Factitious breast disease

✍ Scribed by H. C. Ward

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1986
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 127 KB
• Volume: 73
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0007-1323
• DOI: 10.1002/bjs.1800730535

✦ Synopsis

59, the appraisal of vitamin C before surgery. I note that this work is done in young guinea-pigs. I think it is important to draw attention to certain aspects before anyone makes an attempt to translate this into human terms. Only human beings and guinea-pigs develop scurvy without vitamin C but there are major differences between the two. Guinea pigs develop scurvy within days and indeed may be dead within a week if deprived of vitamin C in their food. Human beings require a minimum of 9 months without vitamin C and can in fact survive as long as a year without it, without any impairment of collagen formation in healing wounds. In addition it should be pointed out that the guinea-pigs in question were young guinea-pigs and in these the collagen status is different to that in mature animals. The collagen of the young animal is very labile, unlike that of the mature creature and therefore even in guinea-pigs the interpretation has need of great circumspection. cysts at initial operation contained bile stained fluid, indicating that there was a communication with the biliary tree. Others have reported the incidence of hydatid cyst communication with the biliary tree to be much higher3, and it is in such patients that introduction of formalin into the cyst may be especially hazardous.