Transforming Transplant Oversight: Enhancing Combined Cardiothoracic Surgery and Liver Transplantation With Normothermic Machine Perfusion.

Background: Simultaneous cardiothoracic surgery and liver transplantation (LT) is a high-risk procedure associated with high mortality and morbidity rates. The use of normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) allows graft quality enhancement, assessment of liver viability, and logistics optimization, expanding the donor pool and reducing organ discard rate. We share our institution's experience with simultaneous cardiothoracic surgery and LT, using NMP for liver graft preservation and viability assessment.

Recipient 3-Hepatic Vein Technique with Graft Venoplasty to Maximize Venous Outflow in Left Lobe Living Donor Liver Transplantation.

Background: Augmentation of hepatic venous outflow is crucial in living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) to maximize functional graft size and prevent venous complications. We present details of our outflow augmentation technique for left lobe grafts (LLG) in adult LDLTs, which uses all recipient 3 hepatic veins and venoplasty of graft left and middle hepatic veins. This study examines the effectiveness of our technique in preventing outflow complications and the correlation between anatomical variations of the graft hepatic veins and surgical outcomes.

The impact of normothermic machine perfusion and acuity circles on waitlist time, mortality, and cost in liver transplantation: A multicenter experience.

Ex situ normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) helps increase the use of extended criteria donor livers. However, the impact of an NMP program on waitlist times and mortality has not been evaluated. Adult patients listed for liver transplant (LT) at 2 academic centers from January 1, 2015, to September 1, 2023, were included (n=2773) to allow all patients ≥6 months follow-up from listing.

Left Lobe First With Purely Laparoscopic Approach: A Novel Strategy to Maximize Donor Safety in Adult Living Donor Liver Transplantation.

Objective: Evaluate outcome of left-lobe graft (LLG) first combined with purely laparoscopic donor hemihepatectomy (PLDH) as a strategy to minimize donor risk.

Background: An LLG first approach and a PLDH are 2 methods used to reduce surgical stress for donors in adult living donor liver transplantation (LDLT). But the risk associated with application LLG first combined with PLDH is not known.

Rad9, Rad17, TopBP1 and claspin play essential roles in heat-induced activation of ATR kinase and heat tolerance.

Hyperthermia is widely used to treat patients with cancer, especially in combination with other treatments such as radiation therapy. Heat treatment per se activates DNA damage responses mediated by the ATR-Chk1 and ATM-Chk2 pathways but it is not fully understood how these DNA damage responses are activated and affect heat tolerance. By performing a genetic analysis of human HeLa cells and chicken B lymphoma DT40 cells, we found that heat-induced Chk1 Ser345 phosphorylation by ATR was largely dependent on Rad9, Rad17, TopBP1 and Claspin.

Prognostic relevance of KRAS and BRAF mutations in Japanese patients with colorectal cancer.

Background: Mutations of the KRAS or BRAF genes are now recognized as prognostic markers for colorectal cancer (CRC). They are also important predictive markers for resistance to the monoclonal antibodies that target the epidermal growth factor receptor.

Methods: In this retrospective study, KRAS and BRAF mutations were analyzed using a direct sequence method in 254 Japanese CRC patients, and the associations between KRAS or BRAF mutations and clinicopathological characteristics or outcome were evaluated.

ATR-Chk1 signaling pathway and homologous recombinational repair protect cells from 5-fluorouracil cytotoxicity.

5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) has long been a mainstay antimetabolite chemotherapeutic drug for the treatment of major solid tumors, particularly colorectal cancer. 5-FU is processed intracellularly to yield active metabolites that compromise RNA and DNA metabolism. However, the mechanisms responsible for its cytotoxicity are not fully understood.