We examined the effect of tacrolimus on myasthenia gravis (MG). Five patients with thymoma and 5 patients without thymoma underwent prior thymectomy but showed persistent myasthenic symptoms. Oral administration with tacrolimus significantly improved MG scores 1, 3, and 6 months following the beginning of treatment in all patients (P < 0.05), and the improvement was significantly higher in the thymoma group compared with the nonthymoma group (P < 0.05). However, there was no significant change in antiacetylcholine receptor titers in either group. This indicates a particular application of immunosuppressive therapy for thymomatous MG following thymectomy.

Cutaneous metastatic diseases remain nearly incurable and a major medical challenge. It has been shown that interleukin-2 (IL-2) has potential as a therapeutic agent for various neoplastic diseases such as melanoma, renal cell carcinoma and myeloid leukaemia. However, IL-2 therapy for metastatic skin lesions has not been established yet. In the present study, we investigated the effect of recombinant IL-2 in a 79-year-old Japanese man with carcinoma erysipeloides, a rare type of cutaneous metastasis from gastric cancer. He was treated with an intralesional injection of rIL-2 (200 000 JRU) daily. Ten days after treatment, an erythematous plaque was eliminated almost completely leaving light brown pigmentation. A skin biopsy from the pigmented area revealed the absence of obvious tumour cells. These findings suggest that this cytokine should be considered for the clinical treatment of several inoperative metastatic cutaneous diseases, including gastric cancer.

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