Simultaneous operation for hydatid cysts of right lung and liver

Hydatid disease is endemic in certain villages in Galilee, Israel. Most patients seen in our thoracic surgical department have only pulmonary cysts, but some of them have concomitant liver cysts. From 1963 until 1982, 10 patients who were referred for lung operations had echinococci removed from the liver through a right thoracotomy. Every patient with a suspected diagnosis of pulmonary hydatidosis had isotope and ultrasound scans of the liver. Liver cysts found adjacent to the right hemidiaphragm were removed at thoracotomy. Patients having liver cysts remote from the diaphragm were referred for laparotomy. There were no postoperative complications or deaths in this series. We advocate routine search for liver cysts in any surgical candidate with lung hydatids. Accessible liver cysts should be excised at the same thoracotomy. We did not find any mention of this approach in the literature available to us.