Surgery outcome evaluation

Malignant tumors can be treated either with surgery or interventional treatments (Bartolozzi and Lencioni 1999). Three-dimensional images allow a precise evaluation of the segmental location of the lesion, and of its relationship with vessels and other surrounding organs. More information about treatment outcome is also available with this technique. 

Steinhausen, S., O. Ommen, S. Thiim, E. Neugebauer, and H. Pfaff, "Physician empathy and subjective evaluation of medical treatment outcome in trauma surgery patients," Patient Education and Counseling, 95(1), pp. 53-60, April 2014. 

In a recently published article, Pacella et al. (2001) evaluated the safety, local effectiveness, and long-term results of laser thermal ablation (LTA) in the treatment of small hepatocellular carcinomas in 74 patients. Their study reported no major complication with an average of 1.3 sessions per tumor. Overall survival rates were 99%, 68%, and 15% at 1, 3, and 5 years, respectively. Dodd et al. (2000) also reported a median survival of 27 months and a 5-year survival rate of 26% following laser thermal ablation. The parameters that correlate with good outcome are the same as those for surgery fewer than five tumors, tumors smaller than 5 cm, slow growth rate, and no extrahepatic tumor (VoGL et al. 1998). 

This polymer has also been investigated as an implantable ODD. For example, Lee et al. [60] investigated the effect of the implantation of a 5-fluorouracil loaded P(CPP-SA) DDS on the success of a glaucoma filtering surgery in a rabbit model, while Jumper et al. [61] used a primate model to evaluate the effect of taxol or etaposide loaded P(CPP-SA) implants in the outcomes of the same kind of surgical procedure. 

Assessing outcome after ablation is difficult because few studies with good long-term follow-up have evaluated local recurrence, disease-free survival, and overall survival after ablation. The best way to evaluate the benefit of any local ablative therapy is to examine the rate of local tumor control and the local recurrence rate respectively. Many studies have shown that completeness of tumor ablation is directly related to survival (Bilchik et al. 2001), comparable to a free resection margin after surgery (Ohlsson et al. 1998 Scheele et al. 1995). The major objective - the local recurrence rate -strongly depends on the size of the treated metastases (Curley 2003 Solbiati et al. 2001 Wood et al. 

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