The surgeon's experience with one or the other technique of pancreatic anastomosis appears to be more important than the technique itself.

Background: There is lack of knowledge on the epidemiological characteristics of brain tumors in Middle Eastern countries. The objective of this study was to study the epidemiological features of primary brain tumors in Jordan. Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study incorporating data from 16 hospitals in Jordan during a 1 year period (May 1, 2011-April 30, 2012). All primary brain tumors diagnosed in Jordan during the study period were identified. The following parameters were retrieved from patients' files: age, gender, histological type, and location. The demographic data of the country was obtained from the National Department of Statistics. Results: A total of 313 primary brain tumors were identified during the study period. The incidence of primary brain tumors in Jordan among the general population was 5.01 per 100,000 person-years (5.38 in females and 4.65 in males). The incidence in pediatric, adult, and elderly patients was 2.09, 7.29, and 14.38 per 100,000 person-years, respectively. The most common histological types were meningioma (26.2%), glioblastoma (18.9%), astrocytoma (14.1%), and pituitary adenoma (9.3%). Conclusions: The incidence of primary brain tumors in the Jordanian population is relatively low, in part due to the young age of the general population.

Radical antral resection in association with LSG safely potentiates the restrictive effect achieved and may result in greater and better maintained weight loss.

The VRS can be used as an indicator of excess weight loss 1 year after LSG.

Early postoperative weight loss can be used to identify and target poor responders.

Laparoscopic treatment of type 4 hiatal hernia is safe. With respect to the quality of life, anterior hemifundoplication is highly effective.

Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) was initially introduced for super-obese patients in a two-step concept in order to reduce the perioperative risk. Many years before a very similar technique - the Magenstrasse and Mill (M & M) operation - was developed by Johnston in Leeds / UK as a "more physiological" bariatric procedure with acceptable weight loss, while preserving gastric emptying mechanisms and thus minimising possible side-effects such as vomiting, dumping and diarrhoea, which are common complications of gastric bypass procedures. The following manuscript analyses the current literature and our own preliminary results and parallels publications of the M & M procedure. Until now numerous modifications (e. g., bougie size and residual volume, stapler technique, use of buttress mate-rial) have been reported. However, reported -morbidity and mortality rates were equal to those of gastric banding and gastric bypass (RYGB). In conclusion, laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) has now proven to be as effective as the RYGB for weight loss over a three-year period. Control of hunger and feeling of fullness are -reported to be superior compared to gastric band-ing. Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy is no longer an experimental procedure. It should be accepted as one of the effective standard procedures for surgical treatment of morbid obesity.

In humans, the sex of an individual is determined by the Y-chromosome-related SRY gene, which causes the differentiation of the undifferentiated gonads into testicular tissue. True hermaphrodites without a Y chromosome and XX males represent a sex determination error in which testicular tissue develops despite the absence of the SRY gene. Familial forms of XX true hermaphrodites and XX males exist in the literature, which also contains the two forms co-existing in the same family. In this report, we present a large family with seven affected individuals with phenotypes ranging from XX male to XX true hermaphrodite with predominance of female characteristics. We suggest that XX maleness and XX true hermaphroditism represent a continuum of the same disorder. We speculate on the mode of inheritance of this disorder in this particular family.