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Endometriosis involves the growth of endometrial-like tissue outside the uterine cavity, with its manifestation in the rectus abdominis muscle being exceptionally rare and primarily observed in women with a history of abdominal surgeries. In this report, we present the case of a 42-year-old female with a medical history of two cesarean sections who presented with cyclical abdominal pain and a palpable mass in the right lower quadrant. An MRI scan of the pelvis revealed a lesion on the right lower quadrant of the abdominal wall, proximate to the previous Pfannenstiel incision. A percutaneous US-guided biopsy of the abdominal lesion was performed, and histopathology demonstrated the presence of endometrial glands and stroma, confirming the diagnosis of rectus abdominis endometriosis. She was submitted to a local wide excision with adequate margins of normal surrounding tissue and has remained free of recurrence for two years.
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Introduction: There are very few reported cases of Whipple disease (WD), a rare chronic disease in Greece. In this report, we present a classic WD case in a Greek firefighter and the detection of an autochthonous Tropheryma whipplei genotype in this Greek autochthonous citizen. Case report: We describe a patient with chronic diarrhea and arthritis who was misdiagnosed with sclerosing mesenteritis three years previously and was unsuccessfully treated with corticosteroids. After the effectuation of histopathologic examination and PCR against T. whipplei, he was diagnosed with classic WD. Moreover, for the first time in Greece, we proceeded with T. whipplei genotyping targeting four highly variable genomic sequences and we concluded that the patient was infected by T. whipplei genotype 120. Conclusions: We highlight the necessity to explore T. whipplei presence and its genotypes through the Greek population and to identify if genotype 120 is the predominant strain in the Hellenic territory.
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Aim The aim of this article is to investigate the effect of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on our surgical department, which is situated in Athens, Greece, as well as to review published literature on the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on surgical activities in our department. Material and methods We retrospectively reviewed the surgical procedures that were performed in the surgical department of a tertiary University hospital in Athens, Greece, before and during the pandemic. Furthermore, we performed a literature review evaluating articles on surgical activity and COVID-19 published from the beginning of the pandemic up until the January of 2022 on the PubMed database. Results In total, 894 patients were included in the study. Of those, 264 (29.5%) underwent surgery during the control period and 630 (70.5%) in the pandemic period. Overall, we performed 20.5% fewer surgeries in the post-sanitary period. In particular, elective surgeries decreased on average by 23.9%, emergency procedures decreased by 8.9%, and oncology surgeries increased by an average of 6.4% after the year 2020. Concerning the review of literature, 51 studies were selected for this review. According to them, the main effect of the pandemic on the surgical sector was reflected in the reduction of total surgeries, mainly due to the postponement of elective surgical procedures, which showed a median reduction of 54% compared to the pre-COVID-19 period. A smaller decrease was observed in the number of emergency and oncological surgeries. Conclusions Reduced surgical activity during the pandemic, due to the health measures imposed, requires courageous corrective interventions to avoid its adverse effects, such as disease progression, increased treatment costs, reduced quality of life, and ultimately the survival of the patients.
