No abstract available.
Picibanil* ; Pleural Effusion, Malignant*

32.
Injections, Intralesional ; Lymphangioma* ; Picibanil* ; Sclerotherapy*

PURPOSE: To report the first domestic case of orbital lymphangioma treated with intralesional OK-432 injection. METHODS: Initial treatment with systemic corticosteroid had failed. After aspirating the blood, we injected OK-432 (0.05 mg) into the cystic space of the orbital lymphangioma. RESULTS: Although there were minor complications, such as fever and mild tenderness, the patient had an uneventful recovery. After 6 weeks, her visual axis was restored. CONCLUSIONS: We successfully treated this infant patient with an intralesional OK-432 injection. Based on this success, we suggest that treatment of orbital lymphangioma which is refractory to conservative treatment and difficult to resect, may include an intralesional OK-432 injection.
Axis, Cervical Vertebra ; Fever ; Humans ; Infant ; Lymphangioma* ; Orbit* ; Picibanil*

OBJECTIVES: Lymphatic malformations of the orbit are rare lesions that constitute approximately 1% to 8% of all orbital masses. They are difficult to treat since they do not remain within anatomic boundaries and tend to penetrate into normal orbital structures. The aim was to analyze clinical courses and therapy options in patients with lymphatic malformations of the orbit. METHODS: Thirteen patients with orbital lymphatic malformations confirmed by magnetic resonance imaging between 1998 and 2009 were enrolled in this study. Patients' charts were retrospectively reviewed to analyze clinical courses and treatment options. RESULTS: Four patients suffered from isolated intraorbital lymphatic malformations without conjunctival involvement, in three of them the masses were completely resected, in one patient close controls were performed. Three patients had isolated intraorbital lymphatic malformations with conjunctival involvement. Surgical volume reduction of the exterior parts of the lymphatic malformation were performed without any complications and satisfying outcome in these cases. Six patients suffered from intra- and periorbital lymphatic malformations. In 3 patients a watch-and-wait strategy was initiated. In the other 3 patients a surgical therapy was performed, one patient additionally received sclerotherapy with OK-432; however, these 3 patients suffered from residual lymphatic malformations. CONCLUSION: The presented cases underline the inconsistencies in the malformations behavior and underscore the inability to make specific recommendations regarding treatment. The treatment decision should be based on the size and location of the lymphatic malformation. The untreated patient must be watched for signs of visual detoriation, which may signal the need for therapeutic intervention.
Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Orbit ; Picibanil ; Retrospective Studies ; Sclerotherapy

PURPOSE: To evaluate the efficacy of sclerotherapy with OK-432 for lymphangiomas. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Retrospective review of twelve patients with lymphangiomas who were treated with OK-432 from 1996 to 2000. RESULTS: Twelve patients were treated by sclerotherapy with OK-432. Ten patients were received sclerotherapy with OK-432 as primary therapy, and two were treated as secondary therapy after failure of surgery. Six cases were cystic hygroma (macrocystic); all of them, complete shrinkage was obtained. The other six cases were cavernous lymphangioma (microcystic): two of them, therapy were successful, but four were failed to achieve satisfactory shrinkage. So, they underwent surgical excision after failure of sclerotherapy. The results were excellent in cystic hygroma (success rate; 100%), however moderately poor results were obtained in cavernous lymphangioma (success rate 33.3%). CONCLUSION: Intralesional injection of OK-432 is effective therapy for cystic hygroma as a primary therapy.
Humans ; Injections, Intralesional ; Lymphangioma* ; Lymphangioma, Cystic ; Picibanil* ; Retrospective Studies ; Sclerotherapy

To investigate the effect of tumor removal and administration of OK432 on the splenic natural killer (NK) cell activity in the subcutaneous tumor bearing rats, NK cell activity assay using a 4-hour 51Cr release assay and flow cytometric analysis for NK cell population were performed. The results were as follows: 1. Splenic NK cell activity and population in the subcutaneous tumor bearing rats decreased along with the growth of the tumor. 2. The rats with subcutaneous tumor removal showed decrease of splenic NK cell activity, but splenic NK cell population was not decreased. 3. In the rats with subcutaneous tumor removal and OK432 administration, splenic NK cell activity was significantly increased 1 week after administration of OK432 and then gradually returned to normal, whereas increase of NK cell population was not significant. In the present study, splenic NK cell activity was significantly decreased despite removal of subcutaneous tumor. But with the administration of OK432, splenic NK cell activity returned to normal. Considering the role of NK cells on the first line of defense against the metastatic implantation of circulating tumor emboli, we suggest that perioperative administration of immunopotentiator such as OK432 may improve the patient's outcome after surgery of human neoplasm.
Animals ; Humans ; Killer Cells, Natural* ; Picibanil* ; Rats* ; Spleen

Lymphangioma is a congenital malformation of the lymphatic system that easily expands into surrounding tissue similar to malignancies. Surgical excision has been the treatment of choice, but the results of surgical resection have been unsatisfactory due to incomplete resection, fluid collection and recurrence after surgery. Intralesional injection of OK-432(lyophilized incubation mixture of group A. streptococcus pyogenes of human origin) was employed in treating 24 patients with lymphangiomas between 1992 and 1997. The therapy was used as a primary therapy in 21 patients. Also it used in 3 patients with unresectable or recurrent lymphangioma. The results of intralesional injection of OK-432 were excellent in 8 patients (33.3%), good in 7 patients (21.8%) and poor in 7 patients (21.8%). The side effects were fever under 39.0degrees C and a local inflammation, however, were subsided in a few days without serious complications. These data suggest that intralesional injection of OK-432 is safe and effective for lymphangioma as a primary therapy and unresectable or recurrent lymphangioma as a secondary therapy.
Child* ; Fever ; Humans ; Inflammation ; Injections, Intralesional ; Lymphangioma* ; Lymphatic System ; Picibanil* ; Recurrence ; Streptococcus pyogenes

