What's New from the British Journal of Surgery

This digest gives areas of progress made in clinical and laboratory work relating to surgical disease. The digest is broken down into specialty areas so that you may wish to select only those of interest to your own practice. the first day a Symposium was held entitled "Shedding Light on Lasers". A review of this subject was published by Murray et al.1 Different types of laser are described and the nature of various delivery devices. The physics and biology of laser tissue interaction depends upon the output wavelength and energy and upon the light absorption properties of the target tissues. Specific applications of laser technology in surgery include the treatment of carcinoma of the oesophagus and gastric cardia where laser vaporisation is best applied to exophytic lesions protruding into the lumen. Since one third of patients with rectosigmoid malignancy are incurable due to advanced locoregional or distant disease, laser palliation may be an ideal treatment to improve local problems of bleeding, discharge, tenesmus and obstruction with minimal morbidity and mortality. Laser tissue destruction may be effectively targeted using a chemical with a specific light wavelength.