Blunt Trauma Associated With Bilateral Diaphragmatic Rupture. A Case Report

Background: A bilateral diaphragmatic rupture is a rare event that occurs in cases of blunt thoracic-abdominal trauma.Case Presentation: We report the case of a 56-year-old female patient with pelvic fracture and second-stage bilateral rupture of the diaphragm due to a car accident. After a chest and abdominal contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) scan, the patient underwent emergency suturing of the left hemidiaphragm. On postoperative day (POD) 4, a CT scan performed due to the sudden onset of dyspnea revealed rupture of the right hemidiaphragm, which was not detected on the preoperative CT scan. On POD 9, the right hemidiaphragm was repaired with mesh during a right thoracotomy. The patient recovered 14 days after surgery. However, the postoperative course was complicated by an asymptomatic COVID-19 infection that significantly delayed her discharge from the hospital.Conclusions: Difficulties in preoperative diagnosis and treatment, together with the lack of data in the literature, make this type of trauma a challenge for all acute care and general surgeons

Challenging Scenarios and Debated Indications for Laparoscopic Liver Resections for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Simple Summary Minimally invasive liver resections are nowadays performed worldwide for both benign and malignant lesions. Good short-term and safe long-term outcomes have been reported. Despite this growing implementation of the technique, challenging scenarios and debated indications still exist. There is currently a lack of high-quality evidence regarding minimally invasive liver resections in portal hypertension, advanced cirrhosis, lesions in the posterosuperior segments and large and recurrent tumors. Laparoscopic liver resections (LLRs) have been increasingly adopted for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), with safe short- and long-term outcomes reported worldwide. Despite this, lesions in the posterosuperior segments, large and recurrent tumors, portal hypertension, and advanced cirrhosis currently represent challenging scenarios in which the safety and efficacy of the laparoscopic approach are still controversial. In this systematic review, we pooled the available evidence on the short-term outcomes of LLRs for HCC in challenging clinical scenarios. All randomized and non-randomized studies reporting LLRs for HCC in the above-mentioned settings were included. The literature search was run in the Scopus, WoS, and Pubmed databases. Case reports, reviews, meta-analyses, studies including fewer than 10 patients, non-English language studies, and studies analyzing histology other than HCC were excluded. From 566 articles, 36 studies dated between 2006 and 2022 fulfilled the selection criteria and were included in the analysis. A total of 1859 patients were included, of whom 156 had advanced cirrhosis, 194 had portal hypertension, 436 had large HCCs, 477 had lesions located in the posterosuperior segments, and 596 had recurrent HCCs. Overall, the conversion rate ranged between 4.6% and 15.5%. Mortality and morbidity ranged between 0.0% and 5.1%, and 18.6% and 34.6%, respectively. Full results according to subgroups are described in the study. Advanced cirrhosis and portal hypertension, large and recurrent tumors, and lesions located in the posterosuperior segments are challenging clinical scenarios that should be carefully approached by laparoscopy. Safe short-term outcomes can be achieved provided experienced surgeons and high-volume centers