[Analysis of future liver remnant parameters in children after extended liver resection]. / Analiz parametrov budushchego ostatka pecheni u detei, perenesshikh ee obshirnye rezektsii.

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the initial data on future liver remnant volume and its function evaluated by 99mTc-Bromesida hepatobiliary scintigraphy in children with liver tumors. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Extended liver resections were performed in 58 patients aged 2 months - 208 months (median 26 months) for various neoplasms. Before hepatectomy, all children underwent contrast-enhanced CT with volumetry and hepatobiliary scintigraphy with 99mTc-Bromezida and subsequent quantitative assessment of its accumulation in the future liver remnant. All consecutive patients eligible for extended liver resection were retrospectively analyzed. RESULTS: The analysis included patients who underwent extended liver resection between June 2017 and March 2021. Among 91 liver resections, 58 (64%) procedures were extended hepatectomies including 2 ALPPS procedures. Median volume of future liver remnant was 44.5% (16.5-91.4), median future liver remnant function - 10.14%/min/m2 (1.8-30). Four patients with adequate liver function had insufficient volume of future liver remnant. Insufficient future liver remnant volume and its appropriate function were observed in 2 patients. Not life-threatening post-resection liver failure developed in 2 patients. CONCLUSION: Evaluation of future liver remnant function is the most sensitive method to predict post-hepatectomy liver failure in children. The cut off value of future liver remnant volume in children is below 25% and probably below 16.5%. Further data collection and research are warranted to determine significant values. These data will contribute to define the new indications for two-staged hepatectomies in children.

Free-breathing T2* mapping for MR myocardial iron assessment at 3 T.

BACKGROUND: Timely diagnosis of cardiac iron overload is important for children with transfusion-dependent anaemias and requires modern measure methods. Nowadays, myocardial iron quantification is performed by magnetic resonance (MR) breath-hold techniques, sensitive to respiratory motion and unfeasible in patients who are unable to hold their breath. Free-breathing T2* mapping sequences would allow to scan children who cannot hold their breath for a specified duration. Our aim was to test a free-breathing T2* mapping sequence, based on motion correction by multiple signal accumulation technique. METHODS: We used an electrocardiographically gated T2* mapping sequence based on multiple gradient echo at 3-T in 37 paediatric patients with haematologic disorders aged from 2 to 16. We compared T2* values of myocardium and signal-to-noise ratio of this new sequence with standard breath-holding T2* mapping sequence. T2* values were measured in the interventricular septum for both methods in studies with adequate image quality. RESULTS: All children were scanned without complications. Five patients were excluded from analysis because of the presence of respiratory artefacts on the T2* images with breath-holding technique due to patient's inability to hold their breath. Breath-holding T2* was 19.5 ± 7.7 ms (mean ± standard deviation), free-breathing T2* was 19.4 ± 7.6 ms, with positive correlation (r = 0.99, R2 = 0.98; p < 0.001). The free-breathing sequence had a higher signal-to-noise ratio (median 212.8, interquartile range 148.5-566.5) than the breath-holding sequence (112.6, 71.1-334.1) (p = 0.03). CONCLUSION: A free-breathing sequence provided accurate measurement of myocardial T2* values in children.

[Neurosurgical aspects of the treatment of neuroblastoma patients]. / Neirokhirurgicheskie aspekty lecheniya bol'nykh s neiroblastomoi.

Neuroblastoma (NB) is the most common extracranial solid tumor in children. The neoplasm grows from progenitor cells of the sympathetic nervous system and can be detected anywhere along the sympathetic neurological circuit: retroperitoneally, mediastinally, cervically, and pelvically. Examination of children with suspected neuroblastoma is comprehensive and performed in strict compliance with a therapeutic protocol. A decision on the treatment regimen is made based on the tumor staging and the risk group of the patient. The diagnosis and treatment of NB patients are comprehensive and can be fully carried out only at the pediatric oncology department. In 10-15% of cases, an hourglass tumor spreads to the intervertebral foramina or spinal canal at one or more levels. A tumor node is always located extradurally with respect to the spinal cord. Symptoms of spinal cord compression of various severity are observed in 5-7% of patients. We present several cases of patients with neuroblastoma with intraspinal extension. Despite apparent benefits of primary surgical decompression of the spinal cord, modern experience of treatment of children with intraspinal tumor extension does not reveal advantages of surgery over chemotherapy. Neurological disorders of various nature and severity persist in the majority of patients in the long-term period, regardless of primary treatment. A higher level of spinal deformities after surgical tumor resection is observed. The issue of spinal cord decompression should be discussed by the neurosurgeon and pediatric oncologist, and the most common method of choice may be chemotherapy. The article discusses the indications and contraindications for neurosurgical interventions in NB patients and addresses the issues of NB metastasis to the brain and cranial bones as well as the opsoclonus-myoclonus syndrome.

