DUTCH SURGEONS VISIT CU TO LEARN PANCREATIC CANCER PROCEDURE

Marco Del Chiaro, MD, PhD, is an international expert on the operation that can help patients who were previously considered untreatable.

of surgical oncology in the University of Colorado Department of Surgery.

When surgeons from the Netherlands needed help establishing a national program for patients with hard-to-treat pancreatic cancer, they knew just whom to turn to: Marco Del Chiaro, MD, PhD, professor and division chief

“I’ve become pretty well-known internationally as one of the few surgeons doing a very specialized operation for locally advanced pancreatic cancer, which is a tumor of the pancreas that extends into the big blood vessel around the pancreas,” says Del Chiaro.

Can AlcoholAssociated Burn Injuries Impair Cognitive Function?

Research by Elizabeth J. Kovacs, PhD, finds elevated delirium scores in burn-injured patients who use alcohol.

The relationship between alcohol use and burn injuries is a negative one in multiple ways. Not only are about 50% of adults who sustain burn injuries intoxicated at the time of injury, suggesting that alcohol use may have contributed to the incident, but alcohol use among burn-injured patients is associated with more severe complications, delayed recovery, and increased morbidity and mortality.

“Return to work or normal life can be impaired or delayed for burn-injured patients who use alcohol,” says Elizabeth J. Kovacs, PhD, vice chair of research and professor of GI, trauma, and endocrine surgery in the University of Colorado Department of Surgery. “Every organ of the body is affected by alcohol because it enters your bloodstream. If you look at the data on alcohol use and injury recovery, it affects everything from the cardiovascular system to the lungs, liver, and pancreas, and even fracture repair.”

That’s primarily because alcohol in the body alters inflammatory responses, she says, making it harder for the immune system to do its job.