[The cysticohepatic duct and the subvesicular duct. Apropos of 2 types of bile ducts of different significance]. / Conduit cysto-hépatique et conduit sous-vésiculaire. A propos de deux types de conduits biliaires de signification différente.

A cysticohepatic duct drains a particular region of the liver. It represents an anatomical variation of the biliary tree. On the contrary, a subvesicular duct represents an abnormality of the biliary ducts development. It belongs to aberrant biliary ducts (vasa aberrantia) and has all their morphologic characteristics.

[Pancreatic injuries. Report on 42 cases (author's transl)]. / Les traumatismes du pancréas. A propos de 42 observations.

Between 1975 and 1980, 42 pancreatic injuries have been managed, they represented 9.5 per cent of abdominal injuries. Nine patients received penetrating trauma and thirty three patients sustained blunt trauma, the majority of them was a road accident. Associated and concomitant injuries of abdominal organs were present in 81 per cent of cases with the pancreatic trauma. More than 66 per cent have multiple brain, thoraco, abdominal, and bones injuries. Thirty two patients have been treated before the sixth hour. The emergency surgical treatment has been conservative in twenty six patients and a primary resection has been performed in twelve patients, (with eleven partial pancreatectomy and one pancreatoduodenectomy). But four patients died on the operating table because they have extensive injuries to several abdominal organs. Postoperative complications were present in 66 per cent of cases. They obliged the drainage of abscesses, three distal pancreatectomy and one pancreatoduodenectomy. The global mortality is 31 per cent, the secondary mortality is 21.4 per cent. The authors conclude thanks to the study of this series and of literature that the frequency of pancreatic trauma increased, and that its gravity is directly related to the number of other organs damages, missed or delayed diagnostic and to an inappropriate emergency treatment, which let necrosis and infection making their deadly evolution.

[Verifying the function of hepaticojejunostomies by scintigraphy of the bile ducts]. / Contrôle du fonctionnement des hépatico-jéjunostomies par la scintigraphie des voies biliaires.

Thirty six hepatobiliary scintigraphies with 99mTc-Dimethyl IDA were performed in thirty patients with an hepaticojejunostomy one month to ten years after surgery. Twenty patients underwent surgery for biliary disease and ten for duodenal or pancreatic disease. In most cases (twenty three), the radionuclide study has been systematically performed to assess the scintigraphic pattern of a normal hepaticojejunostomy. In seven cases this pattern was abnormal. Four times the biliary enteric anastomosis was involved. Three times it showed an abnormal liver morphology. After an hepaticojejunostomy, hepatobiliary scintigraphy seems to be the only examination providing dynamic information for the biliary enteric anastomosis and the intestinal loop. But it sometimes is difficult to analyse in all cases, it must be the screening test in patients when symptoms occur after hepaticojejunostomy; but a percutaneous transhepatic cholangiogram cannot always be avoided.

A general review of anomalies of hepatic morphology and their clinical implications.

Anomalies of hepatic morphology, as opposed to anatomical variations, are rare. Nevertheless, knowledge of such anomalies is important since they do not always remain clinically latent. Four case studies of different types of anomalies encountered in surgical practice in the adult are reported herein. A general review of hepatic anomalies can be divided into two categories, i.e. anomalies due to defective development and anomalies due to excessive development of the liver. Such disturbances are sometimes associated with malformations of other structures, especially the diaphragm and suspensory apparatus of the liver. Defective development of the left lobe of the liver can lead to gastric volvulus. Conservely, defective development of the right lobe either remains clinically latent or leads to portal hypertension. Anomalies related to excessive development of the liver lead to formation of accessory lobes annexed to the liver. Despite their diversity of shape, size and location, such accessory lobes have common features allowing them to be considered as an entity. In most cases the accessory lobe is found in the infra-hepatic position. Riedel's lobe is the best known example of a sessile accessory lobe. Accessory lobes may also stimulate tumor. In cases where the accessory lobe has a pedicle, torsion is a common event leading to discovery of the abnormal mass. The origin of the anomalies of hepatic morphology occurring in the course of organogenesis remains to be elucidated. The use of ultrasonography should now allow identification of such anomalies prior to the occurrence of an acute complication and in the future to possibly detect them in the fetus.