The prognosis after surgical resection of pancreatic carcinoma mostly depends on tumor factors. In this study, it was difficult to identify the determinants of long-term survival in patients with resectable tumors.

Various chemotherapeutic agents used in patients with hematopoietic malignancy cause serious side effects, including myelosuppression and immunosuppression. Immunosuppression makes patients more susceptible to infection, resulting in an increased risk of infectious complications, including the development of severe septicemia that may be life-threatening. It is necessary for dental staff to be familiar with an appropriate protocol in such cases and to share information about the chemotherapy with a hematologist. To verify the effectiveness of our dental intervention protocol, we conducted a prospective study on the incidence of complications for each myelosuppressive grade of chemotherapy in patients with hematopoietic malignancy. We compared the incidence of complications between treatment P (patients who finished all the dental treatments according to the protocol) and treatment Q (patients who did not) per grade (A, B, C, D) and incidence of systemic or oral findings. We also compared the incidence of oral complication related to the residual teeth between first chemo (patients who were undergoing chemotherapy for the first time) and prior chemo (not the first time). There were significant differences in inflammatory complications between treatment P and treatment Q. We found that both systemic and oral inflammatory complications increased with higher-grade myelosuppressive chemotherapy. Additionally, there was a significant difference between the incidence of oral complications related to the residual teeth between first chemo and prior chemo. Complete implementation of the dental intervention protocol was associated with fewer oral and systemic infectious and inflammatory complications in patients with hematopoietic malignancies undergoing chemotherapy. The incidence of oral and systemic complications also increased with grade of chemotherapy. These results support the validity of our dental intervention protocol. We should pay close attention to the oral state of de novo hematopoietic malignancy patients.

The present study suggests the presence of mutual interactions between HuCC-T1/HepG2 carcinoma cells and neutrophils in tumor invasion via paracrine regulation mediated by neutrophil-derived HGF.

The results suggest that the neutrophil is primed in terms of chemotaxis and superoxide anion generation in obstructive jaundice. How these activated neutrophils play a role in the inflammatory response to obstructive jaundice should be evaluated.

Endoscopic biliary endoprosthesis was performed for 34 high-risk patients with commonbile duct stones too large to be extracted by conventional endoscopic means. Bile duct drainage was established in all the patients without complications. Late complications developed in four patients and included cholangitis (three) and biliary pain (one). Twenty-five patients underwent a second endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography between 4 and 30 months (mean, 15.1) during follow-up. Stone fragmentation was obtained in 76% (19/25) of the patients. Ten patients had complete stone clearance, and nine patients had disintegrated stones which could be readily removedendoscopically. The remaining nine patients were followed up with endoprostheses in situ for four to 60 months (mean, 24.8) without any symptoms. These results suggest that endoscopic endoprosthesis for difficult commonbile duct stones is an effective method to clear the duct in selected cases, as well as an important definitive treatment in high-risk patients. (Internal Medicine 33: 597-601, 1994)