Complications of image-guided transcatheter hepatic chemoembolization of primary and secondary tumours of the liver.

Background: Image-guided transcatheter hepatic chemoembolization (TACE) is accepted worldwide as an effective treatment for patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and for adequate preservation of liver function. Although considered relatively safe, TACE has been associated with several complications. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of the complications associated with TACE therapy and to correlate it with certain risk factors, either well-known or not yet evaluated.

Acute thrombocytopenia: an unusual complication occurring after drug-eluting microspheres transcatheter hepatic chemoembolization.

Image-guided transcatheter hepatic chemoembolization (TACE) is accepted worldwide as an effective treatment for patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma and liver metastases from neuroendocrine tumors, colorectal carcinomas, and uveal melanomas. Although the technique is relatively safe, it has been associated with several complications. We report the cases of two patients with colorectal liver metastases who developed acute thrombocytopenia a few hours after TACE.

Innovation in sodium erythorbate production: the use of membrane-reactors.

Isoascorbic or erythorbic acid is a stereoisomer of ascorbic acid acting as a preservative against oxidation and decoloration, recently approved for food use also in the European Market. Actually erythorbate is produced by means of a complex and long process after bio-fermentation of dextrose. In order to simplify and improve this process a membrane system was conceived able to induce acid 2-ketogluconic diffusion from fermentation broth directly into methanol where it esterificates.

[Experimental use of intraoperative pulse wave Doppler in the study of vascular microanastomosis].

Personal experience with pulse wave Doppler (PWD) at 20 MHz with real time signal spectral analysis in FFT (Fast Fourier Transform), for the valuation of the vascular microanastomosis patency degree is reported. Fifty-nine Sprague-Dawley rats have been studied after abdominal aorta dissection: in 19 (group A) an organic stenosis has been simulated varying from 5% to 95% by a 8/0 silk suture; in 40 rats (group B and C) we the abdominal aorta was stitched with interrupted suture after transversal section. In the group C (20 rats) a longitudinal arteriotomy on abdominal aorta within 10-15 min from anastomosis was performed to value under microscopic control the suture line.