4 January 2021 in Expert Review of Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Appendectomy remains the gold standard for treating uncomplicated and complicated appendicitis. However, the vermiform appendix may play a significant role in the immune system (secondary immune fu...
Although laparoscopic appendectomy is the common intervention for uncomplicated acute appendicitis, there are risks1. Guidelines from the World Society of Emergency Surgery suggest that antibiotic therapy is an option2, but recurrence is 15 to 39 percent at 5 years3. A mini-invasive technique called endoscopic retrograde appendicitis treatment (ERAT) was developed for uncomplicated appendicitis instead of antibiotics or surgery4. ERAT aims to relieve the obstruction or stenosis of the appendiceal lumen, to prevent recurrent episodes of the disease (92 to 95 percent have not had a recurrence to date)5–7. This multicentre study assessed ERAT versus antibiotics for the treatment of uncomplicated appendicitis. Data on adult patients treated with ERAT or antibiotics for imaging-confirmed uncomplicated appendicitis from five centres in China (May 2018 to June 2020) was assessed retrospectively. The ERAT procedure was performed as described4 (Appendix S1). The antibiotic group received intravenous metronidazole 500 mg q8h combined with ceftriaxone 2 g q12h, cefoperazone/sulbactam 2 g q12h, or piperacillin–tazobactam 4.5 g q8h. Oral antibiotics (metronidazole 500 mg q8h with levofloxacin 500 mg q24h, ciprofloxacin 500 mg q8h, or amoxicillin–clavulanic acid 625 mg q8h) were taken after a minimum 72 hours of intravenous antibiotics. Patients could take analgesics as needed. Appendicectomy was recommended if there was worsening pain or white cell count.
Background Early detection of colorectal cancer (CRC) is crucial for improving the survival rates of patients. Objective We aimed to develop a novel strategy for early CRC detection using the fragmentomic features of circulating cell-free mitochondrial DNA (ccf-mtDNA). Design Here, a total of 1147 participants, including 478 healthy controls (HCs), 112 patients with advanced adenomas (AAs) and 557 patients with CRC, were enrolled from five hospitals and plasma samples were collected for capture-based ccf-mtDNA sequencing. Results Our data analysis revealed significantly aberrant ccf-mtDNA fragmentomic features in patients with CRC and AA when compared with HCs. Then, a CRC detection (CD) model was constructed based on the fragmentomic features of ccf-mtDNA from 246 patients with CRC and 168 HC in the training cohort, showing area under the curve of 0.9863, sensitivity of 92.68% and specificity of 93.45%. Both internal and two external validation cohorts demonstrated the excellent capacity of CD model in distinguishing patients with early-stage CRC from HCs, greatly surpassing the performance of serum biomarkers. Furthermore, our CD model can also detect patients with AA with a sensitivity of 79.35% in AA cohort 1 and 85.00% in AA cohort 2. Conclusion In conclusion, based on aberrant ccf-mtDNA fragmentomic features, a novel and non-invasive approach was established for the detection of patients with early-stage CRC or AA, with high performance.