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Hepatic vascular exclusion with double venovenous bypass using a centrifugal force pump was used in major hepatic resections in eight patients with hepatocellular carcinoma combined with cirrhosis, and results were compared with those in four patients with hepatocellular carcinoma without cirrhosis and eight with metastatic tumors without cirrhosis among 521 patients undergoing liver resection. Concomitant resection of the retrohepatic inferior vena cava was performed in three of eight patients with cirrhosis and five of 12 patients without cirrhosis. All patients, except one with cirrhosis, tolerated major resection without any hemodynamic impairment, which is often observed in hepatic vascular exclusion without venovenous bypass. One patient, whose complete inflow occlusion period was 70 minutes, died of liver failure. In this patient, the recovery of the arterial ketone body ratio above 1.0 was delayed until 3 days after recirculation, whereas the ratio in the others recovered promptly. Postoperative complications such as increased bilirubin level, pleural effusion, and gastrointestinal tract bleeding were observed in seven of eight patients with cirrhosis compared with six of 12 without cirrhosis. Hepatic vascular exclusion is feasible even in cirrhotics as long as it is applied with venovenous bypass and is kept within the time limit of 60 minutes.

Three patients with the severe form of propionic acidaemia were treated with living-donor liver transplantation (LDLT). The procedure was successful for all patients and the incidence of metabolic decompensation was reduced dramatically even without protein restriction. Biochemically, however, the improvement was not significant and the patients continued to excrete large amounts of propionic acid metabolites. One of the patients experienced a severe acidaemic episode 3 years after transplantation. LDLT has a beneficial effect on the care of severely affected patients since it reduces the risk of metabolic decompensation and improves the quality of life with less strict dietary control. Adequate protein restriction and medication need to be maintained even after successful transplantation.

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Uptake characteristics of alginate microcapsules containing bis(2,4,4-trimethylpentyl)monothiophosphinic acid for adsorption of Ag(I) ions were examined using batch methods. Under a definite initial Ag+ concentration (C b), at equilibrium, all the Ag(I) ions are adsorbed by extractant, while above C b, ion exchange by the alginate matrix becomes the dominating mechanism. The kinetic mechanism varies depending on the presence of coexisting ions (CI). If the concentration of CI is low, the kinetics is controlled by a combination of slow adsorption of Ag(I) ions by Cyanex 302 (HA) microdroplets and shielding of inner microdroplets by the outer reacting ones (physical−chemical shielding mechanism). At higher concentrations of CI, intrapore diffusion controls the kinetics. Different types of the shrinking core model remarkably fitted the kinetics experiments. The microcapsules were able to selectively adsorbed 90% of the Ag(I) ions from a 10 ppm Ag(I) + 3 mol·dm-3 Na+ solution. In addition, the uptake percentage was constantly high in wide range of pH values and Ag+ concentrations.

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Cp*Ir complexes bearing a 2-picolinamide moiety serve as effective catalysts for the direct reductive amination of ketonic compounds to give primary amines under transfer hydrogenation conditions using ammonium formate as both the nitrogen and hydrogen source. The clean and operationally simple transformation proceeds with a substrate to catalyst molar ratio (S/C) of up to 20,000 at relatively low temperature and exhibits excellent chemoselectivity toward primary amines.

No abstract