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Vascular thrombosis is one of the main causes of early transplant failure in pediatric patients. This paper reports the results of an open trial of the low molecular weight heparin (Enoxaparine) used to prevent renal graft thrombosis in pediatric recipients with risk factors including donor or recipient age under 5 years, multiple arteries supplying the transplant, and positive history for recurrent thrombosis. During 1989, 42 of 67 children given a renal transplant were prophylactically treated with Enoxaparin. Only one transplant was lost to thrombosis among treated patients (1.5%), versus 9 transplants among 73 (12%) children who received their kidney in 1988 without prophylactic Enoxaparin. Risk factors were comparable in both groups of recipients. Enoxaparine therapy was associated with an increased rate of bleeding (12/42) without severe consequences. In conclusion, Enoxaparin is effective in preventing renal graft thrombosis. Availability of this prophylactic therapy makes it possible to use transplants removed from the youngest donors considered as inadequate by some groups.

The retrospective analysis of 59 pediatric cases of pleural effusion showed that infectious agents account for 80% of cases. Thoracentesis proved to be the first-line diagnostic tool. Pleural biopsy was diagnostic in four tuberculous and two malignant pleural effusions. The literature data shows that pleural fluid total protein, lactate deshydrogenase, glucose, pH, white blood cell count and differential should be obtained in all patients. Because of the high incidence of infection, microbiologic studies are also indicated in children. These studies are of great value in distinguishing transudates from exsudates and in deciding on pleural drainage.

Many different anatomical situations are observed by pediatric surgeons during the surgical procedure for cryptorchidism at any age. The authors propose an easy anatomical classification: type I seems to be a small trouble of the process of migration and to be more a disturbed fixation. Type III results from a big disturbed wolfian duct process. Type II is intermediary. A series of 102 cryptorchidism operated upon at the Pediatric Surgical depart. Children's Hospital Paris, were studied according to this classification and collorated with histopathological study. The correlation is significative. The authors suggest that this protocol of surgical description could be agreed by a lot of Pediatric surgeons, whatever be the age of patient at operation, in the purpose to allow a longitudinal study from initial anatomical disorders to spermogram and at last to bring a response to the unanswered question: what, when and how, a cryptorchidism has to be cured.

From 1957 to 1980, 170 neuroblastoma were surgically approached: 3 cervical, 11 thoracic, 147 abdominal, 5 pelvic. The surgical data gathered from this large series leads us to assess that there are great differences between lateral and median neuroblastoma. Lateral ones can be surgically removed without major risk. Median ones arising from sympathetic nerves which depend on the aorta or on the visceral arteries (coeliac or mesenteric) cannot be removed totally without life-threatening risk. These data do not agree with Evans and d'Angio staging. Indeed, stage I and II are only observed in neuroblastomas developed on the lateral nerves of the sympathetic chain and can be removed. Stage III tumors can also be removed surgically when arising from a lateral site, even if they cross the median line. On the contrary all median perivascular neuroblastomas are to be staged III: total removal is not possible and the surgical risk is too high when compared with efficiency of chemotherapy. A special type, the distal perivascular neuroblastoma, is pointed out (5 cases). It is very important to precise exactly the initial localization of neuroblastoma, whatever be their metastatic extension. The new technics of investigation (C.T., ultrasonography, but also plain film and front and lateral views of intravenous pyelogram) allow to define precisely the median or lateral site of the tumor and also to choose between a non-surgical (median) or a surgical (lateral) treatment. This distinction seems in correlation with the two different ways of pathway of the embryonic neuroblast cells.