The survival of patients after stenting of the colon is relatively long. This is probably not the result of the stent, but

the result of palliative treatment with chemotherapy in all cases. Especially in colorectal cancer with metastases chemotherapy significantly prolonged life. Placement of colon stents contributes to this survival. Stent placement is less costly and has fewer complications on the long-term compared with a colostomy (21). From the present series it can be concluded that placement of expandable stents in the digestive tract in normal daily practice is feasible, safe, with a low number of complications, and provides adequate palliation Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical in the majority of patients for the given life span. Acknowledgements Disclosure: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
The provocative article by Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Zhong et al. considers an unusual subset of patients from their extensive experience at Duke University

undergoing open ampullectomy for adenocarcinoma of the ampulla of Vater (1). These patients would have typically undergone pancreaticoduodenectomy, but due to prohibitive comorbidities or patient preference underwent surgical ampullectomy instead. Given the infrequency of open ampullectomy for malignancy in their practice (only 17 patients over 35 years), we appreciate the authors judicious use. Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Nevertheless, there is some evidence that patients with early stage invasive disease could be treated by local resection with reasonable outcomes (2). In the current study, T1 tumors were associated Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical with a 40% 5-yr survival. The potential use of local resection for early stage disease in patients with prohibitive operative risk becomes even more intriguing when one considers the increased use and acceptability of endoscopic ampullectomy (3). We agree with the authors that the standard of care Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical for ampullary

adenocarcinoma continues to be radical resection with lymphadenectomy. This is based on the substantial risk of lymph node metastases and positive margins associated with local resection, especially for T2 lesions and above. Not unexpectedly, the use of local excision for ampullary adenocarcinoma in the present study resulted in a considerably higher rate of 5-yr local disease recurrence (76%) and worse 5-yr Digestive enzyme survival (21%) compared to standard pancreaticoduodenectomy (4). When faced with similar patients who are not candidates for radical resection, our group will give consideration to surgical or endoscopic local resection, based on technical feasibility and acceptable risk. Every www.selleckchem.com/products/AP24534.html effort is made for accurate risk assessment and patient optimization prior to excluding radical resection as an option. Since the implication in this study was that many of the patients were not suitable operative candidates for pancreaticoduodenectomy, it would have been helpful for the authors to elaborate on the “rare” postoperative complications.