The clinical features of 57 autopsied cases of intrahepatic bile duct carcinoma including 28 cases of the peripheral type (cholangiocarcinoma in the narrow sense) and 29 cases of the hilar type are described in comparison with those of hepatocellular carcinoma, with a review of the literature on the clinicopathological aspects of intrahepatic bile duct carcinoma. As compared with hepatocellular carcinoma, the average age of the patients was older; the male predominance was not obvious, chronic parenchymal liver disease was infrequent in the past history, association of primary cirrhosis was seldom, cholestatic features were frequently the early signs and more pronounced during the course, the liver was enlarged to a lesser extent, ascites was less common, signs of portal hypertension were absent or minimal, a n d extrahepatic metastases were less frequent. In many respects, the hilar type resembled extrahepatic bile duct carcinoma, and the peripheral type was somewhat between it and hepatocellular carcinoma. Although the overall survival was not much different from that for hepatocellular carcinoma, early diagnosis is emphasized; this would make surgical management possible. Differential diagnosis from hepatocellular carcinoma may be possible in the majority with direct cholangiography , liver scan, celiac angiography, determination of a-fetoprotein and hepatitis B antigen, and blood chemistry such as SCOT, SLDH, serum bilirubin and alkaline phosphatase. Illustrative cases are given including one patient with a hilar carcinoma who survived for more than 2 years after transhepatic biliary drainage.

Triphosphazene, 1,3,5-triazo-2,4,6-triphosphorine-2,2,4,4,6,6-chloride (TAPC), was found to be an efficient catalyst for the Beckmann rearrangement of cyclohexanone oxime and cyclododecanone oxime to epsilon-caprolactam and laurolactam, which are raw materials of nylon-6 and nylon-12, respectively.

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An interesting immunoactive peptide, FK-156, has been isolated from the fermentation broth of Streptomyces olivaceogriseus sp. nov. and Streptomyces violaceus. The compound was purified by column chromatography with activated carbon, ion exchange Sephadex and cellulose powder. FK-156, obtained as white powder, exhibits a wide variety of immunostimulatory activity in vivo and in vitro with experimental animals. Pretreatment of mice or rats with this peptide protected the animals against lethal infection with Escherichia coli and resulted in prolongation of life span of tumor bearing animals. During the course of a screening program directed toward the isolation and evaluation of new immunostimulating agents, we isolated two strains of Streptomyces, strain No. C-353 and strain No.