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To determine the perioperative risk factors for postoperative infections among patients undergoing flexible uretero-renoscopy with laser lithotripsy (FURSLL). In addition, the resistance patterns of pathogens isolated from positive preoperative urine cultures were investigated.We retrospectively reviewed data from 492 consecutive patients who had undergone FURSLL for stone disease in our department. Postoperative infection was defined as fever (? 38°C) with pyuria (? 10 white blood cells per high power field), or systemic inflammatory response syndrome, or sepsis. Pre-operative and intra-operative characteristics between patients with and without postoperative infectious complications were compared using univariate analyses. Significant variables on univariate analyses were included in a multivariatelogistic regression analysis to evaluate risk factors associated with postoperative infection following FURSLL.42 (8.5%) of 492 patients had postoperative infectious complications after FURSLL. 59 (12%) of 492 patients had a positive preoperative urine culture. 19 (32.2% of 59) patients had multidrug resistance (MDR) isolates recovered from positive preoperative urine cultures. 75% (9/12 cultures) of the positive preoperative urine cultures of patients in whom a postoperative infectious complication developed consisted of gram-negative pathogens. On multivariate analysis positive preoperative MDR urine culture (OR:4.75;95%CI:1.55-14.56; P = .006) was found to be significant with the dependent variable as the postoperative infectious complications despite appropriate preoperative antibiotic therapy.We found that positive preoperative MDR urine culture is a significant risk factor for infectious complications after FURSLL. Our findings point to the need for further research on assessment of risk factors forMDR infections to reduce the rate of postoperative infectious complications.

To evaluate the accuracy of frozen section examination (FSE) for detecting lymph node (LN) metastases and whether we can use this information to decide the extent of LN dissection during cystectomy.From August 2005 to August 2009 FSE of obturator LNs was performed in 118 patients with bladder cancer, who were undergoing radical cystectomy with extended LN dissection. Removed tissues from 12 well defined LN regions were sent separately for pathologic evaluation. The FSE results of obturator regions were compared with the final histopathologic results of these node regions.The mean number of removed nodes per patient was 29.4 ± 9.3 (median 28, range 12 to 51). The sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of FSE for the 118 right obturator LN regions were 94.7%, 100%, 100% and 99%, respectively. The same values for the 118 left obturator LN regions were 86.7%, 100%, 100% and 98.1%, respectively. At final pathologic examination 28 of 118 (23.7%) patients had LN metastasis at obturator regions. Skipped metastasis was found in 15/90 patients (16.7%). Clinical and pathological stage of the primary tumour were found to be significant parameters for skipped metastasis (P = 0.008 and P0.001, respectively).Performing FSE of the obturator LNs seems to be a reliable procedure for their evaluation with acceptable negative and positive predictive values. The information obtained with FSE of obturator LNs can be used to determine intraoperatively the extent of LN dissection, especially in patients with significant comorbidity. Our study also showed that if the clinical stage of the primary tumour iscT2, the possibility of skipped metastasis is zero.

We examined the reliability of classical lymph node evaluation methods. We compared the results of preoperative computed tomography (CT) and perioperative frozen section examination of lymph nodes in patients on whom radical cystectomy was performed because of invasive bladder tumors.A total of 142 patients, in whom radical cystectomy was performed because of invasive bladder tumors between the years 1994 and 2005 in our clinic, and 284 pelvic lymph node regions were evaluated retrospectively. For each of the pelvic lymph node region, the conditions of the lymph nodes according to CT and in frozen sections were compared with the final pathology reports of the surgical specimens.Lymph node involvement was found in 36 pelvic regions out of 284 in the final pathology. It had been possible to show only two of the 36 positive lymph nodes in preoperative CT. Frozen section results of the 29 pelvic lymph node regions out of 36 that were involved according to the final pathology were positive also according to frozen section results. On the other hand, in all the 29 lymph node regions those that were positive according to frozen section had lymph node involvement in the final pathology.We recommend the performance of frozen section examination on obturator plus internal iliac lymph nodes when deciding extended lymph node dissection, and the performance of extended lymph node dissection only if the result is positive.