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A 25-year-old Japanese womanhad both ulcerative colitis and Takayasu's disease and was positive for HLA-A24,BW52,and DR2. She was found to have thickening of the wall of the carotid artery on contrast-enhanced computerized tomography of the neck and chest. Prednisolone, beraprost, and sulfapyridine achieved rapid remission of both diseases.

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Objectives: We aimed to clarify the prognostic factors for patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) invading into the muscularis mucosa (pT1a-MM) or submucosa (pT1b-SM) after endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD).Methods: This retrospective study enrolled such patients at 21 institutions in Japan between 2006 and 2017. We evaluated 15 factors, including pathological risk categories for ESCC-specific mortality, six non-cancer-related indices, and treatment strategies.Results: In the analysis of 593 patients, the 5-year overall and disease-specific survival rates were 83.0% and 97.6%, respectively. In a multivariate Cox analysis, male sex (hazard ratio [HR] 3.56), Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) ≥3 (HR 2.53), ages of 75-79 (HR 1.61) and ≥80 years (HR 2.04), prognostic nutrition index (PNI) <45 (HR 1.69), and pathological intermediate-risk (HR 1.63) and high-risk (HR 1.89) were prognostic factors. Subsequently, we developed a clinical risk classification for non-ESCC-related mortality based on the number of prognostic factors (age ≥75 years, male sex, CCI ≥3, PNI <45): low-risk, 0; intermediate-risk, 1-2; and high-risk, 3-4. The 5-year non-ESCC-related mortality rates for patients without additional treatment were 0.0%, 10.2%, and 45.8% in the

We investigated mechanisms underlying lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cell cytotoxicity in terms of intensity of expression of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) and lymphocyte-function-associated antigen-3 (LFA-3) on Daudi and KATO-III cells treated with cis-diamminedichloroplatinum (II) (CDDP) and mitomycin-C (MMC). Enhancement (mean, 49.8%) of ICAM-1 or LFA-3 in mRNA and protein expression on treated tumor cells was found by flow cytometry, slot-blot RNA analysis, and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Increases in adhesion and cytotoxicity of LAK cells to treated tumor cells were 10.1% and 17.7%, respectively. Results suggested that increased ICAM-1 or LFA-3 expression by low-dose CDDP or MMC binds LAK cells to tumor cells, helping to kill tumor cells. Thus, LAK cell therapy with anticancer agent pretreatment could be useful for treatment of cancer patients.