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Thirty-seven patients with severe esophageal and hypopharyngeal burns from lye ingestion are reviewed. Preliminary surgical procedures consisting of gastrostomy, esophagostomy, esophagectomy, and tracheotomy were often performed prior to definitive esophageal bypass with colon interposition. The technical aspects of the two-team approach to colon interposition are described with particular emphasis placed on the cervical anastomosis. Common postoperative complications included aspiration, delayed tracheal decannulation, and restenosis in the anastomotic area. Functional restoration of deglutition and phonation was successful in most cases. Attention is focused on management of early and late complications. Results of colon transposition are discussed with references made to other surgical procedures. Functional evaluation of patients followed over a long period is described.

An 8 year experience with a prospective treatment program for patients with myasthenia gravis is reviewed with particular focus on the results in patients less than 35 years of age. Twenty myasthenic young adults with an average age of 24 years and a duration of symptoms of 22 months, excluding two with the juvenile form, had thymectomy followed by short-term anticholinesterase and long-term prednisone therapy. All of the 18 patients with a short duration of symptoms are in markedly improved condition and 61% of them are in remission after a mean postoperative period of 32 months. The longest follow-up period is 7.3 years. Two patients have mild improvement. There was no correlation between thymic disease and clinical result. Complete en bloc extirpation of all thymic and adjacent tissue through a median sternotomy is advocated. The patients were treated postoperatively with prednisone, 100 mg/day, a regimen which gradually is changed to every other day medication and finally a gradual reduction of dosage. There have been no operative or late deaths and no serious complications of therapy. The effects have been long lasting, with not a single instance of significant recurrence of symptoms of myasthenia gravis 6 months after thymectomy.

In 1950, the term "chemodectoma" was proposed as the generic name for tumors arising from the nonchromaffin neuroepithelial cells located in the adventitia of blood vessels derived from the branchial arches. The ganglia of the glossopharyngeal and vagus nerves are also sites of the neoplasms.1-3These cell aggregates have neither endocrine nor motor function. They have the propensity for perceiving chemical changes in the circulatory system and thus act as a sensory component in a reflex arc which allows transmission of impulses centrally over afferent parasympathetic nerve fibers. In this way, blood flow and respiratory rate may be controlled.4,5Although these neuroepithelial cells are found in many sites, by far the most common location of neoplasm is the carotid body at the main carotid bifurcation. This entity was first described by Marchand in 1891.6 Chemodectomas arising from aortic bodies situated in the mediastinum are rarely seen.7