We report the case of an 84-year-old woman with advanced biliary tract cancer and accompanying colonic invasion and hepatic metastasis, who was successfully treated with single-agent gemcitabine chemotherapy in combination with juzentaihoto (a traditional Japanese herbal medicine). Response to this combination chemo therapy was extremely good, and the patient's tumors disappeared. There have been no reports like our case until today. These findings suggest that combined treatment with juzentaihoto and gemcitabine is effective not only for reducing tumor size, decreasing the side effects of chemotherapy, and maintaining general condition but also for mediating immune antitumor activity.

Surgery and cryoablation have been the preferred method for treating drug resistant ventricular tachycardia (VT). Cryoablation, the therapeutic usefulness of which has been documented in many reported studies, is nevertheless not free from technical difficulaties. The advent of Bard^® System 6000 Argon beam coagulator (ABC) as a new procedure alternative to cryoablation offered us a hope for solving problems with conventionally used techniques. Preliminary experiments with this device on dog myocardium permitted us to determine therapeutically adequate irradiation time and depth of cauterization and to locate an optimum area of myocardium to be coagulated. Based on these experiences, an attempt was made to use ABC as an adjunct to surgery in the surgical treatment of 4 patients with monofocal non-ischemic VT. In 1 of these 4 patients, VT disappeared postoperatively, making use of antiarrythmia drugs quite unnecessary, while in the remaining 3, a marked diminution of ventricular arrhythmia with a consequent reduction of drug dosage was achieved, use of the device thus being judged to be beneficial. These results led to the conclusion that ABC will provide a valuable adjunct to operation in selected cases of VT and, if the probe and other appliances are further refined, can reasonably be anticipated to be used as frequently as cryoablation.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the osteogenesis ability of osteogenic matrix cell sheets (OMCS) derived from old donor cells. Bone marrow stromal cells (BMSC) were obtained from young (7-week-old) and old (1-year-old) Fischer344 rats donors and cultured with modified Eagle's medium (MEM group) alone or containing dexamethasone (Dex; 10 nM) and ascorbic acid phosphate (AscP; 0.28 mM) (Dex/AscP group). We prepared four in vitro experimental groups: (1) young MEM, (2) young Dex/AscP, (3) old MEM and (4) old Dex/AscP. Cell proliferation and osteogenic marker mRNA expression levels were evaluated in vitro. To assess bone formation in vivo, the cells of each group were combined with beta tricalcium phosphate (TCP) disks followed by implantation in recipient rats. The in vitro study showed significant differences in the mRNA expression of osteocalcin, ALP, and BMP2 between MEM and Dex/AscP groups. Bone formation following implantation was observed upon histological analyses of all groups. TCP combined with OMCS (OMCS/TCP group) resulted in enhanced bone formation compared to that following combination with BMSC (BMSC/TCP). The osteocalcin content of the OMCS/TCP group 4 weeks after implantation was significantly higher than that in the BMSC/TCP construct for both young and old donors. The present study clearly indicated that OMCS could be generated from BMSCs of old as well as young donors using a mechanical retrieval method. Thus, through its usage of OMCS, this method may represent a potentially effective therapeutic option for cell-based therapy in elderly patients.
Aged ; Animals ; Ascorbic Acid ; Bone and Bones ; Bone Marrow ; Cell Proliferation ; Dexamethasone ; Humans ; In Vitro Techniques ; Mesenchymal Stromal Cells ; Methods ; Osteocalcin ; Osteogenesis ; Rats ; RNA, Messenger ; Tissue Donors