Acquired benign esophago-airway fistulas.

Materials And Methods: Over a period of 25 years, 35 patients with acquired benign esophago-airway fistulas were treated. Only two of them were female. The etiology of the communications was corrosive burns, penetrating wounds, postoperative and endoscopic lesions, esophageal diverticula, prolonged ventilatory assistance, pleural empyema and foreign bodies.

[The use of low-frequency ultrasound in surgical practice in thoracic surgery].

To gain better insight into the intimate mechanisms of action of low-frequency ultrasound in surgical practice, and to establish the indications for its practical implementation in concrete cases, the preliminary results in patients operated in the clinic of thoracic surgery of the State Institute Hospital of Pulmonary Diseases "St. Sofia"--Higher Medical Institute, Sofia, are reported. For the purpose the Russian ultrasound apparatus URSK-7N-18 is successfully employed.

[Longitudinal sternotomy--a method for the surgical option in pulmonary and hepatic echinococcosis].

Emphasis is laid on the utilization of longitudinal sternotomy as an operative method of choice, practicable in echinococcosis with bilateral pulmonary location, eventually associated with liver involvement. Experience had with performing longitudinal sternotomy in some of the patients operated in the clinic of thoracic surgery of the Higher Medical Institute--Sofia and in other surgical units throughout the country, covering the period 1985 through 1990, is shared. A clinical case of interest concerning bilateral lung echinococcosis, partially complicated, and associated with hydatid disease of the liver, is described.

Colon substitution for radical treatment of cardia and lower third esophageal cancer.

During the past 24 years we have treated 786 patients with esophageal and cardia carcinoma. En bloc resection of the tumor has been performed in only 461 (65.2%) of them and in 246 (34.

Surgical treatment of acute purulent mediastinitis.

During the last 15 years we have treated 147 patients with acute purulent mediastinitis (APM). According to the aetiology of the disease, 2 major groups were defined. The first group included the cases of oesophageal origin--112 patients (dilatation--38 patients, foreign body extraction--29 patients, lye injuries--11 patients, oesophagoscopy--8 patients, sharp foreign body--6 patients).