Diagnosis and surgical treatment of hepatic hydatid disease.

In this report two hundred and twenty six patients with hydatid disease were admitted to the Surgical Department of Erciyes University (Kayseri) and Sişli Etfal Hospital (Istanbul) between 1978 and 1990 and reviewed retrospectively. One hundred and two patients (45.1%) were male and 124 (54.9%) female. In the patients with hydatid cysts the most frequent symptom was right upper abdominal pain (66%). The most frequent signs were hepatomegaly (43.8%) and palpable mass (39%). One hundred and sixty seven patients (73.9%) were examined with ultrasonography which has a diagnostic value of 94%. Preoperative complications were infection of cyst (7%), intrabiliary rupture (3.5%) and anaphylactic shock (0.4%). All patients were operated on by using various surgical techniques; omentoplasty (101), external drainage of residual cavity (64), marsupialization (25), capitonnage (15), introflexion (10), pericystectomy (6), and hepatic resection (5). The main postoperative complications were wound infection (12%) and biliary fistula (2.6%). The total mortality rate was 1.8% in this series.