To describe the surgical technique and clinical outcome of minimally invasive parathyroidectomy for primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) in the dog.Animals: Fifty client-owned dogs with PHPT that underwent minimally invasive parathyroidectomy. Study design: Retrospective cohort study.Methods: An ultrasound-guided mini lateral approach was made via a plane established between the sternocephalicus muscle and sternohyoideus muscles to expose the thyroid gland and enlarged parathyroid gland. Abnormal parathyroid glands were removed en bloc via partial thyroidectomy. The technique for bilateral disease was similar, the skin incision was made on midline and moved laterally to develop the above-mentioned plane of dissection. Age, sex, breed, bodyweight, ultrasound findings, histopathological diagnosis, surgical time, preoperative clinical signs, and clinical outcome were extracted from the records for descriptive statistics.Results: A total of 62 glands were surgically removed, including 17 hyperplastic glands (17/62, 27.4%), 34 adenomas (34/62, 54.8%), and two carcinomas (2/62, 3.2%). Hypercalcemia resolved shortly after surgery in 44 dogs (44/45, 97.8%). One dog had recurrent hypercalcemia (1/45, 2.2%), one dog had persistent hypercalcemia (1/45, 2.2%), two dogs had permanent hypocalcemia requiring life-long calcitriol supplementation (2/45, 4.4%), and one dog died from clinical hypocalcemia (1/45, 2.2%). Conclusion:Minimally invasive parathyroidectomy was associated with a low morbidity and led to favorable outcomes in 44/45 dogs in this series. Clinical significance: The results of this study supports the use of minimally invasive parathyroidectomy to treat PHPT in dogs.

Objective To report the use of a balloon catheter as an extraction device for a posthepatic caval thrombus in a dog with a right adrenal tumor. Animals Twelve‐year‐old male neutered Chihuahua mix dog. Study design Case report Methods The dog presented for the evaluation of a hepatic mass. Computed tomography of thorax and abdomen was performed, and a right lateral liver lobe mass and a right adrenal mass were noted. The adrenal mass had a caval thrombus extending almost to the level of the right atrium. Traditional methods of tumor thrombectomy were unsuccessful. Extraction of the thrombus was facilitated by passing a balloon catheter through the caudal vena cavotomy until it was cranial to the thrombus, inflating the balloon and slowly withdrawing the catheter. Results A malignant pheochromocytoma was diagnosed on histology. The dog had a subjectively assessed good quality of life until it was euthanized 118 days postoperatively for acute dyspnea. Conclusion Balloon catheter‐assisted thrombectomy was successful in removing an extensive caval thrombus that was otherwise difficult to extract via conventional methods. This technique can be considered in cases with extensive tumor thrombus either as a method of choice or when other methods of thrombus extraction have failed.

The new book, Diagnostics for Experimental Thermonuclear Fusion Reactors 2, is a collection of papers presented at a second Workshop on the Diagnostics for ITER organized by the International School of Plasma Physics in Varenna, Italy in September 1997. With a gap of two years since the previous workshop there had been time for considerable refining and rethinking of the earlier ideas while some designs simply evolved and became more credible. One daunting aspect of this book is that it shows that the authors have often become more aware of the challenges that the ITER device present to diagnostic implementation while the demands of ITER plasma control needs and physics understanding have also become clearer. The book is in no way dated by its relationship to the full-sized ITER; the thought that has gone into these designs relates as well to a smaller device. The issues of integration of diagnostics onto smaller ports with possibly less shielding will have to be addressed but no significant problem is foreseen. Nor are any new plasma measurements likely to be required, but the dependence on advanced tokamak modes of performance may place tighter specifications on the measurement requirements for control, particularly on the spatial resolution of profile parameters such as the density, temperature and safety factor. The quality of the printed papers makes for very good reading, even though many of them concentrate on detailed design aspects of the interface of a diagnostic system with the structural material of the tokamak. Often the concerns are about maintenance of alignment, vacuum and window interfaces and, very much for the optical diagnostics, performance and lifetime of mirrors placed close behind the first wall. There is a wide variation between the progression in design of the diagnostics, but this is easily explained by the very different amounts of time that were spent on design of different systems. The organizers had been looking for a broad coverage of the systems required to enable an assessment of the overall status of this aspect of the ITER program, and this book provides that perspective. The initial set of papers about the device itself, the requirements on quality of measurement of a very large number of parameters and the overview of the ITER Diagnostic System as it stood in September 1997 provide a very interesting insight into the integration of plasma measurements into the whole framework of a large ignition device. An unusual aspect is the presentation of judgements made about the likely capability of some measurements being able to meet the requirements laid down and so leading to the need for further development in those areas. Design requirements for a divertor where the heat loads can be extreme are presented clearly and so is the issue of how to use many individual diagnostic instruments in the overall control of the plasma, a necessity for obtaining long, near-steady-state ignited plasmas. The design of the LIDAR Thomson scattering for measurement of the electron temperature ...