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The effect of combination chemotherapy (bleomycin, actinomycin D, vindesine and DTIC) on taste sensation in patients with malignant melanoma was evaluated. Five concentrations of 4 basic tastes (sweet, bitter, sour and salt) were tested. Lowest concentrations of all tastes were subjectively rated more intense after chemotherapy than before. This change was significant for sweet, sour and salt. The highest concentration of sweet was rated significantly less intense following chemotherapy. The discrimination between highest and lowest concentration was diminished for sweet, sour and bitter and marginally for salt. The changes in taste sensation following chemotherapy could attribute to anorexia in cancer patients treated with cytostatic agents.

No abstract

The effect of combination chemotherapy on human small intestinal morphology and disaccharidase activities and their relation with clinical and chemical (fecal wet weight and K-excretion) parameters for gastrointestinal toxicity were evaluated in patients with disseminated malignant melanoma receiving enteral normoalimentation (NA). Also evaluated were the supposed protective effects on gastrointestinal toxicity of enteral hyperalimentation (HA) with an elemental diet. After chemotherapy, a comparable decrease in villus height, total mucosal height, and mitotic index was found in jejunal biopsy specimens of both groups. However, in the NA group, the crypt depth decreased (in contrast to the HA group), whereas the disaccharidase activities in the HA group deteriorated to lower values than in the NA group. The authors found no correlation between disaccharidase levels and mucosal morphology, nor was there a correlation between these variables, fecal parameters and clinical diarrhea, suggesting that diarrhea occurring after chemotherapy was not due to loss of mucosal tissue or decrease in enzyme activities. A protective effect of HA with an elemental diet on gastrointestinal toxicity could not be established.

Splenectomy has been performed for many years in the treatment of hemolytic anemia. This procedure is generally considered to give excellent results in congenital spherocytosis. In other types of hemolytic anemia the results are not consistently beneficial. Dacie and Chertkow (1) for example observed a favorable effect of the operation in only 50 yo of their cases of acquired hemolytic anemia.In 1955 Jandl et al.(2) introduced a method of body surface scanning after the injection of Crsl-tagged red cells in order to determine the relative distribution of radioactivity over different organs. These authors stated that a progressive increase of radioactivity over the spleen accompanying the disappearance of Cr"labelled autologous red cells from the blood stream indicated active red cell sequestration in that organ. The extent of this sequestration was quantitatively expressed with the aid of a simpIe formula, the sequestration index. I t was suggested that the sequestration index might be a useful criterion in predicting the effect of splenectomy in cases of hemolytic anemia.. Schloesser et al. (3), Hughes Jones and Szur (4), McCurdy and Rath ( 5 ) have performed studies with a similar technique but each group used a different method of expressing their results. Mc-. Curdy and Rath in their study also summarized the results in 27 cases of splenectomy obtained by themselves and the three other groups of workers. Since thenapaper of Fieschi et al. (6) has been published as well as a report by Lewis et al. (7)-The present study deals with 53 patients in 26 of whom splenectomy was performed. The results from our investigations employing the technique of body surface scanning are analyzed and compared with those in literature. 507