Postoperative Coagulation Changes in Patients with esophageal carcinoma

Postoperative coagulation changes were studied in 50 patients with esophageal carcinomas for 7 days following operation. Of these, 12 patients were examined further for changes in platelet aggregation rate as an index of platelet function. Just after operation, both platelet count and aggregation rate decreased, but at day 2 when the platelet count reached its lowest point, platelet aggregation returned to the preoperative level. Altough platelet aggregation decreased again, it recovered to the preoperative level earlier than did the platelet count. Changes in prothrombin time, activated partial thromboplastin time and fibrinogen and FDP-E levels may suggest pre-DIC state

Effects of Enflurane and Epidural Anesthesia on Thyroid Hormone Changes with or without Liver Dysfunction

The levels of thyroid hormones are well known to respond to anesthetics and surgical stresses. The conversion of T4 to T3 is also affected by liver function. The effects of enflurane and epidural anesthesia on the intraoperative plasma thyroid hormone levels were studied in 19 operative patients with or without liver dysfunction. This study demonstrates that the T3 plasma levels decrease during surgery undergoing both epidural and enflurane anesthesia, but T4 plasma levels increase during surgery. And the liver acts as hepatic thyroxine store and modifier of thyroid hormone metabolism

Antiviral Effects of Geranylgeranylacetone: Enhancement of MxA Expression and Phosphorylation of PKR during Influenza Virus Infection

A cyclic polyisoprenoid compound, geranylgeranylacetone (GGA), has been used as antiulcer drug. GGA is also a potent inducer of heat shock proteins (HSPs). HSPs are considered to induce an antiviral effect; however, the detailed mechanism is unknown. To determine whether GGA might show antiviral activity and what the mechanism is, the effect of GGA against influenza virus (strain PR8) infection in vivo and in vitro was investigated. The results demonstrated that GGA treatment strongly suppressed the deleterious consequences of PR8 replication and was accompanied by an increase in HSP70 gene expression in mice. Results from in vitro analyses demonstrated that GGA significantly inhibited the synthesis of PR8-associated proteins and prominently enhanced expression of human myxovirus resistance 1 (MxA) followed by increased HSP70 transcription. Moreover, GGA augmented the expression of an interferon-inducible double-strand RNA-activated protein kinase (PKR) gene and promoted PKR autophosphorylation and concomitantly α subunit of eukaryotic initiation factor 2 phosphorylation during PR8 infection. It is proposed that GGA-induced HSP70 has potent antiviral activity by enhancement of antiviral factors and can clinically achieve protection from influenza virus infection