Acta Chirurgica Belgica最新文献

Background: Infantile hemangiomas are common vascular tumors in childhood that usually undergo spontaneous involution. However, complications may arise, particularly in visible areas such as the centrofacial region, leading to significant aesthetic and functional sequelae. Columellar necrosis is a rare but challenging complication requiring specialized reconstruction techniques.

Methods: This report presents two cases of columellar necrosis caused by infantile hemangiomas. Reconstruction was achieved using a 3-component technique: cartilage grafts for tip support, oral vestibule mucosal flaps for lateral lining, and cutaneous turn out flaps from the columellar stumps for anterior skin coverage.

Results: Both patients achieved excellent functional and aesthetic outcomes. The described technique allowed for reliable reconstruction of the columella, addressing both structural integrity and cosmetic appearance.

Conclusion: Reconstruction of columellar defects, particularly in pediatric cases, is challenging due to the columella's small size and challenging anatomy. The described 3-component technique offers a reproducible and effective approach for isolated columellar defects, ensuring satisfactory functional and aesthetic results.

Background: Although using gloves in surgery dates back to the nineteenth century in modern medicine, it seems that the earliest evidence can be found in the Middle Ages.

Methods: It is a library research-based study on the book of Ḏaḫīre-ye Kāmele, written by Ḥakim Mohammad (Ḥakīm Muhammad), a Persian surgeon in the sixteenth century.

Results: Ḥakim Mohammad advises the surgeons to use a sheath made of sheep testicle skin for their fingers when examining a wound and putting ointment and bandage on it to protect oneself from diseases that are transmitted through the skin and blood, such as people with wounds whose wounds are caused by smallpox, anthrax, leprosy and infectious wounds.

Conclusion: The words of Ḥakim Mohammad suggest a preliminary concept of using surgical gloves to prevent transmitted diseases, dating back to sixteenth century, 3 centuries before its use in modern era.

Background: Cervico-thoracic paragangliomas are rare hypervascular neuroendocrine tumors, with high morbidity and mortality due to locally invasive growth. They are often misdiagnosed in patients with cervical masses. Horner's syndrome, in this case, results from a lesion of the stellate ganglion. Only a few cases in the literature describe paragangliomas affecting the stellate ganglion.

Case report: We report the case of a 61-year-old female with a cervico-thoracic paraganglioma associated with Horner's syndrome. She had no significant medical history. Cervical computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed a large, highly vascularized antero-superior mediastinal mass measuring 6.8 cm x 5 cm x 9 cm, surrounding the left subclavian and carotid arteries, and slightly compressing the trachea, esophagus, and innominate vein. Surgery provided the definitive diagnosis through histopathological analysis. We highlight the different types of paragangliomas and the challenges in diagnosis. A 2-year follow-up with CT and PET-CT scans confirmed no recurrence of the lesion.

Conclusions: Paragangliomas are rare, slow-growing neuroendocrine tumors that may appear wherever autonomic ganglia are present. Clinical presentations vary, including lesions of the stellate ganglion causing ipsilateral Horner's syndrome. Paragangliomas should be considered in the differential diagnosis of cervico-thoracic masses. Treatment involves complete surgical resection while preserving neurovascular structures.

Background: The diagnosis of acute appendicitis (AA) still represents a considerable problem for surgeons, with a relatively high rate of false positive findings still present. Thus, the aim of our study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the Alvarado scoring system based on the prospectively included subjects who presented to the emergency department with suspected AA.

Methods: From June 2018 to May 2020, 176 adult patients examined in the Emergency surgical department of University Hospital Sveti Duh with suspicion of AA were prospectively included in the study. The decision on the need for surgery in all patients was made by the same surgeon based only on clinical judgment and remained independent of any diagnostic scoring system.

Results: Fifty-eight (33.0%) of them were operated with negative appendectomy rate of 17.2%. Results showed that the surgeon's decision-making process is superior to the Alvarado scoring system (sensitivity and specificity were 96 and 92.06% vs. 84 and 87.30%, respectively).

