A case of cystadenocarcinoma of the liver

A case of cystadenocarcinoma of the liver is reported. The patient was a 73-year-old woman in whom a tumor was detected in the lateral segment of the liver during a health examination. Ultrasonograms and computed tomograms showed a multilocular cystic mass. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed a multilocular lowintensity mass, including a high-intensity portion and a portal branch compressed by the tumor. MRI with gadolinium showed an enhanced cyst wall. The cystic part of the tumor became smaller and the solid part became larger over a 1-month period, indicating that the tumor was malignant. Subsegmentectomy (S₃) was performed and cystadenocarcinoma with cystadenoma was diagnosed by histopathological examination. Identification of changes in the appearance of a tumor should be helpful for the differential diagnosis of cystadenoma and cystadenocarcinoma.     

Clinical features of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder showing different pharmacological responses]

BACKGROUND: Although selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are the mainstay of pharmacological treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), some OCD patients do not show improvement. Sometimes, the addition of a low-dose atypical antipsychotic, such as risperidone, or olanzapine, to ongoing SSRI treatment has been shown to be effective. However, there are patients who still show no response after trials with this augmentation therapy. In the present study, we examined the clinical features of OCD patients who showed different responses to pharmacological treatment. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: Fifty OCD patients were divided into three groups according to their pharmacological responses: responders to SSRI (group A: n= 25), responders to SSRI with an atypical antipsychotic (group B: n= 15), and non-responders to both SSRI and SSRI with an atypical antipsychotic (group C: n= 10). We examined the clinical features such as age, sex, age of onset, duration of illness, types of obsessive-compulsive symptoms, severity, improvement after treatment, insight into disease, depression, comorbidity, involving family members in compulsive or ritualistic behavior, and the level of social adaptation of each OCD group. RESULTS: Twenty five patients showed a good response to SSRI monotherapy, 15 showed a response to antipsychotic augmentation, and 10 were non-responders to both SSRI and SSRI with an atypical antipsychotic. Significantly lower insight levels were observed only in group B and higher depressive levels in group C. OCD patients who were refractory to SSRI monotherapy showed comorbidity at a significantly higher frequency. OCD patients in group A showed significantly greater improvement, and group B showed inferior social adaptation after treatment. There were no significant differences in age, sex, age of onset, duration of illness, severity, involving family members in compulsive or ritualistic behavior, and social adaptation before treatment in the three OCD groups. CONCLUSION: There were differences in the clinical features of OCD patients who showed different responses to pharmacological treatment. Our results suggest that OCD is clinically and biologically heterogeneous. It may be important to divide OCD patients into subgroups for future studies.     

Delayed manifestation of aortic stenosis after blunt abdominal trauma: Report of a case

Delayed manifestation of aortic stenosis caused by abdominal blunt trauma is rare. We report herein the case of a 67-year-old man who was taken to a nearby hospital after being crushed between a heavy truck and a wall. An emergency laparotomy was performed, revealing only a mesenteric tear which was repaired. He was discharged after an uneventful postoperative course; however, 1 month later he began to experience intermittent claudication, and presented to our hospital in December 1994, 1 year after the first operation. Angiography and enhanced computed tomography (CT) demonstrated infrarenal abdominal aortic dilatation with distal stenosis. Both the dilated and stenotic lesions were resected and bypass surgery was performed. Pathologic examination demonstrated that the intima had been lacerated circumferentially and everted distally, causing the aortic stenosis. To our knowledge, this is the first case of the delayed manifestation of traumatic aortic stenosis to be documented in Japan. The etiology of this rare complication of blunt trauma is described in this report.     

Silicone-Coated Polypropylene Hollow-Fiber Oxygenator: Experimental Evaluation and Preliminary Clinical Use

Background. A membrane oxygenator consisting of a microporous polypropylene hollow fiber with a 0.2-μm ultrathin silicone layer (cyclosiloxane) was developed. Animal experimental and preliminary clinical studies evaluated its reliability in bypass procedures.

Methods. Five 24-hour venoarterial bypass periods were conducted on dogs using the oxygenator (group A). In 5 controls, bypass periods were conducted using the same oxygenator without silicone coating (group B). As a preliminary clinical study, 14 patients underwent cardiopulmonary bypass with the silicone-coated oxygenator.

Results. Eight to 16 hours (mean, 12.2 hours) after initiation of bypass, plasma leakage occurred in all group B animals, but none in group A. The O₂ and CO₂ transfer rates after 24 hours in group A were significantly higher than at termination of bypass in group B (p < 0.005 and p < 0.03, respectively). Scanning electron microscopy of silicone-coated fibers after 24 hours of bypass revealed no damage to the silicone coating of the polypropylene hollow fibers. In the clinical study, the oxygenator showed good gas transfer, acceptable pressure loss, low hemolysis, and good durability.

Conclusions. This oxygenator is more durable and offers greater gas transfer capabilities than the previous generation of oxygenators.     

