Study of Surgical Emergencies of Tubercular Abdomen in Developing Countries.

To study the various modes of presentation, diagnosis, and management of surgical emergencies of tubercular abdomen. This prospective study of surgical emergencies of tubercular abdomen was conducted in 50 patients who attended our surgical emergency from 2006 to 2008. Patients were evaluated thoroughly with history, physical examination, routine investigations, and special investigations such as ELISA, PCR, barium studies of gastrointestinal tract, and diagnostic laparoscopy as required and managed with medical and surgical treatment as necessary. The most of patients were from rural areas, in the third to sixth decades with slight male preponderance. Abdominal pain, vomiting, and constipation were commonest presenting symptoms. About 20 % patients had history of pulmonary tuberculosis and 16 % patients presented with ascites. PCR for blood and ascitic fluid was positive in 72 and 87.5 % patients, respectively. About 24 % patients were managed nonoperatively and responded to ATT. About 76 % patients needed surgery among which one-fifth of patients were operated in emergency. Procedures like adhesiolysis of gut (47.3 %), strictureplasty (10.5 %), resection anastomosis (5.2 %), right hemicolectomy (5.2 %), and ileotransverse anastomosis (7.8 %) were performed in 30 patients and peritoneal biopsy and lymph node biopsy in the remaining 8 patients. Both medically and surgically managed patients were put on antitubercular therapy. Abdominal tuberculosis is a disease of middle-aged rural people, presenting commonly with abdominal pain and vomiting with right lower abdominal tenderness. PCR (blood and ascites) for tuberculosis is much more sensitive than IgM ELISA (blood and ascites). The most of patients required surgical procedures and all patients responded dramatically to antitubercular therapy symptomatically with increase in the hemoglobin level and decrease in ESR.

Surgical management of complicated hydatid cysts of the liver.

AIM: To review the clinical presentation and surgical management of complicated hydatid cysts of the liver and to assess whether conservative surgery is adequate in the management of complicated hydatid cysts of liver. METHODS: The study was carried out at Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Science, Srinagar, Kashmir, India. Sixty nine patients with hydatid disease of the liver were surgically managed from April 2004 to October 2005 with a follow up period of three years. It included 27 men and 42 women with a median age of 35 years. An abdominal ultrasound, computed tomography and serology established diagnosis. Patients with jaundice and high suspicion of intrabiliary rupture were subjected to preoperative endoscopic retrograde cholangiography. Cysts with infection, rupture into the biliary tract and peritoneal cavity were categorized as complicated cysts. Eighteen patients (26%) had complicated cysts and formed the basis for this study. RESULTS: Common complications were infection (14%), intrabiliary rupture (9%) and intraperitoneal rupture (3%). All the patients with infected cysts presented with pain and fever. All the patients with intrabiliary rupture had jaundice, while only four with intrabiliary rupture had pain and only two had fever. Surgical procedures performed in complicated cysts were: infection-omentoplasty in three and external drainage in seven; intrabiliary rupture-omentoplasty in two and internal drainage in four patients. Two patients with intraperitoneal rupture underwent external drainage. There was no mortality. The postoperative morbidity was 50% in complicated cysts and 16% in uncomplicated cysts. CONCLUSION: Complicated hydatid cyst of the liver can be successfully managed surgically with good long term results.

Triple assessment in the diagnosis of breast cancer in Kashmir.

BACKGROUND: Although the diagnosis of breast cancer is suggested on clinical examination, the degree of suspicion is variable. Currently a combination of three tests, i.e. clinical examination, radiological imaging (mammography, ultrasonography) and pathology called as triple assessment test is used to accurately diagnose all palpable breast lumps. Together they give sensitivity of 99%. The triple assessment is taken as positive if any of the three components is positive and negative only if all of its components are negative for malignancy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study was conducted in the Department of Surgery, Government Medical College, Srinagar, Kashmir over a period of 3 years from June 2005 to May 2008. A total of 200 patients with a breast lump were selected irrespective of age. A detailed history, focused clinical examination, radiological imaging and fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) were used as diagnostic tools for screening of the patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate accuracy of triple assessment in the preoperative diagnosis of patients with breast carcinoma. RESULTS: The sensitivity and specificity of all the modalities used in triple assessment when combined together was 100% and 99.3%, respectively. The concordance for the triple assessment was 99.3%, positive predictive value was 93.3%, negative predictive value was 100%, sensitivity was 100% and specificity was 99.3%. p value was significant (0.000). CONCLUSION: We conclude that triple assessment is a very useful diagnostic tool to evaluate patients with breast lumps and to detect patients with breast cancers with an overall accuracy of 99.3%.