This retrospective study assessed the role of hospital pharmacists in the initiation of growth hormone (GH) therapy in an outpatient setting. The study included 28 pediatric patients (< 15 years old) who started GH therapy at our institution between January 2012 and December 2021. Following physician referrals, hospital pharmacists provided medication counseling to the patients and their families. Notably, 6 patients (20%) opted for a specific GH formulation after receiving detailed explanations from the pharmacists. The observed growth velocity (cm/year) and serum IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor-1) SD scores were comparable to those reported in clinical trials for Norditropin®. Three patients (11%) opted to discontinue treatment. A survey among 5 pediatricians revealed a unanimous agreement that the involvement of hospital pharmacists in outpatient services alleviated their workload during the initiation of GH therapy. Thus, the task of providing medication counseling at the initiation of GH therapy in pediatric patients could potentially be shifted from physicians to pharmacists.

Simultaneous creation of an enterostomy for enteral nutrition during esophagectomy has been useful in our experience, but bowel obstruction associated with intestinal fistula remains a problem. Therefore, in this study, we retrospectively reviewed 18 patients with esophageal cancer who underwent transdiaphragmatic transgastric tube enteral feeding catheter placement during gastric tube reconstruction via the mediastinal route after esophagectomy from November 2012 to March 2014. The catheter was guided from the gastric tube into the gastrointestinal tract, with the tip placed in the jejunum distal to the ligament of Treitz. From the gastric tube, the catheter was guided along the diaphragm to the anterior abdominal wall through the extraperitoneal route. No bowel obstruction associated with catheter placement has been observed in any of the patients from the time of surgery to this writing. Also, the procedure enabled jejunostomy use for more than 5 years, similar to conventional jejunostomy. We experienced 1 case of catheter deviation into the mediastinum. Overall, transgastric tube enteral feeding catheter placement for reconstruction of the posterior mediastinal gastric tube was useful for avoiding intestinal obstruction associated with jejunostomy. However, there may be a risk of catheter displacement into the mediastinum.

A 17-year-old male was admitted to our hospital because of strong abdominal pain. His symptoms gradually worsened even after hospitalization, and contrast computed tomography (CT) revealed hemorrhage in the abdominal cavity. Interventional radiology (IVR) was performed to identify the bleeding site. No obvious source of bleeding was identifiable on IVR, so we opted to perform laparoscopic examination and hemostasis. The intraperitoneal finding was hematoma in the omentum, and omentectomy was performed for idiopathic omental hemorrhage because there was no history of trauma. The postoperative course was good and the patient was discharged after postoperative day 4. Performing laparoscopic surgery for omental hemorrhage facilitated minimally invasive treatment with a short hospital stay.

In our hospital, we typically perform laparoscopic partial gastrectomy as surgical treatment for extragastric growth type of submucosal tumor (SMT), and laparoscopic intragastric surgery for intragastric growth type. In 2008, laparoscopic and endoscopic cooperative surgery (LECS) was reported for the first time by Hiki et al. Against the background of LECS as laparoscopic local gastric resection with endoscopic resection, we started LECS for gastric SMT from 2015. 　　We performed laparoscopic (LAP) surgery for 15 gastric SMT cases from 2009, and compared 5 cases for which LECS was performed and 10 cases for which LAP was performed. Tumor diameter was 15–21 mm (mean 19.2 mm) in the LECS group, and 20–53 mm (mean 35.5 mm) in the LAP group; the LECS group had a significantly smaller tumor diameter. Operative time was 299 ± 45 min in LECS and 222 ± 25 min in LAP. The volume of blood loss was 24 ± 13 mL in LECS and 33 ± 13 mL in LAP. Hospitalization days was 14.0 ± 3.0 days in LECS and 12.9 ±0.8 days in LAP. There was no significant difference between them.