A prenatally detected adrenal cyst treated by adrenal-sparing surgery: case report and review of the literature

A neonatal case of left adrenal cyst detected in utero and successfully treated by adrenal-sparing surgery is presented and discussed with review of the literature. Incidentally discovered prenatal adrenal masses present a diagnostic dilemma. Benign and malignant conditions can present as a fetal suprarenal mass. There is a wide spectrum of management modalities ranging from followup by serial sonographic scanning during pregnancy to early primary excision of the mass. We report a neonate with prenatal diagnosis of a cystic mass arising from the left adrenal gland. Postnatal excision of the mass without adrenalectomy was carried out. Frozen sections of the mass and a biopsy of the left adrenal gland confirmed the benign nature of the cyst and normal adrenal tissue. The uniloculated cyst was reported as a pseudocyst. After surgery, the recovery was uneventful, and the patient was discharged 4 days postoperatively in good condition. On the basis of this case and review of the literature, we may conclude that early primary surgical excision is recommended for either diagnosis or treatment if the results of prenatal or postnatal imaging studies are unreliable for the precise diagnosis of suprarenal mass. Adrenal-sparing surgery is recommended if pathological evaluation of frozen sections has confirmed the benign nature of the mass.Keywords: adrenal-sparing surgery, neonates, prenatal diagnosis, suprarenal cys

Congenital diaphragmatic hernia and retinoids: searching for an etiology

Congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) is a major life-threatening cause of respiratory failure in the newborn. Recent data reveal the role of a retinoid-signaling pathway disruption in the pathogenesis of CDH. We describe the epidemiology and pathophysiology of human CDH, the metabolism of retinoids and the implications of retinoids in the development of the diaphragm and lung. Finally, we describe the existing evidence of a disruption of the retinoid-signaling pathway in CDH

High-pressure balloon assessment of pelviureteric junction prior to laparoscopic “vascular hitch”

ABSTRACT Aim To assess if calibration of the ureteropelvic junction (UPJ) using a high-pressure balloon inflated at the UPJ level in patients with suspected crossing vessels (CV) could differentiate between intrinsic and extrinsic stenosis prior to laparoscopic vascular hitch (VH). Materials and Methods We reviewed patients with UPJO diagnosed at childhood or adolescence without previous evidence of antenatal or infant hydronephrosis (10 patients). By cystoscopy, a high-pressure balloon is sited at the UPJ and the balloon inflated to 8-12 atm under radiological screening. We considered intrinsic PUJO to be present where a ‘waist’ was observed at the PUJ on inflation of the balloon and a laparoscopic dismembered pyeloplasty is performed When no ‘waist’ is observed we considered this to represent extrinsic stenosis and a laparoscopic VH was performed. Patients with absence of intrinsic PUJ stenosis documented with this method are included for the study. Results Six patients presented pure extrinsic stenosis. The mean age at presentation was 10.8 years. Mean duration of surgery was 99 min and mean hospital stay was 24 hours in all cases. We found no intraoperative or postoperative complications. All children remain symptoms free at a mean follow up of 14 months. Ultrasound and renogram improved in all cases. Conclusion When no ‘waist’ is observed we considered this to represent extrinsic stenosis and a laparoscopic VH was performed. In these patients, laparoscopic transposition of lower pole crossing vessels (‘vascular hitch’) may be a safe and reliable surgical technique

Comparative validation of machine learning algorithms for surgical workflow and skill analysis with the HeiChole benchmark

Purpose: Surgical workflow and skill analysis are key technologies for the next generation of cognitive surgical assistance systems. These systems could increase the safety of the operation through context-sensitive warnings and semi-autonomous robotic assistance or improve training of surgeons via data-driven feedback. In surgical workflow analysis up to 91% average precision has been reported for phase recognition on an open data single-center video dataset. In this work we investigated the generalizability of phase recognition algorithms in a multicenter setting including more difficult recognition tasks such as surgical action and surgical skill. Methods: To achieve this goal, a dataset with 33 laparoscopic cholecystectomy videos from three surgical centers with a total operation time of 22 h was created. Labels included framewise annotation of seven surgical phases with 250 phase transitions, 5514 occurences of four surgical actions, 6980 occurences of 21 surgical instruments from seven instrument categories and 495 skill classifications in five skill dimensions. The dataset was used in the 2019 international Endoscopic Vision challenge, sub-challenge for surgical workflow and skill analysis. Here, 12 research teams trained and submitted their machine learning algorithms for recognition of phase, action, instrument and/or skill assessment. Results: F1-scores were achieved for phase recognition between 23.9% and 67.7% (n = 9 teams), for instrument presence detection between 38.5% and 63.8% (n = 8 teams), but for action recognition only between 21.8% and 23.3% (n = 5 teams). The average absolute error for skill assessment was 0.78 (n = 1 team). Conclusion: Surgical workflow and skill analysis are promising technologies to support the surgical team, but there is still room for improvement, as shown by our comparison of machine learning algorithms. This novel HeiChole benchmark can be used for comparable evaluation and validation of future work. In future studies, it is of utmost importance to create more open, high-quality datasets in order to allow the development of artificial intelligence and cognitive robotics in surgery