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This study involved 14 cases or pleural effusions or ascites rich in amylase and unrelated to chronic pancreatitis, a pseudo-cyst of the pancreas or acute pancreatitis. A pleural effusion rich in amylase may be secondary to a pancreatic neoplasm but this possibility seems rare. Amylase-containing effusions related to a nonpancreatic neoplasm are more common. The lesion is in general an advanced pleuro-pulmonary carcinoma, frequently an adenocarcinoma. The amylase activity of neoplastic effusion fluid is significantly increased but although levels similar to those of certain pancreatic effusions may be seen, very high figures would appear to be rare. Finally, two cases of amylase-rich pleural effusions were related to a pleuro-digestive fistula and one left-sided effusion was secondary to abdominal trauma.

A cyclic and sequential combination of adriamycin, vincristine (or VM 26) and cyclophosphamide was used, with a follow up of 4 to 33 months in 38 patients with a "micro-cellular" carcinoma of the lung. Radiotherapy was used in association in a variable manner. Chemotherapy alone resulted in marked regression of the lesions (regression is greater than 50%) in approximately 65 per cent of cases and a level of complete regression which varied from 31 to 45 per cent according to the degree of diffusion of the lesions at the time of admission. In this study, survival in apparently localised forms was 70 per cent after one year and 55 per cent at eighteen months, whilst it was 34 per cent at one year and nil at eighteen months in patients with evidence of metastatic disease at the time of entry. These encouraging results indicate a hope for improvement, in certain patients reacting favourably to this protocol, in the still grave prognosis of "small cell" carcinoma of the lung.

Two case-reports are presented to support the hypothesis that bronchiectasis may occasionally be associated with a partial deficiency of T lymphocyte functions. This deficiency would represent another etiology of the heterogenous sino-pulmonary syndrome of which several causes have been identified or postulated: immunoglobulin deficiency, alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency, mucociliary abnormality, phagocytosis or bactericidia abnormalities, etc.