Multi-port versus single-port cholecystectomy: results of a multi-centre, randomised controlled trial (MUSIC trial).

Background: Single-port laparoscopic surgery as an alternative to conventional laparoscopic cholecystectomy for benign disease has not yet been accepted as a standard procedure. The aim of the multi-port versus single-port cholecystectomy trial was to compare morbidity rates after single-access (SPC) and standard laparoscopy (MPC).

Methods: This non-inferiority phase 3 trial was conducted at 20 hospital surgical departments in six countries.

Rural surgery in southern Sudan.

Introduction: This article reports a retrospective analysis of a 6-year experience of providing surgical care in remote areas of southern Sudan under extremely adverse conditions.

Methods: Teams of expatriate consultants (surgeon, anesthetist, scrub nurse) carried out 28 "surgical missions" with the aims of treating surgical cases previously selected and of training local personnel in basic surgery on the job.

Results: A total of 1642 patients (71% males, 30% under the age of 16) have undergone an operation.

Morbidity and mortality after D1 and D2 gastrectomy for cancer: interim analysis of the Italian Gastric Cancer Study Group (IGCSG) randomised surgical trial.

Background: The disadvantages of D2 gastrectomy have been mostly related to splenopancreatectomy. Unlike two large European trials, we have recently showed the safety of D2 dissection with pancreas preservation in a one-arm phase I-II trial. This new randomised trial was set up to compare post-operative morbidity and mortality and survival after D1 and D2 gastrectomy among the same experienced centres that participated into the previous trial.

[Rhabdomyosarcoma. Presentation of a case with abdominal localization].

The Authors report a case of rhabdomyosarcoma observed in a 17-year-old boy. They emphasize that this rare form has an extremely rapid evolution, and in this case was also in an unusual site and of abnormal size. The difficulty of an early diagnosis and the impossibility of radical surgery are also underlined.