Left hepatic lobectomy for type IV-A choledochal cyst.

We report a case of a 37-year-old woman who was diagnosed with a type IV-A choledochal cyst with intrahepatic bile duct strictures. Because the stricture in the medial segment was located too far from the hilum for a hepaticojejunostomy we performed a left hepatic lobectomy. In this report we evaluate the therapeutic benefit of hepatectomy in a patient with a type IV-A choledochal cyst involving the intrahepatic bile ducts.

Pathologic, cytologic and immunohistochemical findings of an intra-abdominal desmoplastic small round cell tumor in a 15-year-old male.

The intra-abdominal desmoplastic small round cell tumor is a rare neoplasm. It usually occurs in young males and diffusely involves the peritoneum and pursues an aggressive clinical course. The present patient was a 15-year-old male who experienced abdominal pain and abdominal swelling. The patient was diagnosed with an intestinal myogenic sarcoma, and surgery for tumor resection was performed in June 1999. The tumor was a 20 x 15 x 15 cm well-defined mass in the peritoneum involving the transverse colon and stomach with peritoneal disseminations and splenic metastasis. Microscopic findings were well-defined nests composed of small round cells and separated by abundant desmoplastic stroma. Cytologically, the tumor cells consisted of small, round to oval cells with a scant amount of light blue cytoplasm. Immunohistochemically, the tumor cells were positive for anti-epithelial membrane antigen, vimentin, desmin, neuron-specific enolase and WT1 protein antibodies. Similar pathologic features with other small round cell tumors may lead to differential diagnostic difficulties that require the application of ancillary diagnostic methods, such as immunohistochemistry and cytogenetic techniques.

Heterotopic pancreatic tissue associated with intra- and extrahepatic choledochal cysts.

A case report of heterotopic pancreas in intra- and extrahepatic biliary tracts in a 36-year-old female who suffered from intra- and extrahepatic choledochal cysts with an anomalous pancreatobiliary duct system. Histologic examination of the resected specimen showed pancreatic tissues located along the wall of the biliary tract with choledochal cysts. The pancreatic tissue consisted of acinar cells and duct elements without Langerhans' islets; the acinar cells were positive immunohistochemically for alpha-amylase and negative for endocrine hormones. Ultrastructural study revealed zymogen granules in the acinar cells. In the present case the heterotopic exocrine pancreatic tissue seems to be etiologically related to choledochal cysts as well as to the anomalous arrangement of the pancreatobiliary duct.

Quadruple cancer including bilateral breasts, Vater's papilla, and urinary bladder: report of a case.

We herein report a rare case of quadruple carcinoma with heterochronous bilateral breast cancer, cancer of Vater's papilla, and cancer of the urinary bladder, which were all curatively resected. A 62-year-old woman previously underwent right and left modified radical mastectomies heterochronously. Recently, a dilatation of the lower bile duct, diagnosed as cancer of Vater's papilla, was resected by a pancreatoduodenectomy. Hematuria during surgery led to the discovery of a solid bladder tumor. The tumor was resected by a transurethral resection. The histopathologic findings differed for all four lesions. The patient had an uneventful postoperative course and to date has shown no recurrence.

[Development of quality of life questionnaire for patients with colorectal cancer in surgical area--a study of reliability and validity of Tokyo Yamabuki Forum Version].

We developed a new questionnaire in the surgical area based on a core quality of life (QOL) questionnaire for patients with gastrointestinal cancer. In this study, we investigated the validity and reliability of a QOL questionnaire (Tokyo Yamabuki Forum Version) for patients with colorectal cancer. The questionnaire was composed of 17 items including 5 scales (basic sensory scale, psychological scale, physiological scale, defection-related scale and active scale) and a face scale as an global scale. The time needed to answer questionnaires was expected to be around 7 minutes and the questionnaires should basically be answered by the patients themselves everyday in the hospital. The study was performed in 10 hospitals in the Tokyo area, and 394 samples collected from 21 patients with rectal and colonic cancers were analyzed. A number of respondents failed to answer the question "Do you feel your foods tasty?", so we judged this item inappropriate and deleted it from the analysis. Fifteen items, including 5 scales showed satisfactory internal consistency and construct validity in correlation and factor analyses. Performance status showed a low correlation between each item, each scale and the global scale, while SDS and STAI showed an inordinately negative correlation with the fundamental and physical scales. Especially, SDS revealed an extremely close correlation with the active scale, and STAI showed an excessive correlation with the psychological scale. In the time course of QOL under chemotherapy, reductions (aggravations) were observed in both the total score of 15 items and global scale within one week postoperatively, but after that recovered to preoperative levels at 2 weeks postoperatively. A tendency to QOL improvement was observed 2 weeks after starting chemotherapy or chemoimmunotherapy. QOL of 13 patients was measured over 3 months, and the longest term was 8 months. The results suggested that this QOL questionnaire has sufficient reliability and validity to be usable for patients with colorectal cancer in the surgical area and that this model is applicable for long-term QOL surveys and frequent measurement.

In vitro growth and chemosensitivity studies of childhood cancers using clonogenic assay.

We evaluated the usefulness of the recently developed Human Tumor Clonogenic Assay (HTCA) for chemosensitivity studies in childhood cancers. A total of 20 childhood cancer specimens containing 8 neuroblastomas, 4 malignant lymphomas, three hepatoblastomas, two rhabdomyosarcomas, two germinomas and one adrenal carcinoma were assayed. Overall, 65 per cent (13/20) of tumor cell specimens showed adequate colony forming ability to yield the sensitivity of anticancer drugs. The pattern of in vitro sensitivity of a particular tumor to most anticancer drugs tested was not dissimilar to the clinical experiences of these agents. The overall in vitro response rate of childhood cancers to anticancer agents was 51 per cent. A retrospective analysis of this assay revealed a true positive rate of 57 per cent and a true negative rate of 100 per cent.