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Sixty-one Japanese white rabbits underwent total thymectomies. Eight of the animals died of intraoperative hemorrhage or respiratory failure, and twelve died of postoperative hypovolemia, dehydration, malnutrition or wound infections. Forty-one rabbits survived and were used as a total thymectomy model. The whole procedure of our technique is described in detail so that even those with no experience of performing thymectomies can follow it. Some tactics especially how to deal with the thymic vessels and the pleurae, are key points. Our technique permits safe and perfect total thymectomies to be carried out on rabbits.

Neuroblastic tumor cases in our departments were evaluated in terms of the stage of the tumor, N-myc amplification, urinary vanillylamndelic acid (VMA)/homovanillic acid (HVA) and survival rate. Two asymptomatic cases, diagnosed when under a year old by mass screening, had no amplifications of N-myc but showed more than one value of urinary VMA/HVA ratio. The patients are now doing well eight years after complete excision of the neuroblastoma which had originated in the sympathetic ganglion. On the other hand, two other symptomatic cases, operated on at the ages of 3 and 5 years, showed remarkable amplifications with less than one value of urinary VMA/HVA, and died from the tumor soon after partial resection of the neuroblastoma and ganglioneuroblastoma which had originated in the adrenal gland and the sympathetic ganglion, respectively. The present monograph reports our cases and discusses prognostic factors.

A forty-nine-year-old female patient, complaining of swallowing difficulties and general fatigue, was admitted to the first hospital of Nippon Medical School. At the age of 32, she was operated on for the removal of a well encapsulated non-invasive thymoma. Since then, she had been well till the age of 46, when chest X-ray films showed a recurrent thymoma which was excised together with the complete thymic tissues. One year later, she developed myasthenia gravis (MG) with a ptotic right upper eyelid and general fatigue. Subsequently, she was placed on medication. After 21 months, however, she died of myasthenic crisis in spite of vigorous respiratory and nutritional support. The autopsy revealed a small residual thymoma on the left lung, and systemic atrophy of the skeletal muscles. In this paper, the mechanism of post-thymectomy MG and the recurrence of non-invasive thymoma are discussed.

Using grafts from brain-dead donors for liver transplantation is a very controversial subject in Japan and those candidates for transplantation who have received livers outside of Japan have been harshly criticized. Under these circumstances, a partial liver transplantation is an attractive method in terms of preserving the donor's life, freshness of the graft and easier donor availability. In other words, for adults with non-cancerous incurable liver disease the donor's left lobe can be transplanted after the recipient has had a left lobectomy, and for children with biliary atresia the whole liver and vena cava can be replaced with a parent's left lobe and iliac vein. Our report concerns the procedures of orthotopic partial liver transplantation for canines and humans.