Radical Resection for Alveolar Hydatid Disease-Reply

The operative description, the autopsy description, and the statement in the conclusion of our paper all indicate diffuse involvement of the entire liver.

The three patients operated on in the series reported by West et al were 12, 22, and 46 years of age, patients with involvement of one lobe of the liver only, and not comparable with our patient in age, operative risk, or extent of disease. The statement "instead of impairing the patient's chances for survival by doing a temporizing biopsy and two operations through failure to recognize the diagnosis preoperatively" is ill-advised. Five of their eight cases were not diagnosed preoperatively: one patient had two procedures—biopsy and marsupialization; one underwent an exploratory operation at which the diagnosis of cancer of the gallbladder and liver was made; one underwent cholecystectomy and marsupialization; one was mistakenly operated on for nonexistent cholelithiasis; and one was considered inoperable because of involvement