[A Case of Abdominal Fullness Caused by a Retroperitoneal Bulky Tumor Treated with Epidural Analgesia].

We presented the case of a 63-year-old woman with severe abdominal distention due to recurrent retroperitoneal sarcoma. Further, the rapid progression of the tumor made it difficult to relieve the abdominal distention. Titrated intravenous morphine was administered.

Phase I clinical trial of multiple-peptide vaccination for patients with advanced biliary tract cancer.

Background: The prognosis of patients with advanced biliary tract cancer (BTC) is extremely poor and only a few standard treatments are available for this condition. We performed a phase I trial to investigate the safety, immune response and anti-tumor effect of vaccination with three peptides derived from cancer-testis antigens.

Methods: This study was conducted as a phase I trial.

Postoperative dendritic cell vaccine plus activated T-cell transfer improves the survival of patients with invasive hepatocellular carcinoma.

The recurrence rate after surgery in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is very high, while prognosis is quite poor. However, there is no standard treatment to prevent recurrence of HCC after a curative operation. In this study, we investigated the clinical utilization of an autologous tumor lysate-pulsed dendritic cell vaccine plus ex vivo activated T cell transfer (ATVAC) in an adjuvant setting for postoperative HCC as a non-randomized controlled trial.

Long-term Vaccination with Multiple Peptides Derived from Cancer-Testis Antigens Can Maintain a Specific T-cell Response and Achieve Disease Stability in Advanced Biliary Tract Cancer.

Purpose: The prognosis of patients with advanced biliary tract cancer (BTC) is extremely poor and there are only a few standard treatments. We conducted a phase I trial to investigate the safety, immune response, and antitumor effect of vaccination with four peptides derived from cancer-testis antigens, with a focus on their fluctuations during long-term vaccination until the disease had progressed.

Experimental Design: Nine patients with advanced BTC who had unresectable tumors and were refractory to standard chemotherapy were enrolled.

Clinical utilization of postoperative dendritic cell vaccine plus activated T-cell transfer in patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma.

Background: The prognosis of patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) is extremely poor and the recurrence rate after curative operation is very high. There is no standard treatment to prevent recurrence of ICC. In this study, we investigated the clinical utilization of a dendritic cell vaccine plus activated T-cell transfer in an adjuvant setting for postoperative ICC.

Forty-year experience with flow-diversion surgery for patients with congenital choledochal cysts with pancreaticobiliary maljunction at a single institution.

Background: Congenital choledochal cyst with pancreaticobiliary maljunction (PBM) is known as a high-risk factor for various complications such as cholangitis, pancreatitis, and carcinogenesis of the biliary system by mutual refluxes of bile and pancreatic juice. Furthermore, it is not rare to suffer from postoperative complications if the wrong operative procedure is chosen. Therefore, we sought to review the relationship between operative procedure for types I and IV-A (Todani's classification) congenital choledochal cyst with PBM, and long-term treatment outcome.

[The case of tumor escape mechanism by changing their tumor-associated antigens].

A 53-year-old woman presented with a diagnosis of advanced gallbladder cancer at our hospital. She was evaluated with CT scan and given a diagnosis of Stage IVb due to the multiple lymph nodes metastases and significant invasion to the artery. However, we underwent simple cholecystectomy followed by immunotherapy that was the hope of herself and her family.

Should the extrahepatic bile duct be resected or preserved in R0 radical surgery for advanced gallbladder carcinoma? Results of a Japanese Society of Biliary Surgery Survey: a multicenter study.

Purpose: We assessed the significance of an extra bile duct resection by comparing the survival of patients with advanced gallbladder carcinoma who had resected bile ducts with those who had preserved bile ducts. A radical cholecystectomy that includes extra bile duct resections has been performed without any clear evidence of whether an extra bile duct resection is preventive or curative.

Methods: We conducted a questionnaire survey among clinicians who belonged to the 114 member institutions of the Japanese Society of Biliary Surgery.

Hepatic resection in 485 R0 pT2 and pT3 cases of advanced carcinoma of the gallbladder: results of a Japanese Society of Biliary Surgery survey--a multicenter study.

Purpose: We conducted this study to evaluate the optimal hepatic resection for pT2 and pT3 advanced carcinoma of the gallbladder without invasion of the hepatoduodenal ligament.

Methods: We conducted a questionnaire survey regarding 4,243 cases of carcinoma of the gallbladder treated during the recent 10-year period at 112 institutions belonging to the Japanese Society of Biliary Surgery. The questionnaires included questions on preoperative-diagnosis, complications, treatment, and surgical treatment, procedures of resection, surgical result, path histological findings, mode, and site of recurrence, additional post-operative treatment.

Tumor-induced immune suppression of in vivo effector T-cell priming is mediated by the B7-H1/PD-1 axis and transforming growth factor beta.

We have generated effector T cells from tumor-draining lymph nodes (TDLN) that are efficacious in adoptive immunotherapy. We now examine the effect of concomitant tumors on the generation of effector T cells. We inoculated methylcholanthrene (MCA) 205 in the flanks of normal mice and mice bearing MCA 205 lung metastases.

Simultaneous targeting of CD3 on T cells and CD40 on B or dendritic cells augments the antitumor reactivity of tumor-primed lymph node cells.

To date, molecular targets chosen for Ab activation to generate antitumor effector cells have been confined on T cells, such as TCR/CD3, CD28, CD137 (4-1BB), CD134 (OX40), and inducible costimulator. In this report we investigated the immune function of murine tumor-draining lymph node (TDLN) cells after simultaneous Ab targeting of CD3 on T cells and CD40 on APCs. Anti-CD3 plus anti-CD40-activated TDLN cells secreted significantly higher amounts of IFN-gamma, but less IL-10, compared with anti-CD3-activated cells.

[Combined cell therapy by using dendritic cells, T-cells and NK cells to human polymorphic cancer].

Although an expression of MHC molecules and tumor associated antigens of the cancer are not uniform, we consider that the cancer immunotherapy for some specific tumor antigens cannot correspond to molecular biological varieties of the cancer. Consequently, we tried to develop a method to separate dendritic cells (DC), T-cells and natural killer (NK) cells from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) obtained from healthy volunteers. PBMC were separated by centrifugation on Ficoll-Hypaque gradients from peripheral blood obtained from healthy volunteers.