Does peritoneal cytology increase the prognostic information provided by TNM in gastric cancer?
Positive peritoneal cytology was a marker of poor prognosis in gastric cancer patients. Nevertheless, peritoneal lavage did not increase the prognostic information already provided by the TNM staging system in this Italian series.
PE frequently occurs soon after injury. The majority of PEs after trauma are found peripherally (in segmental or subsegmental vessels). Right/left pulmonary artery embolisms are likely to be found only later in a trauma patient's course. Any diagnostic study used to diagnose pulmonary embolism in trauma patients must have sufficient resolution capacity to reliably detect segmental and subsegmental clot. A diagnostic modality such as CT scanning that is insensitive to peripheral embolisms may miss a significant number of posttraumatic PEs.