The development of cancer in mature cystic teratomas of the ovary is rare and sometimes difficult to detect because of sampling errors. Six cases of squamous cell carcinoma arising in ovarian mature cystic teratomas were studied, five of which showed an elevated level of a squamous cell carcinoma-associated antigen, TA-4, in the sera obtained preoperatively; the preoperative determination was not performed in the sixth case. However, no elevated TA-4 level was detected in the sera of 28 patients with mature cystic teratomas of the ovary. Moreover, serial determination of the serum TA-4 level showed a good correlation between the clinical course and the serum TA-4 level. Interestingly, an abnormal TA-4 level preceded the clinical detection of recurrence by 2 months in two patients. Thus, determination of the serum TA-4 concentration may be useful for diagnosing and monitoring patients with squamous cell carcinoma arising in mature cystic teratomas of the ovary.

This study was carried out on a correlation between simultaneous mater nal and fetal serum vitamin E levels in 112 mothers and cord blood of their infants at delivery. Among the mothers, 55 were supplemented with vitamin E acetate prior to the delivery. The mean serum vitamin E level in the mother's blood and the cord blood was significantly higher in the vitamin E-supplemented group than in the control group, although the difference in the mean level between the two groups was very small in the cord blood, as compared with the maternal blood. A moderate correlation was noted between the cord blood and the mother's blood (r=0.604, 0.522 and 0.567 for the total number of cases, the vitamin E supplemented group and the control group, respectively). Changes in the incidence of the cases with positive erythrocyte hemolysis test in hydrogen peroxide, which were observed in the vitamin-E supplemented group, as compared with the control group, were statistically not signifi cant.It is well known that tocopherol deficiency may be common in newborn infants, especially in premature infants, which leads to a positive hydrogen per oxide erythrocyte hemolysis test. The administration of tocopherol will reverse this phenomenon (1-7). Recently, increased attention has been paid to the role of tocopherol deficiency in the etiology of disorders in the newborn, such as anemia, hemolysis (7-13), edema (7), sclerema (14) and pulmonary injuries result ing from long-term use of therapeutic oxygen of high concentration (15, 16). Many reports indicate that the low serum vitamin E level in the newborn infants is not related to the mother's nutritional status (4, 17), and suggest that it is pro bably due to impaired transport of tocopherol across the placenta. On the other hand, there is a different view concerning the relationship between vitamin E status in newborn infants and that of mothers (18,19). MINK0WSKI et al. (18) showed that the plasma vitamin E level of the infant at birth could be influenced

This investigation was undertaken to decide if tocopherol is actually depleted in the fetus and newborn infant by measuring liver tocopherol level. First, a reliable assay method was established as follows. The colorimetric values obtained by Emmerie-Engel's principle from liver extracts which were eluted through a floridin column were corrected by using the ratios of the tocopherol band area to the total scanning values of TLC analysis by densitometry carried out simultaneously. The recovery of tocopherol added to the liver homogenate was always greater than 90%, as measured in this procedure. Thus, tocopherol levels were determined in the human fetal, infant and adult liver with this method. The levels were very low in the fetal liver even though they gradually increased throughout fetal life. After birth, a slight elevation in tocopherol levels was observed during infancy when compared with those in fetal life, but they were still one-third or less of the adult level.

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