Surgical Management of Spontaneous Haemopneumothorax

We report 2 cases of spontaneous haemopneumothorax treated surgically. Case 1, a 19-year-old man was referred to our hospital because of trapped lung after continuous tube drainage for 3 weeks. The chest roentgenogram showed a left haemopneumothorax with collapsed lung. At thoracotomy, 200g of clot blood was evacuated and decortication was performed. Case 2, a 20-year-old man was admitted complaining of chest pain and dyspnea. X-ray examination showed a moderate lung collapse and homogenous density. Chest tube drainage yealded 480ml of blood. However, bleeding was continuous and expansion of the right lung was poor, emergency thoracotomy was carried out and 950g of clot blood was obtained. Recovery was uneventful and complete expansion of the right lung was observed. From our experience, early thoracotomy for spontaneous haemopneumothorax is recommended

The Efficacy of Postoperative Chemotherapy with Cisplatinum and Pepleomycine for Esophageal Cancer

From May 1984 to August 1991, 58 patients without preoperative adjuvant therapy underwent resection of the esophagus for esophageal cancer. Three weeks after esophagectomy, one cycle of postoperative chemotherapy, consisting of intravenously infused cisplatinum at a dose of 70mg/m2 on day 1 and intramuscular pepleomycine at a dose of 5mg/body from day 1 to day 5, was administered in the 24 patients. In all patients receiving chemotherapy, mild fatigue or poor appetite occurred after drug administration, but severe drug toxicity, such as bone marrow depression, gastrointestinal bleeding or pulmonary fibrosis, did not occur. Eighteen patients (75%) died from cancer. The 3-year survival rate was 22.9% and the 5-year surival rate was 17.1%. In the patients who underwent curative operations, the 3-year and 5-year survival rates were 46.2% and 27.7%. However, there was no significant difference in the survival rates between the patients with postoperative chemotherapy and patients with esophagectomy alone. We conclude that one cycle of postoperative chemotherapy with cisplatinum and pepleomycin does not affect the survival of patients undergoing esophagectomy for esophageal cancer

The degree of microRNA-34b/c methylation in serum-circulating DNA is associated with malignant pleural mesothelioma

Objectives: Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is an aggressive tumor with a poor prognosis. microRNA-34b/c (miR-34b/c), which plays an important role in the pathogenesis of MPM, is frequently downregulated by DNA methylation in approximately 90% of MPM cases. In this study, we estimated the degree of miR-34b/c methylation in serum-circulating DNA using a digital methylation specific PCR assay (MSP). Materials and methods: A real-time MSP assay was performed using the SYBR Green method. The melting temperature (Tm) of each PCR product was examined using a melting curve analysis. For a digital MSP assay, 40 wells were analyzed per sample. A total of 110 serum samples from 48 MPM cases, 21 benign asbestos pleurisy (BAP) cases, and 41 healthy volunteers (HVs) were examined. Results: Positive range of Tm value for miR-34b/c methylation was defined as 77.71-78.79 degrees C which was the mean 3 standard deviations of 40 wells of a positive control. The number of miR-34b/c methylated wells was counted per sample according to this criterion. The number of miR-34b/c methylated wells in MPM cases was significantly higher than that in BAP cases (P = 0.03) or HVs (P < 0.001). Advanced MPM cases tended to have higher number of miR-34b/c methylated wells than early MPM cases. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis revealed that three number of miR-34b/c methylated wells per sample was the best cut-off of positivity of MPM with a 67% of sensitivity and a 77% specificity for prediction. The area under the ROC curve was 0.77. Conclusions: Our digital MSP assay can quantify miR-34b/c methylation in serum-circulating DNA. The degree of miR-34b/c methylation in serum-circulating DNA is associated with MPM, suggesting that this approach might be useful for the establishment of a new detection system for MPM

Exploring the Potential of Internet News for Supply Risk Assessment of Metals

The growth in demand for material resources is inevitable to maintain sustainable development. Especially for metallic minerals, this growth in demand increases the supply risk; therefore, its evaluation is essential to keep the resource supply stable. Supply risk assessment has a long history in both academic and practical studies, but there is no existing study using internet news as its main information source. In this study, we obtained related news articles from S&P Global Market Intelligence (SPG) and used them for the supply risk analysis. Using already topic-labeled articles and a gradient boosting framework, non-labeled articles are also labeled and categorized by topic. The articles were assigned to metallic minerals by SPG. We also scored each article using simple sentiment analysis. In short, we found significant potential in internet news articles as information for complementary assessments to existing methods, by providing in-depth information on regulatory or corporate financial activities, which are difficult to cover using the existing numerical indices. While it is useful, it should be noted that the volume of news articles depends on the interests of their readers, and many articles capture changes rather than states. As long as they are used with these caveats in mind, news articles can be very useful as a complementary source of information to existing analytical methods, especially for short-term supply risk assessment

Exploring the Potential of Internet News for Supply Risk Assessment of Metals

The growth in demand for material resources is inevitable to maintain sustainable development. Especially for metallic minerals, this growth in demand increases the supply risk; therefore, its evaluation is essential to keep the resource supply stable. Supply risk assessment has a long history in both academic and practical studies, but there is no existing study using internet news as its main information source. In this study, we obtained related news articles from S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence (SPG) and used them for the supply risk analysis. Using already topic-labeled articles and a gradient boosting framework, non-labeled articles are also labeled and categorized by topic. The articles were assigned to metallic minerals by SPG. We also scored each article using simple sentiment analysis. In short, we found significant potential in internet news articles as information for complementary assessments to existing methods, by providing in-depth information on regulatory or corporate financial activities, which are difficult to cover using the existing numerical indices. While it is useful, it should be noted that the volume of news articles depends on the interests of their readers, and many articles capture changes rather than states. As long as they are used with these caveats in mind, news articles can be very useful as a complementary source of information to existing analytical methods, especially for short-term supply risk assessment

The Efficacy of Postoperative Chemotherapy with Cisplatinum and Pepleomycine for Esophageal Cancer

From May 1984 to August 1991, 58 patients without preoperative adjuvant therapy underwent resection of the esophagus for esophageal cancer. Three weeks after esophagectomy, one cycle of postoperative chemotherapy, consisting of intravenously infused cisplatinum at a dose of 70mg/m2 on day 1 and intramuscular pepleomycine at a dose of 5mg/body from day 1 to day 5, was administered in the 24 patients. In all patients receiving chemotherapy, mild fatigue or poor appetite occurred after drug administration, but severe drug toxicity, such as bone marrow depression, gastrointestinal bleeding or pulmonary fibrosis, did not occur. Eighteen patients (75%) died from cancer. The 3-year survival rate was 22.9% and the 5-year surival rate was 17.1%. In the patients who underwent curative operations, the 3-year and 5-year survival rates were 46.2% and 27.7%. However, there was no significant difference in the survival rates between the patients with postoperative chemotherapy and patients with esophagectomy alone. We conclude that one cycle of postoperative chemotherapy with cisplatinum and pepleomycin does not affect the survival of patients undergoing esophagectomy for esophageal cancer