[An improvement in a new method for the surgical treatment of echinococcosis]

Parasitic cysts were intraoperatively treated with glycerol in 179 patients with echinococcosis at various sites and 3% hydrogen peroxide in 165 patients with hepatic echinococcosis. Experiments on 60 cotton rats experimentally infected with Echinococcus alveolaris and 156 albino mice with E. granulosus provided evidence for the surgical use of 80-100% glycerol or 3% hydrogen peroxide to treat the cysts. Intraoperative glycerol treatment of cysts in patients with complicated hepatic echinococcosis fails to normalize amino acid metabolism, as well as immunity even a year postoperatively. The glycerol method has no contraindications for pulmonary and hepatic echinococcosis. Hydrogen peroxide has a damaging effect on all germinal elements of both E. alveolaris and E. granulosus. The authors recommend that 3% hydrogen peroxide should be intraoperatively used for treatment of cysts. After surgery, there is a tendency for amino acid metabolism to become normal in such patients.