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Objective: The Authors report on a series of 61 vascular traumas treated over a 7 years, separated in two groups. The first one includes 35 cases, that are street accidents, on the work and gunshot wounds. The second group includes 26 iatrogenic causes due to arterial catheterism., Methods: All patients underwent ecocolor Doppler directly in the operating theatre and, when this diagnostic procedure was not enough, pre-operating angiography was used (10 cases of complex traumas of the lower limb)., Results: One death was reported far each groups (3.27%). In 55 cases (90.1%), limb savage was achieved. In the others 4 (6.93%) of the first group, limb demolition was necessary for different causes. In the first group, severe neurological sequelaes were observed in 2 cases and motor deficits caused by tendon lesions in 1 case., Conclusion: The good results obtained are the result of the short ischemic interval between the acute event and treatment, thanks to a multidisciplinary approach of a specific equipe, that is rapid as possible.

247 cases of patients suffering from chronic liver diseases were reviewed. These cases were divided according to "risk areas" (viral, alcoholic, viral and alcoholic, cryptogenic) and diagnosis (CAH, compensated cirrhosis, decompensated cirrhosis). Differences found in clinical and laboratory aspects of liver diseases from different risk areas are described but it is concluded that no single aetiology affects the liver functional reserve more than the others. Laboratory tests give more information in the early stages of chronic liver diseases while clinical analysis is more varied in the terminal ones. Literature on the subject is reviewed. Our data neither confirm nor disprove that HBsAg+ Alcohol+ patients display a characteristic clinical picture and this hypothesis should be further investigated.

An epidemiological study has been carried out on a group of 622 students (10 to 13 years old) from a secondary school in Naples. Aims of the present work were: the evaluation of the prevalence of hypertension in an adolescent population; the association with familial hypertension and obesity; the persistence of high blood pressure values at follow-up. Blood pressure data obtained in these subjects by the use of a standard evaluation scale based on body surface percentiles were compared with those obtained by two major current methods used for the definition of "normal" blood pressure values in pediatric age. The method based on body surface percentiles has shown the highest specificity. The prevalence of hypertension, as detected by this method, has been of 3,5% as compared to 12,9% and to 9,5% of the other two methods. In a follow-up at one year, while the percentage of hypertensive students remained unchanged in the group detected by the method of body surface percentiles, it decreased from 12,9% to 9,3% and from 9,5% to 7,8% in the other two groups. The high prevalence of obesity and familial hypertension observed in these young hypertensive subjects suggest the possibility of selecting, by body surface percentiles, well defined group of subjects at risk, characterized by borderline hypertension, high grade of familial aggregation, high prevalence of obesity and by the persistence of hypertension at the follow-up.