Dendritic Cells Coinjected with Tumor Cells Treated with an Anticancer Drug to Induce Tumor Rejection

Purpose: We examined whether bone marrow-derived dendritic cells (DCs) could induce antitumor immunity when a chemotherapeutic drug was added. Methods: CT26 (a murine colon cancer cell line syngeneic with BALB/c) and CT26-bearing mice were treated with mitomycin C (MMC) intraperitoneally (i.p.). Next, mice immunized with a coinjection of DCs and MMC-treated CT26 (i.p.) were given an intradermal inoculation of CT26. Finally, CT26-bearing mice were treated with MMC (i.p.) with or without DCs, given peritumorally. Results: Although the inoculated tumor was not rejected in the control mice, CT26 was rejected in 50% of the mice injected with MMC alone. Apoptosis was observed in the MMC-treated CT26 cells in vitro and in vivo. Immunization with DCs and apoptotic CT26 cells, but not with apoptotic CT26 alone, gave protection against tumor challenge in 7 of 13 mice. A significantly higher level of cytotoxic T-cell activity and interferon-γ production was seen in the protected mice. When MMC (i.p.) treatment was followed by peritumoral DC injection in the CT26-bearing mice, remarkable therapeutic effects were observed. Conclusion: DCs can collaborate with chemotherapy-induced apoptotic tumor cells and elicit improved antitumor immunity, probably through the acquisition of tumor-associated antigens from apoptotic tumor cells. Received: January 7, 2002 / Accepted: September 3, 2002 Acknowledgments. We thank Dr. Kazuo Kinoshita for his useful advice on using flow cytometry. This research was partly supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (No. 11671160). Reprint requests to: S. Yamasaki     

Cholinergic amacrine cells of the chicken retina: a light and electron microscope immunocytochemical study

Cholinergic amacrine cells of the chicken retina were detected by immunohistochemistry using an antiserum against affinity-purified chicken choline acetyltransferase. Three populations of cells were detected: type I cholinergic amacrine cells had cell bodies on the border of the inner nuclear and inner plexiform layers and formed a prominent laminar band in sublamina 2 of the inner plexiform layer, while type II cholinergic amacrine cells had cell bodies in the ganglion cell layer, and formed a prominent laminar band in sublamina 4 of the inner plexiform layer. Type III cholinergic amacrine cell bodies were located towards the middle of the inner nuclear layer, and their processes were more diffusely distributed in sublaminas 1 and 3-5 of the inner plexiform layer. Type I and type II cells were present at densities of over 7000 cells/mm2 in central areas declining to less than 2000 cells/mm2 in the temporal retinal periphery. The cells were organized locally in a non-random mosaic, with regularity indices ranging from 3 peripherally to over 5 centrally. Neither at the light nor electron microscopic levels was a lattice of cholinergic dendrites of the kind reported by Tauchi and Masland [J. Neurosci. 5, 2494-2501 (1985)] detectable. Within the two prominent dendritic plexuses, a major feature of the synaptic interactions of the type I and type II cholinergic cells was extensive synaptic interaction between cholinergic processes. Apart from this, there was little, if any, input to cholinergic processes from non-cholinergic amacrine cells, but there was input from bipolar cells. Output from the cholinergic amacrine cell processes was directed towards non-cholinergic amacrine cells as well as other cholinergic amacrine cells, and ganglion cells.     

Early morphological changes in the striated muscles in normal and dystrophic chickens

Histological and histochemical analyses were performed on the anterior latissimus dorsi muscle (ALD, red muscle) and the posterior latissimus dorsi muscle (PLD, white muscle) in normal (line 412) and dystrophic chickens (line 413) from 19 day embryos to 6 weeks of age. PLD, the white muscle, in dystrophic chickens showed higher percentages of red and intermediate fibres than those of normal chickens during the early development of muscles. Increases of the oxidative enzyme activities and the numbers of NADH--TR formazan granules in the white fibres of PLD were already found at 1 week of age in dystrophic chicken. Fibre types, oxidative enzyme activities and NADH--TR formazan granules showed no differences in ALD between normal and dystrophic chickens. These results suggest that increases of oxidative enzyme activities and formazan granule numbers and incomplete fibre type differentiation in PLD of dystrophic chickens are early pathological processes in such birds.     

Genistein,a protein tyrosine kinase inhibitor,suppresses the fusogenicity of Moloney murine leukemia virus envelope protein in XC cells

Summary. XC cells are highly susceptible to syncytium formation by infection of ecotropic murine leukemia viruses (MLVs) and by expression of their envelope protein (Env). By this property, XC cells are widely used to determine titers of ecotropic MLVs. Number of plaques resulted from the syncytium formation in XC cells by ecotropic MLV infection is corresponding to number of the viral particles. XC cells had been established from a v-src-induced rat tumor. It has been reported that transformed cells are more sensitive to Mo-MLV-induced syncytium formation than non-transformed cells. To assess whether the transformation by v-src oncogene in XC cells is involved in the high sensitivity to ecotropic MLV-induced syncytium formation, XC cells were treated with genistein, a protein tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Genistein suppressed the syncytium formation between XC cells and ecotropic Env-expressing 293T cells. This result indicates that protein tyrosine kinase activity is associated with the high sensitivity of XC cells to ecotropic Env-induced syncytium formation.Received January 8, 2003; accepted May 26, 2003     

Reduction of trimethylamine N-oxide by Escherichia coli as anaerobic respiration

E. coli was found to grow anaerobically on lactate in the presence of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMANO), reducing it to trimethylamine. Anaerobic growth on glucose was promoted in the presence of TMANO. When a culture grown in complex medium was transferred to defined medium, growth on glucose and ammonia took place in the presence of TMANO after consumption of complex nutrients introduced with the preculture, in contrast to growth in nitrate respiration. The amounts of ethanol, succinate, and lactate among the fermentation products were decreased and that of acetate was increased in the presence of TMANO. Formate generation was much reduced at pH 7.4, whereas stoichiometric formation of formate was observed in the absence of TMANO. Cells grown anaerobically in the presence of TMANO had a higher activity of amine N-oxide reductase than cells grown under other conditions. The content of cytochrome-558 was elevated in the presence of TMANO during growth in complex medium. Cytochrome c-552 found in cells grown in diluted complex medium or defined medium in the presence of TMANO was oxidized by TMANO in cell extracts. The molar growth yield on glucose was higher in the presence of TMANO than in its absence and lower than that in the presence of nitrate.