[Refractory diarrhea in infants: experimental basis of current therapeutic perspectives].

Intractable diarrhoea is a severe condition of early infancy producing prolonged food intolerance, massive watery diarrhoea and malnutrition. Although the etiology remains unknown in more than half of the cases, a basic physiopathological mechanism appears to be a variable inhibition of the maturation and differentiation of the crypt cell resulting in immature villus cells. Among the known nutritional and hormonal factors that control maturation of the enterocytes, polyamines (spermine, spermidine) emerge as the most trophic substances potentially useful for humans.

[Non-surgical treatment of benign prostatic hypertrophy. Current status of the problem].

Benign prostatic hypertrophy is a highly prevalent disease, with a significant morbidity. Classical surgical therapy (open or transurethral adenomectomy) is very effective, but not without risks and complications. Better understanding of the pathogenesis of the disease have led to the development of several alternative treatments.

[Trans-laparoscopy surgery, a passing fashion or progress?].

Since the first laparoscopic cholecystectomy performed in 1987 by Philippe Mouret in Lyon (France), there has been a real revolution in the field of visceral surgery: more and more operations are performed by this mini-invasive surgical method: lithiasis of the common bile duct, Nissen and Heller procedure, truncal vagotomies, abdominal and thoracic, supra-selective vagotomies, hernia, appendectomy, band sections during intestinal occlusion, resection of the colon and rectum, oesophagectomies ...

[Lyme disease: clinical and sero-epidemiological study of Borrelia burgdorferi infections in Belgium].

Lyme disease is a multi-systemic infection caused by the spirochaete Borrelia burgdorferi: this bacterium, discovered in 1982 in the United States, is mainly transmitted by a tick bite, Ixodes ricinus in Europe. In Belgium, a first seroepidemiological study of 3 years has revealed 190 patients and the whole spectrum of clinical pictures was observed, including the early stage of this infection in the skin (erythema chronicum migrans), neurological involvement and arthritis. The Lyme borreliosis is endemic in our country: the incidence ranges from low near the coast to high in the south-eastern part of Belgium.