| Percutaneous ethanol injection (PEI) has been used for the management of malignant and benign lesions as an alternative treatment devoid of the complications related to surgery 1,2 . PEI has been proposed for small hepatocellular carcinomas and for liver and peritoneal metastases of abdominal tumors 1 , and also for non-malignant nodular lesions, such as parathyroid adeno-mas 3,4 . This modality of treatment appears to be particularly suitable for patients with secondary hyperparathyroidsm due to chronic renal failure, in whom the risk of surgery is high. On the other hand, the use of PEI has been proposed in the treatment of aldosterone-producing adrenocorti- cal adenomas under CT-guidance 5 . In 1990 Livraghi et al 6 suggested that autonomous thyroid nodules can be successfully treated by this technique. Since then, several reports have confirmed the effectiveness and usefulness of PEI in the treatment of several thyroid lesions 7–16 . However, the use of ethanol in the treatment of thyroid nodules is not a therapy of the end of the millenium, since in the textbook of Pediatrics edited by Gerhardt 17 it was reported that ”the pecutaneous ethanol injection for the treatment of thyroid nodules (solid or cystic) was performed by Damed, Monod and Demme in 1878”. |
