UNLABELLED Pancreatic tumor is one with the worst prognosis of all cancers, and the tenth most frequent cancer in Europe, making the 3% of all cancers affecting both sexes. Most patients seek treatment when the disease is in its advanced stage and the level for possible resectability is low. Late presentation of the disease is responsible for the short survival period of 6 months and a five-year survival of 0.4 to 5% of patients. At the Clinic for Surgery in Tuzla during period from January 1st 1996, to January 1st 2011, a total of 127 resection surgeries were performed due to malignant tumors. The goal of this study was to show that adequate assessment of operability, proper surgical strategy and modern techniques of creating anastomoses reduces morbidity and mortality, results in fewer postoperative complications and contributes to better surgical results. In our study sample the most common place of tumor location was the head of pancreas, in 69 (59.7%) patients. Men develop this type of cancer more often than women in the ratio of 2:1, while the median age of patients was 62 years. We faced postoperative complications in 37 (29.1%) patients, pancreatic fistula being the most prevalent complication, occurring in 16 (12.6%) patients. Overall early and late postoperative mortality was observed in 12 (9.8%) patients. CONCLUSION Patients with chronic and hereditary pancreatitis are at a higher risk for developing pancreatic cancer and should be screened for the purpose of early diagnosis. The staging of pancreatic cancer has improved, with the accuracy of 85-90%. Postoperative complications, morbidity, and mortality are significantly reduced (p < 0.05) if the standardized operational procedure is applied and if modern techniques are used to create pancreaticojejunal anastomosis as the anastomosis carrying the highest risk.

GOAL The aim of the study is to evaluate efficacy of single-session 20% NaCl solution sclerotherapy in the treatment of symptomatic nonparasitic benign liver cysts. METHODS 20 patients were chosen (7 man and 13 woman, mean age 52.9 with mean duration of disease before treatment 9.4 months) for a prospective trial. Patients were treated with ultrasound-guided percutaneous aspiration and injection of 20% NaCl solution. Patient demographics, clinical characteristics, treatment outcome and complications were analyzed during the trial. The procedure was considered successful if the cyst disappears. The cyst was considered to have disappeared if it could no longer be visualized on ultrasonography. Other important measures to document the efficacy of treatment included the length of the hospital stay and complications related to the procedure. RESULTS The average volume reduction was 96.3% (range, 74.9-100%). During the 24-month follow up period, 8 cysts (40.0%) disappeared completely. The hospital stay was one day for all patients. CONCLUSION Percutaneous treatment and sclerotherapy with hypertonic NaCl (20%) is safe and effective for hepatic non-parasitic cysts.

increased morbidity rate with the danger of postsplenectomy infections. Current therapeutic strategies established spleenpreserving treatment in cases of trauma and benign lesions [2, 3] . Therefore, we consider that percutaneous drainage or laparoscopic excision should be used instead of total splenectomy as the treatment of choice for splenic benign cysts [2–6] . Besides, it is highly questionable whether the boy’s health condition would be better with asymptomatic splenic benign cyst or without cyst, but also without the spleen. Dear Sir, We commend Bai and Wang [1] for an interesting clinical image of the article ‘a primary splenic cyst in a 10-year-old boy’. They note that CT revealed a large left upper-quadrant spherical cystic mass with a smooth wall and normal splenic tissue which was visualized around all or part of the cyst. However, we wish to highlight certain issues regarding total splenectomy for benign cysts especially in young people. The spleen is important for proper immunologic function, and splenectomy carries an Published online: August 3, 2010