Guest Editor's Introduction: This paper was originally presented at the 9th congress of ASAIO in April 1963. The original paper was printed in Volume IX of Trans. Soc. Artif. Int. Organs 1963, pages 358–362. It was reprinted with permission in Therapeutic Apheresis, Volume 4, Issue 1, 2000 as a millennium project of the International Society for Apheresis. This paper describes for the first time a hybrid artificial live and extracorporeal circulatory system composed of a specially developed high permeable gel type cellophane membrane. This membrane separated the patient's blood and the metabolic fluid in which freeze‐dried canine liver granules were contained. Carbohydrate metabolism and ammonia detoxification were maintained in this metabolic chamber, eventually helping the patient's metabolic functions. In addition to experimental studies, four clinical studies were briefly reported.
A 39-year-old female experienced dyspnea on exertion for eight months. Chest CT demonstrated findings of Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM), including diffuse thin-walled cystic lesions. A surgical lung biopsy revealed human melanoma black-45-positive cell infiltration and aggregation, resulting in a diagnosis of sporadic LAM without tuberous sclerosis complex. Pelvic MRI showed two large tumors, one of which was in the myometrium and the other was in the retroperitoneal space. Because we were not able to exclude the presence of malignant tumors using MR imaging, the tumors were surgically resected. The histopathology demonstrated the resected tumors to be composed of LAM cells. The patient's symptoms worsened, and sirolimus was administered, which improved the dyspnea and pulmonary function. The adverse effect was mild liver damage. Following the initiation of treatment with sirolimus, transient elevation of the serum KL-6 level was detected without interstitial pneumonia. This LAM case complicated with large uterine and retroperitoneal tumors was successfully treated with surgical resection and sirolimus.
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