Design of a new technique using a free tracheal autologous graft for reconstruction of the cricoid cartilage and trachea.

Purpose: We devised a new operative procedure to recreate a supporting framework using a free tracheal autologous graft for cricoidal and tracheal defects.

Methods: We used this new transplantation method to repair the airway defect in five patients who underwent total thyroidectomy with resection of the airway for advanced thyroid cancer. A free graft was taken from the anterior aspect of the trachea and placed over the defect.

Left-sided acute appendicitis with intestinal malrotation.

Intestinal malrotation is a rare anomaly of rotation and fixation of the midgut. Left-sided appendicitis occurs in association with two types of congenital anomalies, situs inversus and intestinal malrotation. We describe a rare case of left-sided acute appendicitis with intestinal malrotation in a 14-year-old boy, in which computed tomography (CT) was useful for a preoperative diagnosis.

[A case of hepatic metastasis from colon cancer successfully treated with 5-FU, levofolinate (l-LV) and low-dose CPT-11].

The patient was a 67-year-old man in whom hepatic metastasis from transverse colon cancer was detected 15 months after transverse colectomy (D2). We treated the patient by systemically administering 2 courses of 5-FU 750 mg/day with l-LV 350 mg/day (once weekly for 6 weeks per course). Assessment of therapeutic effects by CT showed PD in the patient.

Evaluation of warm ischemia-reperfusion injury using heat shock protein in the rat liver.

We focused on heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) as a marker of viability in hepatic warm ischemia-reperfusion. Segmental hepatic warm ischemia was produced in rats for 15, 30, 60, 90, 120, or 180 min. Liver sections were evaluated at 30, 60, and 120 min of reperfusion.