Impact of laparoscopy and ultrasonography in gastrointestinal malignancies.

Background/aims: An adequate preoperative disease staging is highly required before surgical treatment, even in gastrointestinal malignancies. Our study wants to give a contribution in order to define echolaparoscopy weight in gastrointestinal tumors and its impact in surgical therapy.

Methodology: 33 patients were affected by pancreas, 22 by stomach, 16 by extrahepatic biliary tract and 18 by liver cancers; every patient was considered worthy of radical or palliative surgery according to preoperative staging (thorax-abdominal CT and percutaneous ultrasonography).

Thoracoscopic localization techniques for patients with solitary pulmonary nodule and history of malignancy.

Background: Our aim was to evaluate the best intrathoracoscopic localization technique in patients with single pulmonary nodule and a history of malignancy.

Methods: We divided 50 patients in two groups, well matched for diameter and depth of the pulmonary lesion. In 25 patients we performed intrathoracoscopic ultrasound to locate the pulmonary nodule (group A), whereas in the other 25 patients the radio-guided technique was adopted (group B).