Six patients with carcinoma of the esophagus (proximal and middle one-third) underwent intravenous artificial nutrition (TPN) both during preoperative radiation therapy and during the periods preceding radical surgery. From admission on, their conditions were evaluated and followed according to an established pattern of assessment of the nutritional state. Besides a certain improvement of the nutritional state at the level both of the muscular and adipose tissues, the results showed the reliability and the reproducibility of the serial anthropometric indexes adopted. With regard to the biochemical indexes most commonly utilized for evaluating the nutritional state, the results confirmed the doubts already casted about the reliability of a great part of these indexes when applied to this specific kind of patients.

The results of a clinical survey, relative to goiter prevalence and carried out on 2,805 male and female subjects aged from 6 to 15 years, in five small towns in the province of Caltanissetta (Sicily), are reported. Along with clinical examination, urinary iodine determinations were performed. The identification and classification of goiter have been carried out according to criteria suggested by WHO. Considering both sexes together, 33.6 % of the children presented type 1 goiter, and 4.6 % presented type 2. Goiter prevalence in the five areas studied appeared to be related to the difference in the iodine content of the various drinking waters. The patterns of urinary iodine excretion, expressed as I/C ratio and derived from determinations performed on 924 of the total number of subjects examined, are reported. An analysis of these data shows that the school population as a whole, in these endemic goitrous areas, presented I/C values significantly different between goiter subjects and non-goiter subjects.