Resected Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma with Anaphylactic Shock from a Preoperative Liver Function Test before Hepatectomy

The indocyanine green test is a reliable liver function examination before major hepatectomy, and anaphylaxis is rarely a concern. A 65-year-old male patient without epigastralgia was diagnosed with a 2.2-cm intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. He had no history of allergic reactions. Some liver dysfunction was indicated by the laboratory data; however, there was no marked obstructive jaundice and the liver functional reserve was maintained by technetium-99m galactosyl serum albumin. The indocyanine green test was routinely performed, but the patient immediately demonstrated severe anaphylaxis due to indocyanine green administration. He had cardiorespiratory arrest, but recovered after immediate resuscitation. Although acute renal and respiratory failure was significant, the patient recovered at day 10 after the event, and his liver function and other organ functions were improved. Then, the scheduled left hepatectomy with caudate and extrahepatic duct resection was successfully performed without issues. The patient exhibited no allergic response against the administration of antibiotics or other drugs and the postoperative course was uneventful. The patient was discharged on day 17. The tumor was diagnosed as stage III intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and R0 resection was accomplished. Preoperative management, including the liver functional loading test, should be carefully carried out before major hepatectomy

Coincidence analysis to search for inspiraling compact binaries using TAMA300 and LISM data

Japanese laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors, TAMA300 and LISM, performed a coincident observation during 2001. We perform a coincidence analysis to search for inspiraling compact binaries. The length of data used for the coincidence analysis is 275 hours when both TAMA300 and LISM detectors are operated simultaneously. TAMA300 and LISM data are analyzed by matched filtering, and candidates for gravitational wave events are obtained. If there is a true gravitational wave signal, it should appear in both data of detectors with consistent waveforms characterized by masses of stars, amplitude of the signal, the coalescence time and so on. We introduce a set of coincidence conditions of the parameters, and search for coincident events. This procedure reduces the number of fake events considerably, by a factor $\sim 10^{-4}$ compared with the number of fake events in single detector analysis. We find that the number of events after imposing the coincidence conditions is consistent with the number of accidental coincidences produced purely by noise. We thus find no evidence of gravitational wave signals. We obtain an upper limit of 0.046 /hours (CL $= 90$) to the Galactic event rate within 1kpc from the Earth. The method used in this paper can be applied straightforwardly to the case of coincidence observations with more than two detectors with arbitrary arm directions.Comment: 28 pages, 17 figures, Replaced with the version to be published in Physical Review

Results of the search for inspiraling compact star binaries from TAMA300's observation in 2000-2004

We analyze the data of TAMA300 detector to search for gravitational waves from inspiraling compact star binaries with masses of the component stars in the range 1-3Msolar. In this analysis, 2705 hours of data, taken during the years 2000-2004, are used for the event search. We combine the results of different observation runs, and obtained a single upper limit on the rate of the coalescence of compact binaries in our Galaxy of 20 per year at a 90% confidence level. In this upper limit, the effect of various systematic errors such like the uncertainty of the background estimation and the calibration of the detector's sensitivity are included.Comment: 8 pages, 4 Postscript figures, uses revtex4.sty The author list was correcte

Observation results by the TAMA300 detector on gravitational wave bursts from stellar-core collapses

We present data-analysis schemes and results of observations with the TAMA300 gravitational-wave detector, targeting burst signals from stellar-core collapse events. In analyses for burst gravitational waves, the detection and fake-reduction schemes are different from well-investigated ones for a chirp-wave analysis, because precise waveform templates are not available. We used an excess-power filter for the extraction of gravitational-wave candidates, and developed two methods for the reduction of fake events caused by non-stationary noises of the detector. These analysis schemes were applied to real data from the TAMA300 interferometric gravitational wave detector. As a result, fake events were reduced by a factor of about 1000 in the best cases. The resultant event candidates were interpreted from an astronomical viewpoint. We set an upper limit of 2.2x10^3 events/sec on the burst gravitational-wave event rate in our Galaxy with a confidence level of 90%. This work sets a milestone and prospects on the search for burst gravitational waves, by establishing an analysis scheme for the observation data from an interferometric gravitational wave detector

Efficacy of XELOX plus Bevacizumab in Brain Metastasis from Rectal Cancer

Brain metastasis (BM) is rare in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. Although BM from CRC is a late-stage phenomenon with an extremely poor prognosis, some subsets of patients would benefit from a multidisciplinary management strategy. The prognosis of patients with BM from CRC was associated with the curability of the therapy for BM and the number of metastatic organs. Metastatic brain tumors are generally treated with radiotherapy because many anticancer drugs cannot cross the blood-brain barrier. Here, we present a case treated with XELOX (capecitabine and oxaliplatin) plus bevacizumab for BM from rectal cancer. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a patient who was successfully treated for BM from CRC without radiotherapy. The findings could lead to a paradigm shift in the use of chemotherapy for BM from CRC

A Patient with a Large Gastric Tumor and Protein-Losing Gastroenteropathy Successfully Treated with Neoadjuvant TS-1 Combined with CDDP Therapy

Gastric cancer with protein-losing gastroenteropathy is relatively rare worldwide. The most important problem for the treatment of these patients is their low nutritional status and protein level, which can cause severe postoperative complications. We report a 49-year-old Japanese female with a large gastric tumor and protein-losing gastroenteropathy successfully treated with neoadjuvant TS-1 combined with CDDP therapy. She had a type 5 tumor with partially cauliflower-like appearance. Her blood chemistry revealed low serum total protein (3.3 g/dl) and low albumin (1.7 g/dl). She was additionally diagnosed with protein-losing gastroenteropathy based on 99mTc-human serum albumin scintigraphy. Initial neoadjuvant chemotherapy decreased the size of the tumor and led to a marked improvement in her serum protein levels. She then underwent a total gastrectomy and lymph node dissection (D2) with a combined resection of the spleen and gallbladder. Therefore, neoadjuvant chemotherapy may provide a safe treatment before definitive surgery for gastric cancer with protein-losing gastroenteropathy