https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/21779 2026-04-15T19:35:10Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/21858 Title: Trends in preoperative cardiac catheterisation in congenital heart disease Abstract: Objective: To establish trends in preoperative diagnostic cardiac catheterisation in congenital heart disease (CHD) Design: Retrospective analysis of performance of catheterisation preoperatively for 1 st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th operation for significant and complex CHD. Setting: Regional hospital providing CHD diagnostic and follow-up services for all Malta. Patients: Patients operated for CHD between 1947 and 1994. Main outcome measures: Whether or not preoperative catheterisation was performed. Results: 651 operations were carried out for CHD between 1947-1994. The proportion of patients undergoing cardiac catheterisation prior to surgery has declined (p=0.0004). Further analysis showed that this trend was due to a reduction in the proportion of patients undergoing catheterisation prior to 1 st operation for significant CHD (p<O.OOOl). This group constituted 75% of all operations. No trends were found in other types of operations. Conclusions: Echocardiography , a non-invasive technique, has supplanted cardiac catheterisation as the primary diagnostic tool prior to 1 st operation for significant CHD. However, catheterisation maintains a role for investigation prior to other operations for CHD. 1997-06-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/21830 Title: IDDM in Malta Abstract: Childhood diabetes (IDDM) is generally accepted to concentrate on insulin-dependent diabetes first occurring in subjects younger than 15 years of age, but it must be remarked that this type of diabetes can and indeed does appear in older patients, both adolescents and adults. In the latter this often seems to be a late-onset, slow developing form of insulin-needing diabetes which could at times be mistaken for secondary failure to oral hypoglycaemic agents. This condition was greatly underestimated in Malta for a long time, having been overshadowed by the much more common form of diabetes - NIDDM, whose prevalence here has been reported to be the highest in Europe. However, recent findings clearly show that this type of diabetes is not at all rare in our population; in fact its incidence ranks among the higher in the Mediterranean area. 1997-06-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/21829 Title: Pocket set of surgical instruments Abstract: Th e advances in medical care since the post-Second World War period have raised the expectations of patients resulting in changes in doctors attitudes towards management. Th e performance of minor surgical procedures by general practitioners during home visits are now rarely undertaken. The situation was very much different in the past and many practitioners carried a pocket set of surgical instruments for use during their consultations. An example of such a set is described. 1997-06-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/21828 Title: Dr. Thomas Hodgkin (1798-1866) : the Malta connection Abstract: Dr Thomas Hodgkin, from whom is derived the eponym of Hodgkin's Disease, was a pathologist at Guy's Hospital, London. He was also a humanitarian who championed the cause for liberty of oppressed people in the Middle East, Africa and America. In one of his philanthropic missions to the Middle East in 1857 he spent a week in Malta. He wrote a letter to a member of the Senate of the University of London urging closer relations between this University and that of Malta. He died in Jaffa in 1866. The first cases of Hodgkin's Disease in Malta were described in 1949. 1997-12-01T00:00:00Z