Efficacy of octreotide and sclerotherapy in the treatment of acute variceal bleeding in cirrhotic patients. A prospective, multicentric, and randomized clinical trial.

Background: Sclerotherapy is the most widely used method for treatment of acute variceal bleeding. Previous reports have suggested that octreotide infusion is as effective as sclerotherapy. Our aim was to investigate the efficacy and safety of octreotide in comparison with sclerotherapy in controlling variceal bleeding.

[Inversion of the ventricles and major vessels].

The authors carried out a detailed anatomic examination of hearts from 17 fatal cases in which the diagnosis of corrected transposition of the aorta and pulmonary artery had been made by the clinical data. Corrected transposition was found in 13 preparations and rare complicated heart defects in the other 4. The paper describes at length the anatomy of the ventricles, great vessels and coronary arteries of the heart in corrected transposition as well as the anatomy of the accompanying defects.

[Clinical course and diagnosis of congenital heart defects].

An indefinitely formed heart is a compound lesion of the cardiovascular system in which an anatomical examination of the atria does not permit any decisive interpretation of the formation of the heart. The disease can be subdivided into two pathological syndromes. The first syndrome includes a partially patent atrioventricular canal with a joint atrium, an absence of the hepatic segment of the inferior vena cava, a partally anomalous drainage of the pulmonary veins, bilobular lungs, abdominal heterotaxy and polysplenism.