Does periprostatic local anesthesia for prostate biopsy affect the operative difficulty of open radical prostatectomy? A prospective randomized trial.

Objectives: Periprostatic local anesthesia for transrectal ultrasound (TRUS)-guided prostate biopsy requires additional needle punctures and injection of local anesthetics into the periprostatic area. This study sought to determine the influence of periprostatic local anesthesia on the surgical difficulty of open radical prostatectomy (RP).

Patients And Methods: A total of 241 consecutive patients who underwent TRUS-guided prostate needle biopsy were randomized to receive either periprostatic nerve block (Anesthesia group; n=120) or no anesthesia (Control group; n=121).

[Burned-out tumor and carcinoma-in-situ of the testis mimicking an extragonadal germ cell tumor: a case report].

Multiple tumors of mediastinum, retroperitoneum and lung were detected in a 40-year-old man presented with lumbago and lower abdominal pain. As biopsy specimen taken from the cervical lymph node suggested germ-cell tumor and his testes were normally palpable, the initial diagnosis was an extragonadal germ-cell tumor. However, since ultrasonography of his left testis showed a small high echoic lesion (5 mm) assumed to be a burned-out tumor, orchiectomy was performed.

[Histological effects of short term endocrine therapy on prostatic cancer].

Background: The objective of this study is to investigate the pathological changes which occurred in prostatic cancer shortly after the commencement of endocrine therapy.

Methods: Fourty-three patients underwent radical prostatectomy immediately after the short term endocrine therapy (treatment period was within one month) and the histological pictures of operative specimens were compared to those obtained from the pretreatment biopsy specimens.

Results: Degenerative changes of cancer cells, such as nuclear and cytoplasmic vacuole, collapse of the cytoplasm and the appearance of naked hyperchromatic nucleus were noticed after the short term endocrine therapy.

[Efficacy of the chemosensitivity test using collagen gel matrix-supported culture system for urogenital tumors].

Background: We evaluated the usefulness of in vitro tumor culture system using a specialized collagen gel matrix (CGM assay) as a chemosensitivity test.

Patients And Methods: Chemosensitivity results of CGM assay were compared with other in vivo and in vitro assays on an implantable murine bladder tumor cell line (MBT-2). In addition we investigated the possibility of the clinical use of CGM assay using clinical specimens obtained from urogenital malignant tumor patients by comparing the result with that of the other chemosensitivity test, SDI testing using single cells (conventional SDI test).

Potentiation of antitumor effect of bleomycin by local electric pulses in mouse bladder tumor.

C3H mice bearing subcutaneously transplanted mouse bladder carcinoma (MBT-2) were treated with intramuscular injection of bleomycin followed by local delivery of electric pulses at the tumor site. The tumors markedly reduced and even disappeared for several days after this treatment. Neither electric pulses nor bleomycin administration alone showed a significant inhibitory effect on the tumor growth.