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Right-sided diverticulitis is difficult to distinguish from other sources of right-sided abdominal pain and, in particular, is frequently indistinguishable from acute appendicitis preoperatively. Because of the problems concerning preoperative diagnosis and controversies in the management, the choice of the best therapy on the surgeon's part is still open. A total of 1150 patients with a clinical diagnosis of right acute abdomen observed in our surgical department from 1995 to 2003 was analysed. Three patients had a pathologically confirmed diagnosis of caecal diverticulitis. The mean age of the patients was 37 years. Right lower quadrant pain and local tenderness were the only clinical findings in 95.3% of the cases, with a preoperative diagnosis of acute appendicitis in 2 of 3 patients. The operative findings were an inflammatory mass in the caecum and the presence of a minimal amount of free peritoneal fluid. Two patients underwent laparoscopic ileocecectomy and one had a diverticulectomy. The postoperative course was uneventful. Because of the difficulties in diagnosis and surgical treatment, caecal diverticulitis has been the subject of much discussion in the literature and many questions remain unanswered. Right-sided diverticulitis is easily confused with acute appendicitis because it occurs at a somewhat younger age than sigmoid diverticulitis. Caecal diverticulitis needs a high index of suspicion for achieving a preoperative diagnosis. Diverticulectomy should be performed in patients with small diverticula with a limited inflammatory reaction. Right colectomy should be performed in patients with perforation of the diverticulum, caecal phlegmon or abscess formation. A correct intraoperative diagnosis is therefore crucial for selection of the surgical procedure. Laparoscopic treatment of a solitary, acutely infected colon diverticulum is feasible in this setting. A minimally invasive procedure could be performed, therefore, in patients with right acute abdomen, allowing not only the right diagnosis but also the treatment of the commonest pathologies responsible for this clinical picture.

Objective: To assess the benefits of laparoscopic appendicectomy over open appendicectomy and to evaluate the impact of the severity of appendicitis and of peritonitis on the advantages of the laparoscopic approach., Design: Prospective unrandomised study., Setting: University hospital, Italy., Subjects: 137 consecutive patients with acute appendicitis, 60 of whom were treated by open and 77 by laparoscopic appendicectomy. Patients were subdivided according to the severity of appendicitis and the presence of peritonitis., Main Outcome Measures: Duration of operation, consumption of analgesics, duration of hospital stay, overall complications, wound infection., Results: Hospital stay (median 2.5 days, range 1-18 compared with 4, range 2-22 p < 0.0001). and wound infection (3/77 (4%) compared with 13/60 (22%), p 0.02) were significantly lower after laparoscopic operation. The incidence of wound infection was significantly lower when subgroups were analysed separately., Conclusions: Hospital stay and wound infection rates were significantly lower after laparoscopic appendicectomy. With the exception of the wound infection rate, the variables studied may differ depending on the severity of the appendicitis and the presence of peritonitis. Result of comparative studies should be carefully interpreted when the two groups are not stratified for these features.

Background/aims: The routine use of intraoperative cholangiography (CGP) during laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) is still under debate. Previous reports suggest that intraoperative sonography can replace CGP in the evaluation of common duct lithiasis during open cholecystectomy. The present study was performed to evaluate the possible role of sonography during LC., Patients and Methods: 45 patients were submitted to laparoscopic sonography of biliary tree during LC. In all cases, CGP was performed., Results: In 37 cases, sonography did not show the presence of stones; in 7 cases, common bile duct stones were identified by sonography; one false negative was observed. A sensitivity of 87.5%, a specificity of 100% and an overall accuracy of 97.8% were obtained. A false positive was obtained with CGP with a sensitivity of 100%, a specificity 97.3%, and an overall accuracy of 97.8%., Conclusions: Laparoscopic sonography can represent an adequate substitute for CGP as a screening procedure during LC.

Doppler ultrasound recordings of velocities of flow across the mitral and tricuspid valves and in the hepatic veins, and their variation with respiration, were recorded in seven patients with constrictive pericarditis and in six patients with restrictive cardiomyopathy. Deceleration of mitral and tricuspid flow was also evaluated during apnea. Color flow Doppler was performed in order to evaluate mitral and tricuspid regurgitation. Eight healthy adults served as controls. The patients with constrictive pericarditis showed higher peak diastolic velocities of mitral flow, as well as marked increase of velocity of flow at the onset of expiration and decrease at the onset of inspiration. Reciprocal respiratory variation of the velocities were also observed across the tricuspid valve. The patients with restrictive cardiomyopathy showed moderate or severe mitral and tricuspid regurgitation. They also showed shorter deceleration of flow across the mitral and tricuspid valves during apnea. The pattern of flow in the hepatic veins showed reversal during systole with accentuated reversion during inspiration. These results suggest that patient with constrictive pericarditis and restrictive cardiomyopathy can be differentiated by comparing Doppler echocardiographic data, along with changes induced by respiration.

Echocardiography has proved useful in detecting right-sided heart thrombi in cases of pulmonary embolization. We found echocardiographic evidence of right-sided cardiac thrombi in six of seven patients affected by pulmonary embolism referred to our hospital within the past five months. In one patient with clinical evidence of pulmonary and paradoxic embolization, echocardiography revealed, besides thrombi within the inferior cava and right atrium, a transient, wide, systolic movement of the valvula foraminis ovalis toward the left atrium, suggesting an interatrial communication that was confirmed by contrast echocardiography. Five patients had a good outcome, with disappearance of the thrombi following IV heparin therapy, and one patient died.