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During a 12 year period 38 patients underwent various palliative biliodigestive procedures for unresectable pancreatic carcinoma. Jaundice, upper abdominal pain and weight loss was present in 82%, 53% and 40% of the patients respectively. Serum bilirubin was elevated in 95% of patients, on average almost 9 times the upper limit of normal. Alcaline phosphatase was elevated in 97% of patients, on average almost 5 times the upper normal limit. Fourteen patients died without leaving hospital, 10 within one month, for an inhospital mortality of 36.8%. For the remaining 24 patients mean survival was slightly more than 7 months. Only 4 patients survived for more than one year. Palliation thus was short but reasonably good as judged by decrease in serum bilirubin and alcaline phosphatase levels.

A saccular dilation of the small intestine, 15 X 15 cm2 large, blocked by a hard introitus was seen in a patient with a one-year history of diarrhea. Histopathological examination showed inflammatory infiltration with ulceration between the normal and distended intestine within a length of 1 cm. The mucosa, submucosa and muscularis layers were thicker than normal with infiltration of monocytes. The histological diagnosis was Crohn's disease.

Phlebography should be performed only on special indications, chiefly for the diagnosis of thrombosis. A non-invasive method such as venous plethysmography is valuable in assessing deep venous insufficiency. Local exstirpation of varices and perforants and percutaneous paired sutures round superficial varices are recommended instead of stripping, as the saphenous vein may be needed for arterial reconstruction in risk groups, e.g. all male smokers. Peripheral arterial pulsations should always be checked to ascertain that the symptoms are not due to arteriosclerotic occlusion.

Indomethacin treatment (15 mg/kg) reduced bleeding volume and diminished the survival rate in haemorrhagically shocked rats. These effects of indomethacin were prevented by a continuous infusion of prostaglandin E1 or E2 (0,1 microgram x min--1). Without indomethacin treatment, prostaglandin E1 in this concentration had no effect on bleeding volume or survival rate. The results are consistent with the possibility that indomethacin decreases the survival rate in haemorrhagically shocked rats by inhibiting prostaglandin synthesis, and that endogenous prostaglandins might counteract the development of irreversible haemorrhagic shock.

In an attempt to find out whether a constant irrigation of the abdominal cavity with saline, as advocated in operations for fertility, is an adjuvant in the prevention of postoperative adhesions or not an experimental study was performed in 52 rats. The influence of a constant drying and irrigation with saline, respectively, on the exudation of an intact and of an injured serosa of the uterus and of the caecum was assessed after intravenous administration of fluoreisothiocyanate-dextran (FITC-dextran) in 12 rats. The influence of constant drying and constant irrigation with saline, respectively, on the postoperative adhesion formation on an intact and on an injured serosa was evaluated in all 52 animals. The results of this study imply that there was no significant difference in exudation of the intact serosa of the uterus and the caecum irrespective of constant drying or irrigation with saline. Subsequent to a certain trauma, however, the exudation increased with approximately 80 per cent in the uterus and 70 percent in the caecum. Moreover, constant irrigation of the abdominal serosa did not inhibit the increase of the exudation. The adhesion formation on the injured and intact abdominal serosa, respectively, was furthermore not influenced by irrigation with saline or drying, but seemed solely associated with a trauma to the serosa.