Cryoablation of renal tumors: long-term follow-up from a multicenter experience.

Purpose: To retrospectively investigate long-term outcomes of renal cryoablation from a multicenter database.

Methods: 338 patients with 363 renal tumors underwent cryoablation in 4 centers in North-Eastern Italy. 340/363 tumors (93.

A new method for long-term storage of titred microbial standard solutions suitable for microbiologic quality control activities of pharmaceutical companies.

Commercially available lyophilized microbial standards are expensive and subject to reduction in cell viability due to freeze-drying stress. Here we introduce an inexpensive and straightforward method for in-house microbial standard preparation and cryoconservation that preserves constant cell titre and cell viability over 14 months.

Cerebellar haemorrhage mimicking acute peripheral vestibulopathy: the role of the video head impulse test in differential diagnosis.

Dizziness and vertigo without neurological signs are typically due to a peripheral vestibular disease. Although the most common causes are benign, differential diagnosis must include potentially life-threatening central diseases such as cerebrovascular pathologies. A systemic clinical approach needs a careful work-up, bedside examination and appropriate instrumental investigation.

[Septic thrombophlebitis of the internal jugular vein due to Fusobacterium necrophorum (Lemierre's syndrome): case report and review of literature].

Lemierre's syndrome is an uncommon clinical entity. It is characterized by oropharyngeal infection followed by septic thrombophlebitis of the jugular vein with embolization to the lungs and other organs. It is usually due to Fusobacterium necrophorum.

Recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA) as first-line therapy for declotting of haemodialysis access.

One of the most common complication in haemodialysis patients is thrombosis of the arteriovenous fistula (AVF). Thirty-five patients with a total of 42 thromboses of the angioaccess were infused via a small needle: (i) into the feeding artery (50% of the cases); (ii) into a AVF venous segment of the arteriovenous fistula (42.8%); (iii) directly into the thrombus (7.

[Color Doppler and phlebography in the Paget-Schroetter syndrome].

The authors compared the adequacy of phlebography and color-Doppler US in the diagnosis of subclavian-axillary thrombosis, or Paget-Schroetter syndrome. Ten patients with subclavian-axillary thrombosis (8 men and 2 women, aged 16 to 55 years, mean age: 30 years) were examined over a two-year period. All of them underwent color-Doppler US and conventional phlebography in the same session.

[Full computerization of a radiology service. A 5 years' experience at a centralized system].

Even though the problem of collecting and processing information is of paramount importance in any radiology department, the choice of the best information system--as for organization and effectiveness--largely depends on specific and different local situations and is therefore still largely debated. In the ULSS 18 in Veneto (Dolo, Venezia), all patients are referred to the only existing hospital radiology. Therefore, a central computer system has been be realized and used also by the radiology department, for completely computed procedures, since January 1, 1988.

[Percutaneous neurolysis of the celiac plexus. Description of a new CT-guided technique and preliminary results].

June 1991 to June 1992, twelve CT-guided percutaneous celiac plexus neurolyses were performed by a new simplified technique with the patient in left-hand side decubitus and a single right lumbar needle access. CT guidance allows the interventional radiologist to locate the best access point on the skin, to give the needle the appropriate depth and inclination to avoid passing through pleura, parenchyma and vessels, and finally to check the correct position of the needle tip and the spread of neurolytic solution. In left-hand side decubitus, fat and loose connective tissue around ganglia and vessels expands much more, thus allowing the alcohol-contrast medium solution to spread easily and evenly getting to both celiac ganglia by gravity.

[Pre- and postoperative right cardiac insufficiency in patients with mitral or mitral-aortic valve diseases].

The prognosis of right ventricular failure in patients with mitral valve disease would seem to depend on its chronicity and progression according to the results of a study of 382 cases of mitral valve disease: 231 women, 151 men: average age 55 +/- 13 years, operated between January 1983 and December 1986, most (321) for mitral valve replacement, one third (108) with associated aortic valve replacement. Right ventricular failure was or had been present before surgery in 161 patients: the peri-operative mortality was 11.2% and the secondary mortality 21.

[Which anti-ischemic treatment can be prescribed during and after the acute phase of myocardial infarction?].

After myocardial infarction, calcium channel blockers are the most prescribed anti-ischemic drugs followed by nitrate derivatives and beta blockers. In order to assess whether this attitude is justified by published data on their efficacy, a meta-analysis of trials of anti-ischemic drugs in myocardial infarction was performed. The early mortality was 13.

[The Duplex system in the follow-up of sclerosing therapy of the greater saphenous vein. First results and considerations].

The authors evaluated the long-term results of sclerosing therapy as an alternative to surgery by means of high-resolution US and Doppler dynamic fluximetry (duplex system). Seventy patients (53 females and 17 males) were examined, all of whom fulfilled the clinical criteria of recovery and efficacy of sclerosing therapy. Average follow up was 20 months (range: 6-26).

[Duplex-sonography in the preoperative evaluation of the small saphenous vein].

The authors analyze the results obtained by means of Doppler US, duplex examination and venography in the preoperative evaluation of venous vascular anatomy and flow dynamics in the popliteal fossa for short saphenous vein surgery. As a whole, 50 legs were examined in 34 patients who subsequently underwent surgery. The confluence of the short saphenous vein in the deep system proved to be very variable.

[First experience with the combination of ultrasonics and pulsed Doppler (Duplex system) in the study of venous pathologies of the legs].

Over a 2-year period the authors examined 400 patients affected with different types of phlebopathies with combined real-time US and pulsed Doppler (Duplex system). Ninety-eight patients had deep phlebothrombosis, 45 had superficial phlebothrombosis, and 110 primitive or secondary vein insufficiency. The obtained data, supported in 171 cases by contrastographic findings, allowed both the semeiological study and the evaluation of the indications for Duplex US in the various phlebopathies.

[Varicography in the preoperative assessment of primary varices. A study of 100 cases].

Primary varicose veins in the lower limb are usually well evaluated by the surgeon, who avails himself of tourniquet tests and Doppler US. However, the operation is often followed by failure or recurrence, or else it requires ugly skin dissection to eradicate an unforeseeably complicated varicose vein. We suggest that, whenever the surgeon considers the information obtained with tests and Doppler US inadequate for planning surgery, varicography be performed to get further morphological (and functional) data about the origin of varicose veins, which is of fundamental importance for an accurate surgical planning (cross-section stripping, ligation, sclerosis).