Yoshiyuki Kurosaka

Expression of p53 protein in colorectal cancer and its relationship to short‐term prognosis

Background and Methods. The expression of p53 protein in 100 large bowel cancers was studied immuno‐histochemically by use of a monoclonal antibody (PAb1801).

Intraperitoneal hyperthermic treatment for peritoneal dissemination of colorectal cancers

Continuous hyperthermic peritoneal perfusion (CHPP) combined with administration of anticancer drugs was performed in eight colorectal cancer patients with peritoneal dissemination. An overall response rate of 50 percent was achieved in the eight patients. Two of three complete responders are long, recurrence-free survivors for 15 and 30 months. The two-year survival has been achieved in 18.8 percent of the patients receiving CHPP, and this rate is significantly higher than the rates in P2 and P3 patients who did not receive CHPP. The complications of CHPP with administration of anticancer drugs were mild bone marrow suppression in two (25 percent) of the eight patients and also a mild grade of renal dysfunction in one (12.5 percent), though not lethal. The results suggest that the combination of CHPP with the administration of anticancer drugs is a safe and effective therapy for peritoneal dissemination of colorectal cancers.

Magnitude of Combination Therapy of Radical Resection and External Beam Radiotherapy for Patients With Carcinomas of the Extrahepatic Bile Duct and Gallbladder

The present study sought to identify the therapeutic efficacy of adjuvant external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) for carcinomas of the extrahepatic bile duct (EHBD) and gallbladder. Twenty-one patients with pathologically verified EHBD carcinoma and 18 patients with gallbladder carcinoma were analyzed retrospectively by Cox regression analysis for predictors of survival. The overall 5-year survival rates after resection were 33% for EHBD carcinoma and 56% for gallbladder carcinoma. The overall 5-year survival rate for EHBD carcinoma was 60% in 8 patients without microscopic residual disease (R0), 15% in 9 patients with microscopic residual tumor (R1), and 0% in 4 patients with macroscopic residual tumor (R2). The overall 5-year survival rate of gallbladder carcinoma patients was also decreased with R status equal to 73%, 40%, and 0% for R0, R1 and R2, respectively. Adjuvant radiotherapy significantly improved the 5-year survival rate in 7 patients with R1 disease of EHBD carcinoma (P= .035), compared with survival in 2 patients who underwent resection alone. However, no significant difference was noted in the 5-year survival rate between the resection plus EBRT group and the resection alone group for gallbladder carcinoma. Multivariate analysis revealed that histopathologic grade (G) was an independent predictor of survival for EHBD carcinoma and that direct invasion of liver parenchyma was a predictor of survival for gallbladder carcinoma. This study suggests that curative resection provides the best survival for patients with EHBD and gallbladder carcinoma, and that radiotherapy may play a beneficial role in controlling local–regional residual EHBD carcinoma tumors. However, new strategies for adjuvant therapy are needed to improve survival in patients with gallbladder carcinoma.

Clinical significance of tumor marker NCC-ST 439 in large bowel cancers.

We examined serum NCC-ST 439 for its significance as a tumor marker of large bowel cancer in 121 patients with primary and 36 with recurrent large bowel cancer. Serum NCC-ST 439 was positive in 27.3 percent of the former and 66.7 percent of the latter. It was false-positive in only 5.6 percent of patients with benign diseases. Positive serum NCC-ST 439 correlated with lymph node and liver metastases. The combination assay for NCC-ST 439, CEA, and CA19-9 was positive in 49.6 percent of the patients with primary tumors and 88.9 percent of those with recurrent tumors; in other words, the diagnostic accuracy improved. The results demonstrated that the determination of serum NCC-ST 439 in large bowel cancer might be useful in cancer staging and that NCC-ST 439, if used in combination with CEA, is particularly useful in diagnosing recurrences because of its improved diagnostic accuracy.