In patients with an elevated preoperative STB level, it is very likely that the inflammation is severe and that the disease has progressed to a severe condition histopathologically; therefore, meticulous attention should be paid to the selection of the surgical procedure, as well as to the postoperative clinical course.

No abstract

Large vessel invasion is a serious factor determining whether an operation for pancreatic body cancer is feasible. The Appleby operation is a radical operation for the treatment of pancreatic body cancer that has infiltrated the celiac axis. Since this procedure includes a total gastrectomy, the operation is associated with a high morbidity, mortality, and deteriorating postoperative quality of life (QOL). We experienced two cases in which radical operations consisting of a stomach-preserving distal pancreatectomy with en bloc resection of the celiac, common hepatic, and left gastric artery were performed. The use of adjuvant chemotherapy in these cases led to a good postoperative QOL.

Carcinomas rarely occur at the site of a colostomy. A 73-year-old man underwent abdominoperineal resection (Miles' surgical procedure) for rectal carcinoma in September 1988. He did not return to the hospital until September 1995, when he was admitted with stricture of the stoma. Neither tumor nor ulcer was detected at the stoma. The tip of the doctor's little finger was able to pass through the stoma, and manual expanding alleviated the stricture. The patient did not return to the hospital again until August 1996, at age 81 years, when he visited the hospital because of complete stricture of the stoma. A biopsy revealed an adenomatous carcinoma, but the results of various examinations suggested no metastasis. A portion of the intestine, including the stoma and surrounding skin, was resected, and a new stoma was created in the descending colon. We report this rare carcinoma occurring at the site of a colostomy, and we review the literature.

Twenty-two cases of partial or wholly composed clear-cell thyroid tumors were reviewed to differentiate between a primary nodule and metastatic clear-cell renal carcinoma in the thyroid. Pathological reevaluation of HE-stained specimens, immunohistochemical observation using anti-thyroglobulin (TG) antibody, and periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) staining were performed. The pathological characteristics in metastases from the kidney have a greater tendency to demonstrate a strikingly clear cytoplasm with small nuclei, rich vascularization, and a trabecular arrangement of tumor cells than do primary thyroid cases. The immunohistochemical TG staining in conjunction with PAS staining for the recognition of follicular colloid could provide much more reliable information of primary cases compared to that using TG staining alone. Clinically, in primary cases, the female:male ratio is substantially higher while the mean age is lower than in metastatic cases reflecting differentiated thyroid carcinoma. In conclusion, immunohistochemical staining for TG with PAS staining for the recognition of follicular colloid proved to be the most sensitive method for identifying primary clear cell thyroid tumors. In addition, a careful assessment of past and/or present kidney disorders to rule out metastatic renal cell carcinoma is advisable. Age, gender, and physiological findings are also informative when differentiating between them.