In the case of residual fibrotic involvement of the mesorectal fascia, it is difficult to determine whether there is still actual tumour involvement and a substantial number of patients will be over-staged.
The aim of this study was to assess the prognostic value of residual node involvement after induction chemotherapy (ICT) for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and to investigate post-ICT node status associated with tumor characteristics.
Combining ADC analysis would have decreased substantially the false-positive interpretation, both for the nodal and extranodal residual lymphoma involvement.
The other exclusion criteria were: (1) surgery on the particular shoulder, (2) rheumatoid arthritis, (3) stroke with residual shoulder involvement, or (4) fracture of the shoulder complex.
Following surgery, patients were required to have no remaining tumor nodules >3 cm, no residual tumor involvement of the bowel, and no intestinal obstruction.
In order to verify the relevance of a stricter definition of remission on mortality, we tested and compared the effect of two other definitions which were progressively more permissive in terms of residual joint involvement (see online supplementary table S2).
Among the pIII patients, although the majority were stage III by virtue of residual nodal involvement, the three node negative (i.e., T4N0) pIII patients also had a high risk of recurrence, each one developing recurrence within 1 year of resection.
Consistently, chest radiography after four weeks showed a minimal residual homolateral pleuritis involvement.
In the case of extranodal involvement, residual masses can also be seen in cases of gastrointestinal involvement; size changes of wall thickness are also difficult to estimate [ 11].
Biopsies consisted of 4-mm punch biopsies, ranging in number from 2 to 4 at a time, depending on the size of residual MIS margin involvement.
