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We treated nine patients with functioning gallbladders containing one to three symptomatic radiolucent stones not larger than 25 mm in diameter, as well as five patients with stones in the common bile duct that were not removable by endoscopic procedures, by means of extracorporeally generated shock waves during general anesthesia. The patients with gallbladder stones received adjuvant treatment with a combination of ursodeoxycholic acid and chenodeoxycholic acid. All gallbladder stones were disintegrated into sludge or fragments with diameters of no more than 8 mm. In six of the nine patients the fragments disappeared completely within 1 to 25 weeks. No adverse effects were detected during a follow-up period of 10 to 34 weeks, except transient biliary pain in two patients, with mild pancreatitis in one. In four of the five patients with common-bile-duct stones, shock-wave treatment permitted stone disintegration and successful endoscopic extraction or spontaneous passage of fragments. We conclude that gallstone disease may be treated successfully and without serious adverse effects by extracorporeally generated shock waves in selected patients.

our preliminary results support the view that infrainguinal bypass grafting can be safely done even in diabetics. Despite increased mortality in this group, liberal indication for reconstructive vascular surgery seems to be justified by favourable patency rates and clinical outcome in selected patients.

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Our results suggest that depending on the extent of lesions transluminal angioplasty of infrapopliteal artery stenoses and occlusions is considered as an effective and save therapy modality to avoid limb loss in diabetics with critical ischemia.

Diabeticpatients with ESRD attained an acceptable graft patency and limb salvage but they sustained higher perioperative mortality and morbidity and reduced survival.

On the basis of more than 1400 tangential X-rays made with Knutsson's technique, the author qims to demonstrate, employing optical and measurement criteria, the limits between normal conditions and dysplasias. Since there are no fixed boundaries, these two areas can only be delimited from each other with sufficient accuracy by means of an inter-mediate zone. The patella is differentiated according to its shape in euplasia, medial hypoplasia and dysplasia, corresponding to the trochlea in Types I-V. In relation to the knee joint in question, there is a high degree of correlation between the development of the patella and the trochlea. All in all, a dysplasia can be determined more easily and more accurately at the trochlea than at the patella, since the patella is subject to greater projectural changes and the points of measurement are more difficult to establish. Ficat and Bizou's condylar depth index and the condylar-joint surface angle of Brattström are recommended as especially suitable methods of measurement. Since the shape of the trochlea changes as a function of the extent to which the knee is bent, the latter must be cited in comparative investigations.

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