[Role of peritoneovenous shunt therapy in end-of-life care of refractory malignant ascites cases].

The short- and long-term outcomes of 34 patients with refractory malignant ascites who underwent peritoneovenous shunt (PVS) therapy were retrospectively reviewed. The primary disease was gastrointestinal cancer in 31 patients and gynecologic cancer in 3 patients. Regarding performance status, 21 patients had Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Status (PS) 2 and 13 patients were PS 3;thus, many were in a poor general condition.

Duplicate left gastric artery identified during robot-assisted distal gastrectomy: a case report.

Background: Duplicated left gastric artery (LGA) is a rare anomaly. With an incidence of only 0.4%, its clinical significance remains largely unrecognized.

Right adrenal giant cystic pheochromocytoma: A case report.

A 78-year-old woman was referred to our institution for evaluation and treatment of a mass on her right adrenal gland measuring 12 × 11 × 10 cm. Twenty-four-hour urine analysis revealed a total metanephrine level over 3 times the upper limit of normal. Scintigraphy using I-metaiodobenzylguanidine was positive.

Bowel intussusception and adhesive intestinal obstruction in neurofibromatosis type 1.

We report the case that a patient with Neurofibromatosis type 1 experienced bowel intussusception and adhesive intestinal obstruction. Bowel intussusception was considered to be due to long intestinal tube and multiple intraabdominal lesions including gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs).

Accurate prediction of severe postoperative complications after pancreatic surgery: POSSUM vs E-PASS.

Background/purpose: Few reports have evaluated the differences in the predictive accuracy between the physiological and operative severity score for the enumeration of mortality and morbidity (POSSUM) and estimation of physiologic ability and surgical stress (E-PASS) in pancreatic surgery. Thus, we evaluated the accuracy and similarity of POSSUM and E-PASS for the prediction of severe postoperative complications (PCs) after pancreatic surgery.

Methods: We enrolled 343 consecutive patients who underwent pancreatic surgery in our department between April 2006 and September 2017.

Complete abdominal wound and anastomotic leak with diffuse peritonitis closure achieved by an abdominal vacuum sealing drainage in a critical ill patient: a case report.

Background: Negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) is a widely accepted technique to treat local infectious wounds of the skin, subcutaneous tissue, fascia, or muscle. Recently, several reports describing the efficacy of NPWT for various types of fistulas and anastomotic leaks have been published. We herein describe a patient with an open abdominal wound due to colonic anastomotic leakage and diffuse peritonitis, in whom abdominal vacuum sealing (AVS) as a modified NPWT was useful for the management of this complex wound.

[Prolonged Survival Following Chemotherapy in Bone Marrow Carcinomatosis Due to Esophagogastric Junctional Carcinoma - A Case Report].

A 60s-year-old Japanese male underwent curative resection for an advanced adenocarcinoma of the esophagogastric junction(Stage III C), followed by adjuvant chemotherapy.Twenty -one months later, he was admitted to our hospital with a complaint of marked decline in activities of daily living(ADL).The patient was diagnosed with pancytopenia, disseminated intravascular coagulation(DIC), multiple lymph node and bone metastases, and bone marrow carcinomatosis.

Preoperative Prognostic Nutritional Index Predicts Long-Term Surgical Outcomes in Patients with Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

Background: The purpose of the present study is to investigate the utility of prognostic nutritional index (PNI) as a simple and readily available marker in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC).

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 169 patients who underwent potentially curative esophagectomy, for histologically verified ESCC. We decided to set the optimal cutoff value for preoperative PNI levels at 49.

Inter- and Intrafractional Variation in the 3-Dimensional Positions of Pancreatic Tumors Due to Respiration Under Real-Time Monitoring.

Purpose: To quantify the 3-dimensional pancreatic tumor motion during the overall treatment course using real-time orthogonal kilovoltage X-ray imaging.

Methods And Materials: This study included 10 patients with pancreatic cancer who underwent 6-port static intensity modulated radiation therapy with real-time tumor tracking in 15 fractions, except for 1 patient (5 fractions). The tumor and abdominal wall positions were acquired simultaneously during the overall treatment course.

Highly efficient photocatalytic oxygenation reactions using water as an oxygen source.

The effective utilization of solar energy requires photocatalytic reactions with high quantum efficiency. Water is the most abundant reactant that can be used as an oxygen source in efficient photocatalytic reactions, just as nature uses water in an oxygenic photosynthesis. We report that photocatalytic oxygenation of organic substrates such as sodium p-styrene sulfonate occurs with nearly 100% quantum efficiency using manganese(III) porphyrins as an oxygenation catalyst, [Ru(II)(bpy)(3)](2+) (bpy = 2,2'-bipyridine) as a photosensitized electron-transfer catalyst, [Co(III)(NH(3))(5)Cl](2+) as a low-cost and weak one-electron oxidant, and water as an oxygen source in a phosphate buffer solution (pH 7.

Inverse relationship between serum erythropoietin and blood lead concentrations in Kathmandu tricycle taxi drivers.

Objective: Kathmandu tricycle taxi drivers, whose environmental lead (Pb) exposure is ascribable mainly to vehicular exhaust, were studied to examine a dose-response relationship between blood Pb (Pb-B) and serum erythropoietin (sEPO) concentrations.

Methods: Subjects were 27 drivers and 9 non-drivers. They were non-anemic healthy men with normal renal function.