Conclusion: The Alvarado scoring system proved to be a worse predictor of the diagnosis of AA compared to the assessment of an experienced surgeon and is not an adequate diagnostic tool for confirming the diagnosis. Only in a narrow group of patients in whom, based on the clinical examination, an indication for surgery has already been established, the Alvarado scoring system can potentially be useful in excluding the diagnosis with considerable caution in terms of close follow-up of the patient.Abbreviations: MSCT: multislice computed tomography; AA: acute appendicitis.

Background: A surgical fellowship allows both additional training as well as maintenance of surgical skills while searching for a steady job. As the presence of fellows usually does not result in a measurably higher productivity, fellowships may be considered a form of disguised unemployment. The aim of this study is to evaluate the career flow of a surgical trainee to a staff position and to determine the number of surgeons working on temporary basis within the general surgery workforce in Flanders.

Methods: All surgeons graduated in Flanders between 2000 and 2022 were invited to fill out a web-based survey concerning their current and past employment. Reminders were sent out after 2 and 4 weeks. Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS version 27.0 (IBM Inc., Chicago, IL).

Results: Response rate was 64% (292/457) with 76% of respondents currently working as surgeons, 14% (38) as fellows and 10% working outside the surgical domain. Eighty-two percent of current fellows graduated in 2019 or later. Thirty-one percent of surgeons graduated in 2019 are still working as fellows. For surgeons graduated in 2020, 2021 and 2022, this is 45%, 80% and 90%, respectively. Compared to staff surgeons, the number of additional training years (2.8 ± 1.0 vs. 2.2 ± 1.3; p = .009) and the number of applications (6.6 ± 5 vs. 3.3 ± 3; p < .001) are significantly higher for current fellows.

Conclusion: This study shows that disguised unemployment is present in the general surgical community in Flanders. The status of 'fellow' should be incorporated in calculations concerning future needs of the surgical workforce in order to prevent open unemployment.

Introduction: Pseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP) is a rare disease characterized by diffuse peritoneal invasion of multifocal mucinous deposits. Gold standard treatment involves cytoreductive surgery (CRS) with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC). We aimed to compare the outcomes of operated PMP patients in a low-volume center, with those of high-volume centers and using other regimens.

Materials and methods: Retrospective analysis was conducted for PMP patients treated by CRS + HIPEC (using the Elias high-dose Oxaliplatin HIPEC regimen) over a 15-year period (January 2007 - December 2021) at the Jules Bordet Institute - H.U.B.

Results: 32 patients were included. Pathology results were: 21.9% acellular mucin, 34.4% low-grade, and 43.7% high-grade. The median peritoneal cancer index was 24 (range 3-36). The median follow-up was 58 months. The rate of major complications (Clavien-Dindo III/IV) was 41% and postoperative mortality was 3%. Mean disease-free survival (DFS) was estimated at 40 +/- 4 months (standard deviation (SD)) while overall survival (OS) was 122 +/- 9 months (SD). DFS reached a plateau of 44.5% at 5 and 10 years and OS was 92.3% and 76.2% respectively. Statistical analysis showed low-grade PMP to be predictive of better DFS and OS (p = 0.0111 and p = 0.0293 respectively). We also found that female gender was predictive of better DFS (p = 0.0262).

Conclusion: Our postoperative morbidity and mortality rates, DFS, and OS were similar to those reported in the literature for high-volume PMP centers. Our theory is that surgical proficiency can be more attributed to the surgeon's CRS experience, regardless of the nature of the disease.

Introduction: High-grade pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors are rare, and most of them are well differentiated. Management of this type of tumor is not yet well established.

Methods: A 28-year-old woman was referred to our hospital for a well-differentiated grade-3 pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor with multiple liver metastases. The patient received neoadjuvant therapy consisting of combination of Capecitabine/Temozolomide chemotherapy and somatostatin analogue.

