[The role of laparoscopy in surgical treatment of pancreatic cancer].

Aim: The authors reviewed their experience in surgical treatment of pancreatic cancer between 2003-2008.

Methods: Eighty two pancreatic cancer patients (median age 66.7 +/- 12.

[Extra-ampullary duodenal neoplasms].

The authors report on twelve cases of non-ampullary duodenal neoplasm and remark the rarity of this pathology. According to the literature, the traditional endoscopy is the mainstay diagnostic test, because of aspecific digestive symptoms, but the authors stress the importance of the "longue" endoscopy or endoscopy integrated with duodenography in non-responders patients who had non-diagnostic traditional endoscopy for neoplasm. Duodeno-cephalo-pancreatectomy and segmentary duodenal resection are proposed by tumor site.

Large bowel multiple tumours.

The medical records of all patients with colorectal cancer seen at the "G. Marinaccio" Department of Surgery in Bari between 1997 and 2004 were examined. Cases included in the study met the criteria advocated by Warren and Gates and Moertel et al.

[Acute acalculous cholecystitis: pathophysiology and treatment].

The absence of reliable correlation between clinical features and pathological evolution and the molteplicity of risk factors, often related to various pathophysiological pathways, make of acute acalculous cholecystitis a clinical entity well distinct from other affecting gallbladder. In spite of the slight incidence, its occurrence among serious multiple trauma patients may reach 90%. The arguability of diagnostic criteria and the missed or delayed recognition, then affecting timing of surgery are important in determining morbidity and mortality of this condition.

[Extensive small bowel resections].

Bowel resections of at least 70% of the total length give rise to nutritional and metabolic disorders. The consequences are also related to the site of the resection itself, to the causative disease and thus to the patient's morphological and functional adaptation capacity. Over the past 20 years we have operated on 32 patients for vascular disorders, Crohn's disease, intestinal volvulus, actinic enteritis, and ileo-caecal carcinoma.

[Gastric anisakidosis: personal experience].

Anisakidosis is a parasitic disease of the human gastrointestinal tract caused by ingestion of marine nematode larvae such as anisakis simplex or, rarely, Pseudoterranova, present in raw or undercooked fish. Frequent sites of involvement by anisakis are the stomach, small intestine, rarely the colon, or the peritoneum, liver, pancreas, lung and tonsils, anisakidosis is a self-limiting disease; the symptoms arise 12-24 hours after ingesting raw fish and include nausea, diarrhoea, and severe abdominal pain, but also anaphylactic reactions. At the site of penetration, anisakis causes marked oedema, eosinophilic infiltration and granuloma formation.

[Granular cell tumors of the colon. Clinical case and review of the literature].

Abrikossoff's tumours are better known as granular cell tumours because of the typical microscopic aspect of their cytoplasm. They are uncommon neoplasms, probably of neurogenic origin, typically subepithelial and often benign. Rarely, they may be localised in the digestive tract, where they are mostly asymptomatic and tend to be discovered incidentally during endoscopic examinations indicated for other diseases.

Subareolar injection may be more accurate than other techniques for sentinel lymph node biopsy in breast cancer.

Background: The aims of this study were to compare peritumoral injection of (99m)Tc-labeled albumin and subdermal injection of blue dye with subareolar (SA) injection of blue dye alone in terms of success of the sentinel lymph node identification rate, false negative (FN) rate, overall accuracy, and sensitivity of the two procedures.

Methods: From January 1999 to October 2002, 155 patients with localized breast cancer were treated. Patients were subdivided into two groups.

[Gastrointestinal stromal tumors: current issues].

Gastrointestinal stromal tumours are rare neoplasms originating from the connective tissue of the digestive tract and constitute most of the non-epithelial primitive digestive tumours, with a percentage incidence of less than 1%. The term itself was first used in 1983 by Mazur and Clark to identify a heterogeneous group of tumours, all of them histologically characterised by hyperplastic fused cells, not necessarily leiomuscular ones, but even neural ones. The original stem cell has not been identified yet, but such tumours constantly present the expression of the surface antigens CD34 and CD117 which can be determined immunohisto-chemically.

Effect of the use of vital dye, lymphoscintigraphy, or a combination for axillary lymphatic mapping and sentinel node biopsy in breast cancer.

Axillary dissection in patients with breast cancer is associated with significant morbidity. Because 85% of the patients with a cancer < or = 1 cm have negative axillary nodal status, axillary dissection in these patients is only a staging procedure. A study of the sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy has been developed to determine axillary nodal status by means of a minimally invasive procedure.