Primary lymphoma of the liver: a case report and review of the literature.

Primary lymphoma of the liver (PLL) is a rare disease and estimation of the real number of cases may be difficult because strict diagnostic criteria for the definition of a primary lesion are quite often not followed. We report here on a case of a patient affected by PLL who underwent successful surgical resection of the lesion followed by chemotherapy and autologous bone marrow transplantation. The patient is alive and disease free 62 months after resection.

Laparoscopic versus open splenectomy in the management of splenomegaly: our preliminary experience.

Background: Laparoscopic splenectomy for normal-sized spleens has several advantages compared with laparotomy. Only a few cases of splenomegaly done by laparoscopy are reported in the literature. The purpose of this study is to show that laparoscopy for splenomegaly is feasible and has several advantages over the open operation.

Comparison of laparoscopic and open staging in Hodgkin disease.

Background: Staging laparotomy provides useful information for management of Hodgkin disease but has fallen into disfavor because procedure-related morbidity exceeds that of new chemotherapeutic regimens.

Objective: To determine the feasibility, effectiveness, and safety of laparoscopic staging for Hodgkin disease compared with those of open staging.

Patients: Fifty-five patients with Hodgkin disease of cell types including nodular sclerosis in 43 (78%), mixed cellularity in 9 (16%), and lymphocyte predominance in 3 (5%).

Laparoscopic splenectomy in the management of hematological diseases. Surgical technique and outcome of 17 patients.

After being successfully applied to other intraabdominal organs, the laparoscopic approach has been applied to the spleen since 1991. The experience with 17 cases of laparoscopic splenectomy performed due to immune thrombocytopenia purpura (10 instances), hereditary spherocytosis (2 cases), and Hodgkin's disease where the staging was done according to Standford (5 cases), have been reported. With the patient in anti-Trendelenburg position, and the surgeon between the patient's legs, four or five trocars are introduced into the upper abdominal quadrants and the spleen hilum is isolated.