Preoperative treatment of hydatid cysts with mebendazole.

Mebendazole--an anthelmintic drug which is known to have a lethal effect on hydatid cysts--was administered preoperatively to patients affected by Echinococciasis, in order to sterilize cysts and prevent surgical contamination. Our results suggest that mebendazole treatment (1500 mg/die for 25 days) was effective in ten out of eleven cases; no major toxic effect was observed.