BACKGROUND: To evaluate the effectiveness of early postoperative adjuvant immunochemotherapy in a stage III (UICC, 1997) primary gastric carcinomas we analyzed cases histories of 140 patients retro spectively who had undergone curative gastrectomy at Wonkwang University Hospital from November 1988 to November 1995. METHODS: For immunotherapy, OK-432 intramuscularly or oral PSK was used for 2 months, and for chemotherapy, FAM (8 week cycle) or oral 5-FU derivatives and MMC were used for 6 months or longer. Immunotherapy was started at the 5th postoperative day and chemotherapy at the 7th to 10th postoperative day. Sixty-eight (68) patients received immunochemotherapy (therapy group; TG) and 72 patients did not (nontherapy group; NTG). Statistical analysis were carried out with Anova, Kaplan-Meier, and Log rank test. RESULTS: One hundred eight (108) patients were male, and 84 patients were younger than 60 years. Eighty-one (81) cases involves the lower stomach and 52 the middle stomach. Lymphatic invasion was seen in 60 cases. Twenty-five (25) cases were T2, 112 T3, 42 N1, 90 N2, 75 stage IIIa, and 65 stage IIIb. The overall 5-year survival rate was 48.6% (stage IIIa 58.7%, stage IIIb 36.9%, p<0.05). The 5-year survival rates for the TG and the NTG were 52.9% and 44.4%, respectively (p=0.10). The 5-year survival rates were 85.7% (n=18) and 85.7% (n=7) in T2, 54.0% (n=50) and 40.3% (n=62) in T3 (p<0.05), 69.6% (n=23) and 50.0% (n=24) in N1, 44.4% (n=45) and 42.2% (n=45) in N2 (p=0.14), 61.0% (n=41) and 55.9% (n=34) in stage IIIa, 40.7% (n=27) and 34.2% (n=38) in stage IIIb (p=0.16), 59.5% (n=37) and 48.8% (n=43) in the non-lymphatic invasion group, and 45.2% (n=31) and 37.9% (n=29) in the lymphatic invasion group (p=0.09). There was no significant difference in the 5-year survival rates of the other parameters, such as age, sex, tumor location, size, gross finding, tumor differentiation, between the TG and the NTG. CONCLUSION: The survival rate in the early postoperative immunochemotherapy group was not signi ficantly increased compared to that in the nontherapy group for stage III gastric cancer, but the immuno chemotherapy group showed a tendency for a higher 5-year survival than the nontherapy group did.
Drug Therapy ; Fluorouracil ; Gastrectomy ; Humans ; Immunotherapy ; Male ; Picibanil ; Stomach ; Stomach Neoplasms* ; Survival Rate

The patients with prolonged air leak after lung resection surgery were generally treated by pleurodesis with sclerosing agents such as talc, tetracyclin, doxycyclin, bleomycin, vibramycin, and OK432. However, for the case like dead space resulted by incomplete reexpansion of the remaining lung, chemical pleurodesis has shown to be not as effective as expected. If the patients keep the chest tube for long period of time, the risk of thoracic empyema would increase. Most thoracic surgeons have experienced prolonged airleak which developed after lung resection. Pleurodesis with autoblood was reported as an effective method in treatment of patients with prolonged airleak. The mechanism of blood pleurodesis may be direct obliteration of BPF and reduction of dead space by clot. Therefore we successfully treated the two patients with prolonged airleak using the autoblood plus OK432 or vibramycin.
Bleomycin ; Chest Tubes ; Doxycycline ; Empyema, Pleural ; Humans ; Lung ; Picibanil ; Pleurodesis* ; Pneumothorax ; Sclerosing Solutions* ; Talc

BACKGROUND: We previously reported that ginsan, a polysaccharide extracted from Panax ginseng had an immunostimulatory activity such as mitogenic activity, activation of macrophages and killer cells, and production of a variety of cytokines which resulted in antitumor and antiseptic effects. We further purified alpha-(1-->6)-glucan and beta-(2-->6)-fructan from the ginsan with size exclusion and ion-exchange column chromatography successively. In this study, we performed the structure-based activity of ginsan by comparison with known polysacchrides such as beta-glucan, curdlan, laminarin, levan, dextran, lentinan and OK-432. METHODS: To investigate the immunostimulatory activity of several polysaccharide compounds, we investigated the stimulation of lymphocytes proliferation, the generation of activated killer cells and the secretion of nitrites from activated macrophages. RESULTS: Of polysaccharides tested, curdlan and ginsan stimulated lymphocyte proliferation, suggesting that the molecular weight and composition of polysaccharide are dependent on the mitogenic activity. The production of nitric oxide was significantly increased in curdlan, levan, ginsan and its fraction, indicating that fructan has also capacity to activate macrophages and may devote to kill pathogens. In addition, the activation of macrophages was seemed to be independent of molecular weight of polysaccharide. The generation of AK cells was exhibited in order of curdlan, OK-432> F1, ginsan, F3>levan>etc. The AK activity may be dependent on molecular weight and composition of polysaccharides. CONCLUSION: Unfortunately, purified polysaccharide from ginsan were less active on immunostimulatory activity than mixed compounds of polysaccharides. From the viewpoint of structure and activity relationships, we found several characteristic features.
Chromatography ; Cytokines ; Dextrans ; Lentinan ; Lymphocytes ; Macrophages ; Molecular Structure* ; Molecular Weight ; Nitric Oxide ; Nitrites ; Panax ; Picibanil ; Polysaccharides*