Tomoji Kohmoto

A CASE OF RECURRENT BREAST CANCER TO THE ANTERIOR CHEST WALL 19 YEARS AFTER A STANDARD RADICAL MASTECTOMY

We report a case of recurrent breast cancer to the anterior chest wall 19 years after a radical mastectomy for a left breast cancer (T2n0M0, Stage I). A 67-year-old woman was seen at the hospital because of a gradually enlarging tumor in the anterior chest wall which strated 8 months before when she first noticed it. A needle biopsy cytology revealed class V and she was diagnosed as hoving recurrent breast cancer. After one cource of chemotherapy into the left internal thoracic artery and irradiation at 50Gy, a total layer resection of the chest wall involving the sternal body was carried out. The defect in the chest wall was reconstructed with Marlex mesh, acrylic resion and myocutaneous flap made of the pectoralis major muscle. Postoperative course was uneventful and there has been no sign of infection. It is thought that our procedure described here should be actively considered for the patient with local recurrence of breast cancer to the chest wall.

Some Pathophysiological Aspects of Modified Human Umbilical Cord Vein Used as an Arterial Conduit

From the Institute for Thermal Spring Research, Okayama University, Misasa, Japan * From the Department of Pathology, Kagawa Medical School, Kagawa, Japan The modified human umbilical cord vein graft for peripheral vascular reconstructions has been used clinically in more than 900 implants all over the world because of its favorable biological, physical and chemical characteristics since it was first reported by Dardik et al. in 1976.’’2,3,4 As the number of cases increases, more attention is being paid to late complications, although minimal, related to the grafts and/or grafting, such as false or true aneurysm and thrombosis. Giodano and Keshishian reported three cases of aneurysm formation in implanted human umbilical vein grafts . 4