Clinics in Colon and Rectal Surgery最新文献

Informed consent and shared decision making (SDM) are crucial portions of preoperative patient management. Informed consent is a standard for surgery from both a legal and ethical standpoint, involving disclosure of potential risks of a procedure and ensuring patient understanding of these risks. SDM is a process in which a clinician and patients decide between two or more treatment plans, taking into account the patient's goals and values. SDM is a particularly important aspect of patient-centered care when two or more treatment options exist or in situations where an indicated treatment may not align with the patient's long-term goals. This article details aspects of and issues surrounding informed consent and SDM.

Malnutrition is common in surgical patients and is associated with substantially increased morbidity and mortality. Dedicated assessment of nutritional status is advised by major nutrition and surgical societies. Assessment may utilize comprehensive and validated nutritional assessment tools or targeted history, physical examination with accompanying serologic markers to identify nutritional risk preoperatively. Emergent surgery in malnourished patients should proceed as the clinical situation dictates with consideration of ostomy or primary anastomosis with proximal fecal diversion to mitigate postoperative infectious complications. Nonemergent surgery should be delayed to facilitate nutritional optimization via oral nutritional supplementation preferably and total parenteral nutrition if necessary for at least 7 to 14 days. Exclusive enteral nutrition may be considered to optimize nutritional status and inflammation in patients with Crohn's disease. Immunonutrition use in the preoperative setting is not supported by evidence. Perioperative and postoperative immunonutrition may be of benefit but requires dedicated study in the contemporary era. Close attention to preoperative nutritional status and optimization represents a critical opportunity to improve outcomes in patients undergoing colorectal surgery.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States. Once limited to older populations, the incidence of CRC in patients under the age of 50 years is increasing and the etiology for this is uncertain. One hypothesis lies on the impact of the intestinal microbiome. The intestinal microbiome, composed primarily of bacteria but also viruses, fungi, and archaea, has been shown to regulate CRC development and progression both in vitro and in vivo. In this review, the role and intersection of the bacterial microbiome in various stages of clinical CRC development and management are discussed beginning with CRC screening. Various mechanisms whereby the microbiome has been shown to modulate CRC development including the influence of diet on the microbiome, bacterial-induced injury to the colonic epithelium, bacterial-produced toxins, and alteration of normal cancer immunosurveillance by the microbiome are discussed. Finally, the influence of microbiome on the response of CRC to treatment is discussed while highlighting ongoing clinical trials. The complexities of the microbiome and its role in CRC development and progression have become apparent and will require ongoing commitment to translate laboratory findings into meaningful clinical results that will aid more than 150,000 patients that develop CRC every year.

Infectious complications following bowel surgery continues to be a leading cause of postoperative morbidity. Both patient- and procedure-related factors contribute to risk. Compliance with evidence-based process measures is the best strategy for prevention of surgical site infections. Three process measures that aim to reduce the bacterial load present at the time of surgery are mechanical bowel preparation, oral antibiotics, and chlorhexidine bathing. There is heightened awareness of surgical site infections, in part due to improved access to reliable postoperative complication data for colon surgery as well as incorporation of surgical site infection into public reporting and pay-for-performance payment models. As a result, the literature has improved with regard to the effectiveness of these methods in reducing infectious complications. Herein, we provide the evidence to support adoption of these practices into colorectal surgery infection prevention programs.

Over the past 20 years, the study of microbial communities has benefited from simultaneous advancements across several fields resulting in a high-resolution view of human consortia. Although the first bacterium was described in the mid-1600s, the interest in community membership and function has not been a focus or feasible until recent decades. With strategies such as shotgun sequencing, microbes can be taxonomically profiled without culturing and their unique variants defined and compared across phenotypes. Approaches such as metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics, and metabolomics can define the current functional state of a population through the identification of bioactive compounds and significant pathways. Prior to sample collection in microbiome-based studies it is critical to evaluate the requirements of downstream analyses to ensure accurate processing and storage for generation of high data quality. A common pipeline for the analysis of human samples includes approval of collection protocols and method finalization, patient sample collection, sample processing, data analysis, and visualization. Human-based microbiome studies are inherently challenging but with the application of complementary multi-omic strategies there is an unbounded potential for discovery.

The microbiome (bacteria, viruses, and fungi) that exist within a patient's gastrointestinal tract and throughout their body have been increasingly understood to play a critical role in a variety of disease, including a number of cancer histologies. These microbial colonies are reflective of a patient's overall health state, their exposome, and germline genetics. In the case of colorectal adenocarcinoma, significant progress has been made in understanding the mechanism the microbiome plays beyond mere associations in both disease initiation and progression. Importantly, this improved understanding holds the potential to further identify the role these microbes play in colorectal cancer. We hope this improved understanding will be able to be leveraged in the future through either biomarkers or next-generation therapeutics to augment contemporary treatment algorithms through the manipulation of a patient's microbiome-whether through diet, antibiotics, prebiotics, or novel therapeutics. Here we review the role of the microbiome in the setting of patients with stage IV colorectal adenocarcinoma in both the development and progression or disease as well as response to therapeutics.

Preoperative anemia is a common finding in patients undergoing colorectal surgery, particularly those with cancer. While often multifactorial, iron deficiency anemia remains the most common cause of anemia in this patient population. Although seemingly innocuous, preoperative anemia is associated with an increased risk of perioperative complications and need for allogenic blood transfusions, both of which may worsen cancer-specific survival. Preoperative correction of anemia and iron deficiency is thus necessary to diminish these risks. Current literature supports preoperative screening for anemia and iron deficiency in patients slated to undergo colorectal surgery for malignancy or for benign conditions with associated patient- or procedure-related risk factors. Accepted treatment regimens include iron supplementation-either oral or intravenous-as well as erythropoietin therapy. Autologous blood transfusion should not be utilized as a treatment for preoperative anemia when there is time to implement other corrective strategies. Additional study is still needed to better standardize preoperative screening and optimize treatment regimens.

Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is the process of transplanting stool from a healthy donor into the gut of a patient for therapeutic purposes. Current guidelines recommend FMT for the prevention of multiply recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) after two recurrences, with cure rates approaching 90%. Emerging evidence also supports the use of FMT in the management of severe and fulminant CDI, resulting in decreased mortality and colectomy rates compared with standard of care approach. FMT shows promise as salvage therapy for critically-ill, refractory CDI patients who are poor surgical candidates. FMT should be considered early in the clinical course of severe CDI, preferably within 48 hours of failing to respond to antibiotic therapy and volume resuscitation. Besides CDI, ulcerative colitis was more recently identified as a potential treatment target for FMT. Several live biotherapeutics for microbiome restoration are on the horizon.