[MRI diagnosis of spinal metastasis of medulloblastoma. A clinical case and literature review].

OBJECTIVE: the study objective was to improve the quality of detection of medulloblastoma metastases. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the spinal cord in a child with medulloblastoma of the posterior cranial fossa, which was performed on the first day after surgery, detected contrast-positive thickenings of the meninges in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spinal cord that might be erroneously diagnosed as metastasis. These lesions spontaneously regressed within 3 weeks, which was verified by control MRI. CONCLUSION: In the case of misinterpretation of a MRI picture of contrast-positive thickenings of the meninges, a patient is erroneously regarded as having tumor metastases and is subject to more intensive treatment. However, the lesions spontaneously disappear or greatly reduce after 2-3 weeks. The article presents a case of this phenomenon, describes the putative mechanisms of its development, and provides recommendations for its differential diagnosis from metastases.

[Classical osteosarcoma in children and adolescent].

Classical osteosarcoma is one of the most common primary malignant bone tumors in children and adolescents. It more frequently occurs in the areas of the highest growth plate proliferation: limb long bones particularly in the distal femur (30%), proximal tibia (15%), and proximal humerus (15%). In the long bones, the tumor is located usually in the metaphysis (90%), less frequently in the diaphysis (9%), and very rarely in the epiphysis. This paper considers the clinical, radiological, and histological diagnosis, and prognosis in this pathology.

[Placement of the Ommaya reservoir in narrow and slit-like ventricles using a neuronavigation system. Author's own experience and literature review].

In modern neuro-oncology and onco-hematology, intraventricular injection of chemotherapeutic agents (most typically, methotrexate) is an inevitable part of many protocols for treating patients with malignant tumors of the CNS, neuroleukemia, CNS lymphomas and some other disorders. A ventricular catheter system (also known as the Ommaya reservoir) is used to provide repeated injection of chemotherapeutic agents to cerebral ventricles. The use of modern neuronavigation systems allows one to place Ommaya reservoir in patients with narrow and slit-like ventricles. Material and methods. During the period between March 2012 and October 2013, 27 patients underwent stereotactic placement of the Ommaya reservoir using a Cart II optical neuronavigation system (Stryker) at the Dmitry Rogachev Federal Scientific and Clinical Center of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Immunology. The patients for stereotactic placement of a ventricular catheter were selected on a subjective basis (small ventricular size was the criterion for selection). In one patient, the surgery for placement of the Ommaya reservoir was combined with stereotactic biopsy. Results. In all patients, a ventricular catheter was placed in the anterior horn of the lateral ventricle on the first try; no intraoperative complications were observed. Conclusions. Frameless navigation is an illustrative, mobile, and multifunctional method. The same device can be used to perform brain, transsphenoidal, ENT, and spine surgeries, as well as orthopedic interventions. Today, neuronavigation systems are used in neurosurgical operating rooms and make it possible to avoid using stereotactic frames in most cases.

[Possibilities of x-ray computed tomography in the diagnosis and treatment of suppurative complications of acute pancreatitis]. / Vozmozhnosti rentgenovskoi komp'iuternoi tomografii v diagnostike i lechenii gnoinykh oslozhnenii ostrogo pankreatita.

The authors have analyzed results of the roentgen computed examination of 73 patients with acute pancreatitis and its complications. The potentialities of roentgen computed tomography (RCT) in diagnosing are shown as well as computed semiotics of acute pancreatitis and its complications. The authors consider that RCT makes the diagnosis substantially more exact and enables the complications to be detected much earlier. Systematization of the signs detected by RCT in acute pancreatitis in combination with the clinical symptoms gives the information necessary for correct strategy of surgical treatment.