title: Clinical experience of surgical therapy in 207 patients with thoracic hydatidosis over a 12-year-period.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Hydatid disease is the most severe helminthic zoonosis, with a major medical, social, and economic impact in Turkey. The aim of this study was to evaluate retrospectively 207 patients diagnosed with hydatid cyst and treated surgically in our department between January 1990 and December 2001.
  
  
  METHODS
  Hundred and ninety three patients were male and 14 female. They ranged in age from 19 to 72 years (mean 25.3 years). The most common presenting symptoms were cough, expectoration and chest pain. The surgical approach was thoracotomy in 198 patients, bilateral staged thoracotomies in 5 patients, median sternotomy in one patient and video-assisted thoracic surgery in 3 patients.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Hundred and thirty eight of the 265 intrapulmonary cystic lesions were found in the right lung and 127 in the left lung. Intrathoracic extrapulmonary cystic lesions were detected in 13 patients. 38 patients also had cystic lesions in the liver. Conservative surgical procedures were adopted except for small wedge resections in 8 patients, segmentectomy in 4 patients and lobectomy in one. Operative and postoperative mortality was nil. Albendazole treatment was given to patients who had multiple intrathoracic cysts or additional hepatic cysts after 1994.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our preferred surgical techniques for removal of cysts were conservative surgical procedures such as enucleation of cysts or removal by cystotomy. Radical procedures such as pneumonectomy, lobectomy and segmentectomy should be avoided as far as possible.
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic Surgery, Camlica Chest Diseases Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey. tisitmangil@hotmail.com
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Isitmangil
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sebit
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tunc
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gorur
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Erdik
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kunter
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Toker
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Balkanli
authors.forename: O Y
authors.initials: OY
authors.lastname: Ozturk
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D004445:Echinococcosis, Pulmonary / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013896:Thoracic Diseases / Q000469:parasitology / Q000601:surgery*; D014421:Turkey