Laparoscopic splenectomy: comparison between anterior and lateral approaches.

AIM: Splenectomy, except for a traumatic purpose, is now performed through a laparoscopic approach. There are mainly two ways for laparoscopic total or partial splenectomies. For the classic anterior dissection of the splenic vessels, patient is placed in supine position and five ports are required to elevate the spleen and proceed to vessel divisions. With a lateral approach of the pedicle, patient is placed in lateral decubitus position and three ports are sufficient, because gravity help to provide traction on the splenic ligaments and to present hilar vessels and pancreas tail. The aim of our study was to compare surgical complications of those two approaches of laparoscopic splenectomy in children. METHODS: We reviewed 84 medical records of patient operated on for hematological disease between January 1993 and December 2009. RESULTS: There were 47 anterior and 37 lateral approaches. Sex, disease, median age, operative time, blood lost or hospital stay, and associated laparotomy were not different between the two groups. Operative complications included hemorrhage (5), bowel injury (1), diaphragmatic wound (1), pancreas tail section (1), and parietal hematoma (1) in the anterior group (9 cases) versus 1 hemorrhage in the lateral group (P<.02). There were five laparotomies owing to surgical complications in the anterior group, and none in the lateral group. CONCLUSION: Splenectomy through laparoscopic approach is an effective technique. Lateral dissection of the vessels provides less operative complications in children

EDPEPPS: An Environment for the Design and Performance Evaluation of Portable Parallel Software

. This paper describes an environment for performance-oriented design of portable parallel software. The environment consists of a graphical design tool based on the PVM communication library for building parallel algorithms, a state-of-the-art simulation engine and a visualisation tool for animation of program execution and visualisation of platform and network performance measures and statistics. The toolset is used to model a virtual machine composed of a cluster of workstations interconnected by a local area network. The simulation model used is modular and its components are interchangeable which allows easy re-configuration of the platform. The model is validated using experiments on the COMMS1 benchmark from the Parkbench suite, and a standard image processing algorithm with maximum errors of 1% and 10% respectively. 1 Introduction A major obstacle to the widespread adoption of parallel computing in industry is the difficulty in program development due mainly to lack of parall..

Use of molecular markers to optimize parental choices for obtaining new commercial performing asparagus varieties

XI International Asparagus Symposium.For speeding up and optimizing the long process of creating new asparagus cultivars, Darbonne has decided to integrate molecular marker as analyzing tools. RAPD's, SSR's and AFLP's were considered to be good candidates for classifying genotypes in different groups and thereby assessing genetic distances as well as genetic expected gains. First data obtained with RAPD's markers, have shown hybrid bands when compared with parental profiles. With RAPD’s marker data, it was also possible to set up groups which differentiated clones and isogenic plants for sexual behaviour, in bulk and individual plant as well. With the first SSR's analyzes Darbonne breeders were able to better classify their genetic variability and, therefore, optimize their hybridization schemes. Reliability and accuracy of the both molecular marker techniques used will be discussed according to their potential for differentiate genetic groups.Peer reviewe