Lessons learned from 227 biological meshes used for the surgical treatment of ventral abdominal defects.

Purpose: The advantages of biological meshes for ventral hernia repair are still under debate. Given the high financial cost, the proper indications for biological meshes should be clarified to restrict their use to properly selected patients.

Methods: A retrospective database was instituted to register all cases of abdominal wall defect treated with biological meshes from 1/2010 to 3/2016.

Microscopic peritoneal carcinomatosis in gastric cancer: Prevalence, prognosis and predictive factors.

Peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC) is typically identified in advanced stage gastric cancer and is frequently considered to be an incurable disease. Along with macroscopic PC, microscopic PC may be diagnosed through pathological examination of tissue specimens and is not detectable during surgical intervention. The present study aimed to analyse the prevalence, prognostic value and predictive factors for microscopic PC.

Intestinal leiomyosarcoma and gastroparesis associated with von Recklinghausen's disease.

The rare association between intestinal leiomyosarcoma, von Recklinghausen's disease (type-1 neurofibromatosis) and gastroparesis is described. A 20-year-old male, diagnosed 12 years earlier as having pelvic von Recklinghausen's disease, presented with nausea and vomiting. A gastric scintigraphy demonstrated an extremely slow gastric emptying time in the absence of obvious causes for gastroparesis.

[Difficult digestive hemorrhage: angiodysplasia].

The authors report 7 cases of ileal and colonic angiodysplasia observed over a 3 year period (1992-1994). After a review of literature concerning etiology, pathology, diagnosis, and treatment emphasize the use of angiography for preoperatory diagnosis an intraoperatory localization of the lesion when this one is localized in the ileum. After review of usefull therapies, they stress the role of surgery as the most used therapy and only really complete.

[Colonic anastomoses. Methods compared].

The authors used Bar-Valtrac for 18 months to perform colic anastomoses. To weigh up the effectiveness of this method they compare manual, Stapler and Bar-Valtrac anastomoses performed in this period. They examined 169 anastomoses in the same number of patients being careful of complications, post-operative canalizing, periods in hospital.