Results: An excellent regression was observed on both pancreatic and hepatic lesions, and therefore, an aggressive surgical management could be performed with a two-step scheme. Adjuvant hormono-chemotherapy was administered between the two surgeries. The patient achieved six years of disease-free survival following the last therapy.

Discussion and conclusion: We highlight the difference between well and poorly differentiated high-grade neuroendocrine neoplasia and report that aggressive surgery is a valid option even in metastatic presentation at diagnosis.

Objective: Adrenal cortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare and aggressive endocrine malignancy. Clinical symptoms are mainly related to excess hormone secretion. Hypercortisolism and virilisation are among the most common presentations.

Methods: We report a case series of five patients with ACC, three of which presented as adrenal incidentalomas. Additionally, a literature review on current diagnosis and management of ACC was performed.

Results: ACCs are often incidentally detected because of the liberal use of medical imaging. Management of ACC remains challenging, and the poor prognosis makes early diagnosis of crucial importance to increase chances of a better outcome. Biochemical evaluation should be performed to diagnose hormonally active tumours.

Conclusion: Surgery is the main and only potentially curative treatment option. Adjuvant treatment with mitotane may improve survival and is indicated for patients with a perceived high risk of recurrence. Aggressive cytotoxic therapy should be given to patients with an unfavourable prognosis.

Purpose: To compare the mid-term primary and assisted-primary patency results of plain balloon angioplasty (PBA) versus drug-eluting balloon angioplasty (DEB) with non-thrombotic arteriovenous fistula (AVF) stenosis in hemodialysis (HD) patients.

Subject and methods: A total of 128 consecutive HD patients, who underwent endovascular treatment with DEB or PBA between October 2015 and December 2021, were investigated in this retrospective study. Color Doppler examination was performed for follow-up after 1, 3, 6, 12, 18, 24, and 36 months. Survival curves for primary and assisted primary vein patencies of the PTA and DEB group were generated with Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and were compared with the log-rank test.

Results: 78 patients (60.9%) underwent PBA (45 men, 33 women; mean age: 64.2 ± 13.9, range: 29-82 years) and 50 (39%) patients underwent DEB (36 men, 14 women; mean age: 65.6 ± 12.8, range: 28-87 years). The estimated primary patency rates at 6, 12,18, 24, and 36 months for the DEB group (95.5%, 92.8%, 88.6%, 77.1% and 54.0%, respectively) were significantly higher than those in the PBA group (84.5%, 76.9%, 73.9%, 66.4% and 59.0%, respectively) (p = .048). Assisted primary patency rates at 6, 12, 18, 24, and 36 months were higher in the DEB group (97.9%, 95.4%, 90.2%, 87.3% and 75.5%, respectively) than PBA group (94.7%, 86.9%, 85.0%, 78.0%, and 66.9%, respectively) but they were not statistically significant (p = .187).

Conclusion: Our study confirms DEB is a safe and effective treatment of dysfunctional AVF. We demonstrate higher primary patency rates in DEB than PBA at 6, 12, 18, 24 and 36 months. However, no statistically significant were detected between the two groups in mid-term follow-up.

Background: Aortogastric-tube fistula is a rare but fatal complication of esophagectomy, most commonly induced by anastomotic leakage and peptic ulcer formation.

Methods: We report a rare case of a 55-year-old male patient presenting with an aortogastric-tube fistula located in the gastric conduit due to a recurrence of esophageal carcinoma.

Results: The patient was treated successfully with Thoracic Endovascular Aortic Repair (TEVAR) followed by esophageal stent placement to relieve dysphagia.

Conclusion: Although aortogastric-tube fistula is an extremely rare entity, the advent of esophageal cancer surgery, has led to the recognition of aortogastric-tube fistula with increasing frequency in the literature. Herein, we provide a comprehensive review of the literature, focusing on the pathophysiology, time interval between surgery and presentation, type of treatment and survival of reported cases with post-esophagectomy aortogastric-tube fistula.