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The article focuses on a study that examines the frequency with which smoking is depicted in high-grossing Japanese movies from 2000 to 2006. It says that the increase in the international export of Japanese films containing scenes that depict smoking possibly spreads the risk of adolescent smoking initiation. The World Health Organization (WHO) appealed to the entertainment industry to refrain from promoting tobacco products by adopting the slogan Tobacco free film, tobacco-free fashion: Action for World No Tobacco Day in 2003.

The case of a patient with hepatocellular carcinoma and thrombocytopenia secondary to liver cirrhosis who underwent successful hand-assisted laparoscopic hepatectomy after partial splenic embolization is described. A 67-year-old man with severe liver cirrhosis was admitted for treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma. His early phase of hepatic angiography showed two hypervascular tumors in segment 6. The patient’s liver function was poor, with the indocyanine green retention at 15 min of 49.5%, a total serum bilirubin concentration of 2.0 mg/dl, an albumin concentration of 2.8 g/dl, and an hyaluronic acid concentration of 649 ng/ml. The platelet count was 3.0 × 104/µl secondary to hypersplenism. Partial splenic embolization decreased the splenic volume by 50% preoperatively. At 2 months later, the platelet count was 6.0 × 104/µl, and hand-assisted laparoscopic partial hepatectomy was performed uneventfully. The patient’s postoperative course was unremarkable, and he was discharged on postoperative day 12. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This study assessed the safety and utility of preoperative splenic artery embolization before laparoscopic splenectomy in children.Methods: Five young girls with a mean age of 13.2 years underwent laparoscopic splenectomies at the authors' institution from August 1998 to April 2003. Three of the patients had idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, and two had hereditary spherocytosis. Preoperative splenic artery embolization was performed the day before the surgery in all cases. The laparoscopic splenectomy was performed using traditional laparoscopic procedures and standard laparoscopic instruments with the patient in the right semilateral position.Results: The mean spleen weight was 252.6 g, and the mean length was 11.6 cm. All the patients reported postembolic pain, but not to a level unmanageable by intravascular narcotics. There were no severe complications in the splenic artery embolization. The laparoscopic splenectomies were completed in a mean of 211 min, with a mean estimated blood loss of 9 ml. None of the operations required conversion to traditional open laparotomy, and none of the patients died or experienced operative complications.Conclusion: The authors concluded that splenic artery embolization is safe and useful as an adjuvant procedure performed before elective laparoscopic splenectomy in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]