Echo-guided SWL of vesical stones with Dornier MPL 9000 lithotripter in obstructed and unobstructed patients.

Sixty-one patients with vesical stones (38 with underlying obstructive conditions and 23 unobstructed) underwent SWL using ultrasound targeting under no regional or general anesthesia. A foley catheter was not routinely employed, and the bladder was filled in a physiologic way. Complete resolution was obtained in 47 patients (78%); in particular, 66% of the obstructed patients and 96% of the unobstructed patients became stone free in one to four SWL sessions.

Acquired gallstone opacification during cholelitholytic treatment with chenodeoxyholic, ursodeoxycholic, and tauroursodeoxycholic acids.

Objectives: The appearance of gallstone opacification during oral bile acid administration indicates that stones are no longer susceptible to dissolution and represents, therefore, a definitive treatment failure. Ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) has been imputed to facilitate gallstone opacification; however, data regarding the comparative occurrence of gallstone opacification during UDCA and chenodeoxycholic acid (CDCA) administration are not yet available. Our objectives were to evaluate the frequency of acquired opacification in gallstone patients taking UDCA and in gallstone patients taking CDCA, to verify whether or not gallstone opacification is a peculiar side effect of UDCA treatment and, further, to evaluate gallstone opacification in gallstone patients receiving tauro-UDCA (TUDCA) to verify whether the administration of the more soluble tauroconjugate might prevent the deposition of calcium salts on the stone surface.

In situ echoguided extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy of ureteric stones with the Dornier MPL 9000: a multicentric study group.

Objective: To study the efficacy of the Dornier MPL 9000 lithotripter with a real time ultrasound transducer in the localization and treatment of upper and prevesical ureteric stones.

Patients And Methods: Two-hundred and eighty-five patients with pre-vesical ureteric stones and 247 patients with upper ureteric stones underwent extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) using ultrasound targeting, under no regional or general anaesthesia.

Results: At follow-up after 3 months 97% of patients with pre-vesical stones and 96% with upper ureteric stones were stone free.

Gallbladder motility in cholesterol gallstone disease. Effect of ursodeoxycholic acid administration and gallstone dissolution.

Gallbladder motility was evaluated by ultrasonography in 75 cholesterol gallstone patients and in 77 matched control subjects. All 75 gallstone patients were candidates for oral bile acid therapy (radiolucent gallstones, less than 2 cm in diameter, in well-opacified gallbladder), and 38 of them were also studied during ursodeoxycholic acid administration. An additional 20 gallstone patients were studied 1 year after confirmed gallstone dissolution with oral bile acids.

Morphological and biochemical effects of intrahepatic alcohol injection in the rabbit.

The local and systemic effects, as well as the repair mechanisms, of sterile absolute ethyl alcohol injection were evaluated at a range of doses (0.1-2.0 mL/kg body weight) in rabbit liver in order to confirm the feasibility and safety of local treatment of tumours in man.