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Tuberculosis of the pancreas is unusual and often secondary to generalized tuberculosis. In most cases clinical presentation is obstructive jaundice due to pancreatic mass lesion. Although diagnosis is usually obtained after resection of the mass lesion, endoscopic procedures might avoid non-necessary surgical procedure. We report a clinical case of pancreatic tuberculosis diagnosed by endoscopic ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration biopsy and treated by biliary stenting.

Hemoptysis is not considered as an hemorrhagic complication of portal hypertension. We report a patient with liver cirrhosis and portal hypertension who developed a hitherto unreported porto-pulmonary transdiaphragmatic collaterality many years after splenectomy. Life threatening hemoptysis complicated this unusual shunt after banal bronchitis. A proximal splenorenal shunt was performed and was completely effective at 26 months.

This study was carried out in order to assess the value of ultrasonography in the diagnosis of cirrhosis. One hundred patients were studied within 2 weeks of the histological diagnosis of the liver disease (cirrhosis 49, acute or chronic hepatitis: 23, fatty liver: 16, normal liver: 12). Ultrasonic patterns were classified by a second examiner according to 5 hepatic criteria (volume, outline, echogenicity, attenuation of the ultrasound beam, enlargement of caudate lobe) and 3 extrahepatic criteria (dilatation of the portal vein, ascites, splenomegaly), leading to a ultrasonic diagnosis. Cirrhosis was diagnosed in 36 out of 49 patients (73 p. 100) by the echographist whereas clinical and biological data lead to diagnosis in only 27 out of these 49 patients (P = 0.057). Hepatocellular carcinoma was diagnosed only in 2 out of 5 patients. Splenomegaly (0.60) and caudate lobe enlargement (0.59) were the signs whose predictive value was the best for this group of patients. The ratio thickness of caudate lobe/global hepatic thickness (as measured on a sagittal cut through the inferior vena cava) allowed for easy assessment of caudate lobe size. The mean value of this ratio was significantly different (P less than 0.001) in the cirrhotic group (0.38 +/- 0.07) when compared to the non-cirrhotic one (0.28 +/- 0.06). Ratios greater than 0.35 were not seen in subjects with normal livers, nor were ratios greater than 0.40 seen in non-cirrhotic patients.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)