[Single-port video-assisted thoracic surgery in an awake patient]. / Cirugía torácica asistida por vídeo uniportal en paciente despierto.

Video-assisted thoracic surgery is traditionally carried out with general anaesthesia and endotracheal intubation with double lumen tube. However, in the last few years procedures, such as lobectomies, are being performed with loco-regional anaesthesia, with and without sedation, maintaining the patient awake and with spontaneous breathing, in order to avoid the inherent risks of general anaesthesia, double lumen tube intubation and mechanical ventilation. This surgical approach has also shown to be effective in that it allows a good level of analgesia, maintaining a correct oxygenation and providing a better post-operative recovery. Two case reports are presented in which video-assisted thoracic surgery was used, a lung biopsy and a lung resection, both with epidural anaesthesia and maintaining the patient awake and with spontaneous ventilation, as part of a preliminary evaluation of the anaesthetic technique in this type of surgery.

Hexarelin, a synthetic GH-releasing peptide, is a powerful stimulus of GH secretion in pubertal children and in adults but not in prepubertal children and in elderly subjects.

GH-releasing peptides (GHRPs) and their non-peptidly mimetics are synthetic molecules which possess marked, dose-related and reproducible GH-releasing effect even after oral administration. Their potent stimulatory effect on GH secretion suggested that GHRP could be useful as provocative test on the diagnosis of GH deficiency. We compared the GH response to the maximal effective dose of Hexarelin (2 micrograms/kg i.v.), an hexapeptide belonging to GHRP family, with that of GHRH (1 microgram/kg i.v.) alone and combined with arginine (ARG, 0.5 g/kg i.v.), which likely acts via inhibition of hypothalamic somatostatin release. We studied 6 prepubertal (4 boys and 2 girls, age 2.6-12.2 yr) and 6 pubertal children with normal short stature (3 boys and 3 girls, age 10.3-14.4 yr) as well as 12 normal young adults (6 males and 6 females, age 22-30 yr) and 12 normal elderly subjects (6 males and 6 females, age 53-79 yr). In prepubertal children, the GH response to HEX (19.0 +/- 4.6 micrograms/l; 611.5 +/- 121.4 micrograms/l/h) was lower than that to GHRH (27.4 +/- 12.7 micrograms/l; 1209.0 +/- 590.9 micrograms/l/h) but this difference did not attain statistical significance. Both these responses were, in turn, lower (p < 0.05) than that to ARG + GHRH (57.9 +/- 15.1 micrograms/l; 2483.6 +/- 696.6 micrograms/l/h). In pubertal children, the GH response to HEX (67.6 +/- 12.7 micrograms/l; 2755.3 +/- 547.3 micrograms/l/h) was higher than that to ARG + GHRH (49.1 +/- 8.9 micrograms/l; 2554.1 +/- 356.6 micrograms/l/h) but this difference did not attain statistical significance; both these responses were, in turn, clearly higher (p < 0.05) than that to GHRH alone (23.1 +/- 7.9 micrograms/l; 1004.8 +/- 214.3 micrograms/l/h). In young adults, the GH response to HEX 60.9 +/- 8.0 micrograms/l; 2401.0 +/- 376.2 micrograms/l/h) was similar to that to ARG + GHRH (68.9 +/- 11.7 micrograms/l; 3035.7 +/- 466.6 micrograms/l/h) and both were clearly higher (p < 0.001) than that to GHRH alone (21.6 +/- 3.6 micrograms/l; 790.0 +/- 137.0 micrograms/l/h). In elderly subjects, the GH response to HEX (22.4 +/- 4.9; 855.0 +/- 199.0 micrograms/l/h) was higher (p < 0.01) than that to GHRH (3.6 +/- 0.8 micrograms/l; 151.8 +/- 24.6 micrograms/l/h) but lower (p < 0.05) than that to ARG + GHRH (48.1 +/- 4.6 micrograms/l; 1758.2 +/- 149.1 micrograms/l/h). In conclusion, GHRPs are a powerful stimulus of GH secretion in pubertal children and young adults only. On the other hand, the age-related variations in the GH response to GHRPs probably limit their reliability for the evaluation of GH releasable pool in prepubertal children and elderly subjects.

Modifications of Intestinal Permeability Test Induced by Biliopancreatic Diversion: Preliminary Results.

BACKGROUND: Biliopancreatic Diversion (BPD), excluding the jejunum and part of the ileum from the transit of the food, reduces the absorptive intestinal area available to 250 cm of the distal ileum. The Intestinal Permeability Test (IPT) with Lactulose/Mannitol is performed to assess the intestinal mucosa function. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of intestinal anatomical modifications induced by BPD on IPT in a group of severely obese patients. METHODS: Group A: 18 severely obese subjects who underwent BPD; the IPT was performed before (T0) and 8.2 +/- 0.9 days after BPD (T1). Group B: nine subjects of Group A; IPT was repeated 96.1 +/- 12.7 days (T2) and 180.4 +/- 19.7 days (T3) after BPD, respectively. IPT was expressed as the %Lactulose/%Mannitol ratio in the urine collected during 5 h after oral administration (normal %L/%M < 0.04). RESULTS: Data from Group A (paired Student's t-test) exhibited significantly higher values in T, with respect to T0 for %L/%M (p < 0.05) and for %L (p < 0.05), and significantly lower values in T, with respect to T0 (p < 0.001) for %M. In the Group B analysis of Variance from T0-T1-T2-T3 resulted statistically significant (p < 0.05) for % L/ % M and % M. CONCLUSIONS: The reduction of intestinal absorption surface induced by BPD causes a significant increase of the Lactulose/Mannitol IPT values, showing an intestinal mucosa function impairment. The IPT values improve progressively at 3 and 6 months after this surgical procedure.