Ventilating tubes in tympanoplasty.

The successful surgical treatment of chronic otitis media or its sequela is frequently related to a ventilated tympanic cavity. Tubes at tympanoplasty have been recommended to assure ventilation until eustachian tube and middle ear mucosal functions have been restored and to prevent the complications of graft loss, atelectasis, cholesteatoma and ossicular destruction. This presentation reviews the literature on the subject and documents our results in 40 patients treated by tympanomastoid surgery with ventilating tubes.

Fatal complication from an alkaline battery foreign body in the esophagus.

Foreign bodies and alkali burns in the trachea and esophagus are potentially fatal. Some camera batteries contain 45% potassium hydroxide electrolyte which can leak and cause liquification necrosis upon tissue contact. This report describes a case of an alkali battery foreign body in the esophagus with a subsequent fatal course which was masked by steroid therapy.

[Constitutional aplastic anemia (Fanconi type)].

We are treating successfully for seven years a nineteenyear-old girl with Fanconi's aplastic anemia combining androgenes and corticosteroids. The cytogenetic analyses of the other family members showed typical chromosome abnormalities in her father, mother and a twelve-year old sister. In the bone marrow of this sister there are already present the first morphological abnormalities, although the values of her peripheral blood counts are still normal.