Cervical sympathetic chain schwannoma: a case report.

Nerve sheath tumours arising from the sympathetic chain are extremely rare and are a diagnostic challenge. We report the case of a 31- year-old man who presented with an asymptomatic right cervical swelling. He was evaluated with sonography, CT, MR and angiography. Surgical excision of the lesion was performed, and histological examination revealed a schwannoma. The differential diagnosis of such tumours and their management are discussed.

Neck lesions mimicking thyroid pathology.

INTRODUCTION: Nodular lesions within the neck may origin from several structures. A misdiagnosed origin may expose the surgeon to inappropriate procedures. These lesions are paradoxically frequent in high specialised centre for endocrine surgery. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In the year 2006, three patients were first admitted to our department with a diagnosis of thyroid nodule (1) or lymphatic metastases of thyroid carcinoma (2). The first patient had ultrasound (US) and Tc-99-m scan orienting for thyroid nodule. The two other patients, presented with lateral neck lesion in ipsilateral sincronous and previous diagnosis of papillary thyroid carcinoma, respectively, with US and computed tomography scan confirmed lesion but with a FNA cytology negative for tumoural cells. RESULTS: All three patients underwent surgical exploration. In the first two cases, a whitish tender nodule (4 and 4.5cm), cleavable from surrounding structures, was removed with final histology of Schwannoma and Paraganglioma, respectively. Both patients experienced Bernard Horner Syndrome. In the last patients, a firm grey nodule of 5cm strictly adherent to muscular planes was removed with diagnosis of Castleman's Disease. CONCLUSIONS: Nodular neck lesions mimicking a thyroid pathology (thyroid nodules or metastatic lymph nodes) are rare but can represent a tough challenge for surgeons who might fall into incorrect surgical approaches, resulting in high morbidity. Pre-operative work-up would help the surgeon to obtain the correct diagnosis, thus, to follow the better surgical approach. Nevertheless, a careful approach would be used for that neurogenic tumour amenable of resection without jeopardising nervous structures.

Unexpected histological findings of lesions diagnosed in the adrenal region in a series of 420 patients submitted to adrenal surgery. Review of our experience.

INTRODUCTION: The incidence of adrenal incidentalomas is reported to be up to 30% in the current literature; nevertheless, in some patients undergoing surgery, a final diagnosis of non-adrenal origin of the mass is performed. In this paper we present our experience of 13 patients with unexpected histological findings of lesions diagnosed in the adrenal region. PATIENTS AND METHODS: From June 1986 to December 2004, 420 patients underwent adrenalectomy in our Department. Since the introduction of videolaparoscopic technique in 1993, 228 adrenalectomies have been performed videolaparoscopically. Pre-operative diagnosis was: incidentaloma (34.0% of patients), Conn's adenoma (29.0%), Cushing's adenoma (13.9%), pheochromocytoma (8.8%), suspicious metastasis (7.3%), Cushing's disease (6.0%), other (1.0%). RESULTS: Final histology revealed an unexpected diagnosis of non-adrenal origin of the mass in 13 patients (3.1%). Histology demonstrated a benign neurogenic tumor in 10 patients. In the other 3 patients diagnosis was respectively of lymphnode, hemangioma and a gastric metastasis of melanoma. Five patients out of 7 had a successful laparoscopic resection of the lesion. Mean operative time in this group was higher compared to laparoscopic resection for adrenal lesion (95.3 min vs 73.2 min). CONCLUSION: A small percentage of our patients (3.1%) demonstrated unexpected findings of the lesion pre-operatively misinterpreted as an adrenal mass. Despite a complete pre-operative assessment, adrenal lesions might reveal a different origin, increasing the surgical challenge as well as the morbidity for the patient.

Analysis of posttransplant diabetes mellitus prevalence in a population of kidney transplant recipients.

AIM: The onset of posttransplant diabetes mellitus (PTDM) among kidney recipients is associated with an increased risk of graft failure and death. Minimizing the risk of PTDM is a priority for long-term improvement in survival rates. We sought to evaluate the prevalence of PTDM and impaired fasting glucose (IFG) among a population of kidney transplant recipients to identify the risk factors and to evaluate graft and patient survivals. METHODS: We analyzed 250 consecutive Caucasian patients who received kidney allografts in our center between May 2000 and December 2005, with a median follow-up of 32 months (range, 1-78 months). RESULTS: We observed altered glucose metabolism in 17% of patients; specifically, the prevalences of PTDM and IFG were 12.2% and 4.8%, respectively. Patients who developed PTDM or IFG were overweight (BMI, 26.4+/-3.4 and 28.1+/-3.4 kg/m(2), respectively), whereas the normal glucose (NG) group's BMI was 23.8+/-3.5 kg/m(2) (P= .002 and P= .004, respectively). Prevalence of acute rejection was higher in the PTDM and IFG patients compared with the NG patients (60.7%, 63.6%, and 32.1%, respectively; P= .006; P< .04), while no difference was observed in terms of graft and patient overall survival. CONCLUSION: In our series of patients, we showed that being overweight represents a major risk factor for the development of PTDM, which results in an increased acute rejection rate. These results confirmed the importance of appropriate weight control among patients undergoing kidney transplantation, which should also be strictly monitored for all risk factors associated with the development of impaired glucose metabolism.

Long-term outcome of renal transplantation from marginal donors.

Long-term survival of kidneys from suboptimal donors is known to be not as good as that from optimal ones. However, the shortage of donors has led many transplant centers to consider accepting older donors with comorbidities. We analyzed 238 patients who received deceased donor renal transplants in the period 2000-2005. The recipients were matched to be no more than 15 years older or younger than the corresponding donors. Among them 125 received a single and 18 a double transplantation from donors considered marginal, according to UNOS criteria for expanded criteria donor (ECD). Most kidneys were evaluated with a pretransplant biopsy, using the scoring system introduced by Karpinski in 1999. The analysis indicated clearly better results in the non-ECD group: both patients and graft survival rates were 10% higher at 1, 2, and 3 years. However, the ECD group showed satisfactory outcomes, confirming the utility of this procedure. The long-term survival rates of single or double grafts from marginal donors are satisfactory, confirming the practice of allocating kidneys after a preimplantation histological evaluation, allowing expansion of the donor pool and providing older patients access to the waiting lists.

Cytomegalovirus infection with multiple colonic perforations in a renal transplant recipient.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) continues to be potentially the most important pathogen affecting organ transplant recipients. Severe gastrointestinal complications have been reported to occur in about 10% of renal transplant recipients, sometimes with dramatic presentations. We report the case of a 57-year-old CMV-seropositive woman with end-stage renal failure who developed CMV-related colonic multiple perforation 30 days after cadaveric CMV-positive renal transplantation. CMV pp65 antigenemia test and CMV-PCR had always been negative on all the weekly controls routinely performed in the postoperative period. Only after the sudden onset of this complication did the antigenemia and PCR become positive. The relationship between infection and perforation has been established beyond any doubt, as the histology of the resected colonic segment revealed florid CMV infection with evidence of typical inclusions in both macrophages and endothelial cells. Colonic perforations are often fatal in transplant recipients because of inability to contain the perforation, and only a rapid diagnosis and an aggressive surgical treatment can improve the prognosis.