[1000 thyroidectomies--personal experience and results].

The authors made one thousand thyroidectomies in the course of five years. In the submitted paper they discuss indications, for surgery, the extent of the operations, the results of the histological findings. They describe the surgical procedure, required preoperative examinations and postoperative monitoring.

Buprenorphine or procaine for pain relief in acute pancreatitis. A prospective randomized study.

Background: To assess the analgesic efficacy and side effects of buprenorphine and procaine in patients with acute pancreatitis.

Methods: Forty patients (average age, 50 years; 23 male) with acute pancreatitis or an acute bout of a chronic pancreatitis were prospectively randomized to receive buprenorphine or procaine for pain relief. Both analgesics were administered as constant intravenous (i.

[Sentinel nodes in breast carcinoma].

The authors summarize literary data on contemporary knowledge and development of views regarding lymphadenectomy in breast cancer. They deal also with the history and technique of detection of a sentinel node by Patentblau and radioisotope 99mTc. In a group of 29 patients operated in 1998-1999 with a detected sentinel node they analyze the surgical technique and present their initial results.

Long-term administration of galactoside-specific mistletoe lectin in an animal model: no protection against N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxybutyl)-nitrosamine-induced urinary bladder carcinogenesis in rats and no induction of a relevant local cellular immune response.

Aqueous extracts from leaves of the European mistletoe (Viscum album L.) are postulated to exert an anticancer efficacy by cytotoxic and/or immunological mechanisms of action. Although popular as an unconventional therapy modality, no controlled randomized clinical trials are available, reliably documenting a clinically beneficial antineoplastic potential of the various commercial mistletoe preparations.

Treatment of difficult intrahepatic stones by using extracorporeal and intracorporeal lithotripsy techniques: 10 years' experience in 55 patients.

Background: Intrahepatic lithiasis still is a complicated disease and merits special attention during therapeutic intervention. Although resection of the affected liver lobe or segment is the best therapeutic option to completely remove the source of recurrent infection, the need for endoscopic treatment modalities is evident because hepatic resections are combined with a high morbidity and mortality rate.

Methods: Over a 10-year period (1988-1997) 55 patients with intrahepatic stones that were not accessible to routine endoscopic extraction were treated at our department.

Long term follow up of patients with chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic stones treated with extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy.

Background: There have been conflicting reports as to whether pancreatic ductal drainage achieved by endoscopy and lithotripsy improves the clinical outcome of patients with chronic pancreatitis.

Aims: To determine the clinical outcome in patients with chronic pancreatitis who received extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL), and were followed up for two to eight years.

Methods: Eighty patients with severe chronic pancreatitis and endoscopically unretrievable obstructive stones underwent ESWL with a piezoelectric lithotripter between 1989 and 1996.

[Value of ultrasound guided piezoelectric shock wave lithotripsy in the treatment of pancreatic stones].

Aim: Most patients with pancreatic duct stones have been treated with lithotripters that use x-ray for stone targeting. We wanted to evaluate ultrasound guided lithotripsy in clinical use.

Methods: In a prospective clinical study 80 patients (62 men) with symptomatic obstructive chronic pancreatitis were treated with a piezoelectric lithotripter under ultrasound guidance (two in-line 4-MHz-Scanners).

[Chaotic dynamics in medicine].

It has turned out that almost all laws of nature (especially in biology and medicine) are nonlinear. This means that within the mathematical formulation of a law of nature some systems variables are coupled nonlinearly. The field, describing these nonlinear formulation, is referred to as dynamical systems theory or chaos theory.

[Personal experience in clinical use of low power laser therapy].

The results of our own clinical trials regarding therapeutical effects of low power lasers in the treatment of some diseases of motional system, skin and lesions of peripheral circulation were presented in the paper. The laser therapy was used in over 320 patients in period of last 3 years. The infra-red laser (wave-length 904 nm, mean power 4 mW) was used.

Should the government pay? Caregiver views of government responsibility and feelings of stigma about financial support.

Financial support strategies to assist informal caregivers of the elderly have been implemented and/or experimented with in several states. Little is known about how receptive caregiving families are to receiving financial support from the government to assist with in-home care, particularly whether they feel stigmatized. Few existing programs have assessed caregivers' views.

[Use of magnetic field in treatment of trophic leg ulcers].

Theoretical basis and favourable therapeutical application of magnetic field in case of trophic ulcerations of the lower limbs are discussed. As a clinical example of such action a case of a 39-year old female patient with trophic ulceration of the leg is presented. Practical advantages of magnetotherapy in similar to the described case patients are suggested.

A student health HMO as a partnership model within an academic medical center.

The Department of Family Practice, College of Medicine, in partnership with the University of Illinois at Chicago, was responsible for the reorganization of the Student Health Service into a health maintenance organization (HMO), Campus Care. Historically, the two campuses of the University of Illinois at Chicago operated student health as an infirmary model. Reorganization of student health into the Campus Care HMO provided expanded health care services to students, preserved more health care dollars in the university system, and provided a nonincremental increase in the size and responsibility of the Department of Family Practice.

Delay of diethylnitrosamine-induced hepatoma in rats by carrot feeding.

Carcinogenesis and death caused by diethylnitrosamine(DENA)-induced hepatomas in Sprague Dawley rats can be significantly delayed by feeding only carrots for several days a week. As this result is not obtained by supplementing food with even higher concentrations of synthetic beta-carotene, there must be several other factors which--together with the carotenoid--contribute to the positive effect. Several other possibilities such as effects of fasting, direct interactions with the carcinogen, resorption, vitamin A storage in the liver, etc.

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