[Drainage in thyroid surgery]. / Il drenaggio nella chirurgia della tiroide.

Bleeding represents a rare complication of thyroid surgery but when it occurs it may be life-threatening. To prevent this complication drainage is widely used. However no study has demonstrated the drains' value and recent reports have questioned its benefits. Therefore we have analyzed our experience of a 10 year-period in which 1.217 thyroidectomies were performed by the same surgical team and prophylactic routine drainage was always adopted. In 13 patients (1.06%) a benign hematoma occurred with spontaneous remission. In 6 patients the bleeding was severe and compressive hematoma occurred; it required surgical re-exploration. Such a complication is unusual in the neck surgery (0.49% in the authors' series) performed by experienced surgeons and when life-threatening hematomas do occur they depend on various uncontrolled factors and drainage is often not helpful. Otherwise a meticulous haemostatic technique is necessary and patients should be observed very closely during the few first hours following surgery on the thyroid gland. Therefore on the basis of the analysis of their series, although it is not always possible to prove the benefit of the drainage, the authors suggest its indication in the neck surgery, as in other fields with dead space, to remove blood and secretions reducing postoperative complications. They have never observed wound infections and patients were discharged within 72 hours.

[Vascular cysts of the adrenals. Association with aneurysm of the abdominal aorta]. / Cisti vascolare del surrene. Associazione con un aneurisma dell'aorta addominale.

A rare case of an adrenal vascular cyst associated to an abdominal aorta aneurysm is reported. Adrenal cysts are an uncommon clinical finding, in most cases incidentally discovered for nonspecific abdominal pain, during US, TC or RM evaluation or at autopsy. Small adrenal mass are clinically silent. They may be symptomatic (lumbar tension, pain) for dimensions over 10 centimetres. Cysts of large size can cause displacement and compression of adjacent organs. They present a difficult problem of differentiation between benign and malignant lesions. Non-neoplastic adrenal cysts have been divided into four categories: parasitic (7%), epithelial (9%), endothelial (45%) and haemorrhagic or pseudocystic (39%). Vascular adrenal cysts may be a traumatic consequence of an hamartomatous vascular anomaly. The aim of this paper is to discuss, on the basis of the literature, the etiology, diagnosis and treatment of the adrenal mass. Surgical timing is discussed for the concomitant vascular lesion. The elective treatment was left adrenalectomy performed through transperitoneal approach. Surgery for abdominal aorta aneurysm was differed because the adrenal mass was suspected to be an infected neoplastic lesion and for the feasibility of endovascular procedure. The adrenal specimens contained a cystic structure with fluid blood, fibrin and calcifications. Normal adrenal cortical tissue was found in the cystic wall. This lesion (arising from vascular anomalies) require separation from haemorrhagic adrenal neoplasm. Awareness of adrenal pseudocysts and careful attention to the hystological features aids this distinction.

[Intrahepatic calculosis]. / La calcolosi intraepatica.

A review of one-hundred cases of intra-hepatic lithiasis, observed between 1967 and 1996 by the same surgical team, was reported in this paper. There were 61 cases of migrated stones and 39 cases of primary duct stones (31 above a stenosis and 8 associated to biliary malformations). 83 patients underwent surgery: in 31 cases, gallstones were removed through the CBD, while a bilio-enteric anastomosis was required in 47 cases; 5 patients underwent a left liver resection. Finally, 17 patients were treated by non-surgical means (endoscopic or radiologic). In a first period, diagnosis was made intraoperatively by cholangiography or choledochoscopy and surgery was the only therapeutic option. After 1980, diagnostic procedure included ultrasonography, CT and direct cholangiography (endoscopic or percutaneous). Consequently to the development of endoscopic (ERCP) or percutaneous (PTC) approaches to remove intrahepatic gallstones, many patients were treated by these non-surgical means, which, in some cases, were associated with extracorporeal lithotripsy. Abnormalities of intrahepatic biliary tree represented an elective indication for liver resection in the last years. The clinical results improved progressively: mortality was 8.3% in the first ten years (67-76), 7.1% in the second decade (77-86) and there was no mortality in the last ten years. In the first decade, intrahepatic biliary tree was completely cleared from gallstones in the 70.8% of cases, in the second decade in the 80.9% of cases and, in the last ten years, in the 97% of cases.

The nervous system-specific S-100 antigen in cerebrospinal fluid of multiple sclerosis patients.

The nervous system-specific S-100 antigen has been found in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of 13 out of 18 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), whereas it was undetectable in either of the 11 control patients with minor psychic disturbances or with neurological disorders not usually associated with apparent parenchymal lesion. The levels of the antigen appeared to be higher in CSF of patients in the acute phase of the disease. Though the small number of cases hampers final statements, the S-100 in CSF might serve as a possible index of active cell injury in the central nervous system underlying the pathogenesis of MS.