Value of different tools in the diagnosis of acute scrotum

The scrotum is a superficial structure that is mainly diagnosed with clinical and ultrasonography tools. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of clinical assessment in comparison to the grey scale ultrasound and the colour Doppler imaging in the diagnosis of patients with acute scrotum. Thirty patients with acute scrotum were enrolled into this study at Al-Azhar University Hospitals between January 1999 and January 2002. They were scheduled for detailed medical and sexual history with meticulous clinical examination followed by analysis of some laboratory tests and examination with grey scale and colour Doppler ultrasonography of the scrotum. The final diagnosis revealed that 70% of the patients had acute epididymitis and/or orchitis, 10% suffered of pyocele, 13.3% experienced testicular abscesses and 6.7% noticed torsion testis. Clinical evaluation can diagnose 86.7% of the patients suffering from acute scrotum, while grey scale sonography had a superior diagnostic rate of testicular abscesses and pyocele. Colour Doppler ultrasonography had showed 100% success rate of distinguishing between acute epididymo-orchitis and testicular torsion

Two years follow-up of patients with asymptomatic simple renal cysts

The kidney is one of the most common sites in the body for cysts. The incidence of asymptomatic simple renal cysts ranged between 11.9% in one series up to 14% in another series of patients. The aim of this study is to follow up patients with asymptomatic renal cysts to evaluate the natural history and development of complications over 2 years follow up. The study included 131 patients, twelve cases had no sufficient period of follow up [lost follow up]. The remaining 119 patients [69 males and 50 females] ranging in age from 25-75 years were followed up at 3 months interval for a period ranging from 9-24 months [mean 16.8 +/- 04 months]. The patients were followed up by clinical history, examination, urine analysis, blood urea, serum creatinine and abdominal Ultrasonography. The results revealed that the cyst size increased with time but there was no significant difference between mean size of the cyst at presentation and at the follow up visit [P. value 0.34]. there is no change in the number of cysts and no cyst complications observed over the follow up period

CT guided intra-tumoral ethanol injection [PEI] therapy to hepatocellular carcinoma

Patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, particularly if associated with decompansated liver cirrhosis, are not amenable for radical surgical excision. 24 patients of hepatic lesions, proved hepato-cellular carcinoma, were the material of this work and subjected to one or more sessions of percutaneous injection of ethanol into the tumor bed. This procedure was guided by CT. The intra-tumoral ethanol injection was followed up by serial CT. studies, repeated biopsy of the lesion and successive alpha-feto-protein serum level, cancer embryonic antigen and liver function tests. The effect of ethanol therapy proved effective, particularly in small solitary lesions [18 patients] who presented about 90% necrosis of the lesion accompanied by regression of the mass size, decrease in Alfa-feto protein level with no treatment mortality and a minimal morbidity rate