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BACKGROUND: Technical difficulties in totally extraperitoneal inguinal hernia repair (TEP) may be strongly associated with poor operability in a limited operative field. Needlescopic instruments could be helpful in a limited space, and the aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical efficacy of needlescopic TEP. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study population constituted 150 consecutive patients undergoing needlescopic TEP, and we compared these patients with 151 consecutive patients who underwent conventional TEP regarding patients' demographic features and operative outcomes. Inclusion criteria were: (1) being treated by an experienced surgeon and (2) replying to our questionnaire regarding postoperative outcomes. RESULTS: The mean skin opening to closing times for unilateral and bilateral repairs were, respectively, 95.3±30.1 and 130.2±48.7 minutes for conventional TEP and 75.7±24.5 and 114.5±46.3 minutes for needlescopic TEP. The difference for unilateral repairs between the 2 surgical groups was significant (P=0.01). Conversion rates, postoperative hospital stays, and perioperative morbidity rates showed no significant differences between the 2 groups. CONCLUSIONS: Needlescopic TEP is a useful procedure that decreases operative duration with no significant differences in perioperative morbidity compared with conventional TEP.

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Morphological response is considered an improved surrogate to the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) model with regard to predicting the prognosis for patients with colorectal liver metastases. However, its use as a decision-making tool for surgical intervention has not been examined. The present study assessed the morphological response in 50 patients who underwent chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab for initially un-resectable colorectal liver metastases. Changes in tumor morphology between heterogeneous with uncertain borders and homogeneous with clear borders were defined as an optimal response (OR). Patients were also assessed as having an incomplete response (IR), and an absence of marked changes was assessed as no response (NR). No significant difference was observed in progression-free survival (PFS) between complete response/partial response (CR/PR) and stable disease/progressive disease (SD/PD), according to RECIST. By contrast, PFS for OR/IR patients was significantly improved compared with that for NR patients (13.2 vs. 8.7 months; P=0.0426). Exclusion of PD enhanced the difference in PFS between OR/IR and NR patients (15.1 vs. 9.3 months; P<0.0001), whereas no difference was observed between CR/PR and SD. The rate of OR and IR in patients treated with bevacizumab was 47.4% (9/19), but only 19.4% (6/31) for patients that were not administered bevacizumab. Comparison of the survival curves between OR/IR and NR patients revealed similar survival rates at 6 months after chemotherapy, but the groups exhibited different survival rates subsequent to this period of time. Patients showing OR/IR within 6 months appeared to be oncologically stable and could be considered as candidates for surgical intervention, including rescue liver resection. Comparing the pathological and morphological features of the tumor with representative optimal response, living tumor cells were revealed to be distributed within the area of vascular reconstruction induced by bevacizumab, resulting in a predictive value for prognosis in the patients treated with bevacizumab. The present findings provided the evidence for physicians to consider patients with previously un-resectable metastatic colorectal cancer as candidates for surgical treatment. Morphological response is a useful decision-making tool for evaluating these patients for rescue liver resection following chemotherapy.