Quality of life among five-year survivors after treatment for very low rectal cancer with or without a permanent abdominal stoma.

Background: Low rectal cancers situated less than 5 cm from the anal margin are still usually treated with abdomino-perineal excision (APE). Our aim is to compare the quality of life (QOL) of five-year survivors treated for low or very low rectal cancer with an advanced/complex coloanal procedure with the QOL of patients submitted to a standard APE with a definitive abdominal stoma.

Methods: Sixty-two patients, operated on radically for low or very low rectal cancer, who came for their fifth year follow-up visit and were free from cancer, were studied.

Treatment of locally advanced hepatocellular carcinoma by hepatic intra-artery chemotherapy: a pilot study.

Background: Hepatocarcinoma is one of the most common malignant tumours world-wide with poor prognosis. Treatment of locally advanced hepatocarcinoma is still controversial. Transcatheter arterial (chemo-)embolisation of hepatocarcinoma are widely used methods but some aspects regarding their use and usefulness have not yet been clarified.

[Umbilical endometriosis: report of a case and review of the literature].

The authors present a clinical of umbilical endometriosis in a young woman. This patient never underwent any operation or diagnostic abdominal procedures. The case is very interesting because of problems concerning differential diagnosis with other umbilical and periumbilical diseases and pathogenetic theories.

[Biofragmentable anastomosis ring (BAR) in surgery of the digestive system].

Twenty-six patients submitted to surgery using BAR in intestinal anastomosis have been studied. The results were compared with data of the literature concerning this device of anastomosis and about mechanical staplers and manual suture. The following data were taken into consideration: type of operation, type of anastomosis, average time of execution, complications, days of postoperative canalization and feeding, costs of three anastomosis types.

Colonic cell proliferation in normal mucosa of patients with colon cancer.

Cell kinetics parameters have been analysed in colonic mucosa at different distances from a tumour in patients with colon carcinoma. Total cell number (TCN), 3H thymidine labelling index (TLI), mitotic index (MI), Goblet cell index (GCI) and the distribution of labelled cells along the crypt column (cell position frequency plot) were determined in well-aligned crypts. Total cell number, GCI and the labelled cell position frequency plots were similar in different samples from the same individual.