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This book includes some selected presentations given at the 3rd International Congress on Neo-Adjuvant Chemotherapy which was held in Paris from February 6th to February 9th, 1991. It was attended by over 2000 physicians from around the world and by 700 nurses. Its organisation was saddened by the untimely death of Professor Claude Jacquillat on October 12th, 1990. It was further complicated in January and February 1991 by the gulf events which led some guests to cancel their participation. However with the outstanding help of the two presidents cho­ sen by Claude Jacquillat before his death, Pierre Banzet from Paris and James F. Holland from New York, the organizers could set up an exciting meeting confirming the impact of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy on relatively new indi­ cations such as non-small lung cancers, bladder cancer, esophagal cancer, cer­ vix cancer, etc... It is noteworthy that a contradictory debate on primary chemotherapy in non-small lung cancer turned into a consensus conference. In breast cancer, the downstaging induced by primary chemotherapy is ack­ nowledged by all and the conviction that Jacquillat defended so heartily that breast preservation should be proposed to all patients with breast cancer what­ ever their tumour size is shared now by more and more people. A special emphasis was given to new drugs, new combination, new access (locoregional therapy) and new developments such as that of growth factors and of interleukin 2.

Die Speicheldrüsen sind in mannifacher Weise in den Organismus eingebunden, so daß aus der Analyse des Speichels Rückschlüsse auf krankhafte Funktionen anderer Organsysteme gezogen werden können. Wechselwirkungen zwischen Speicheldrüsen und Organismus spielen in der Ätiologie und Pathogenese der verschiedenen Formen der Sialadenitis eine bedeutsame Rolle. Hierzu gehören Immunkrankheiten, metabolische Erkrankungen, hormonale Dysfunktionen, neurologische und auch genetische Erkrankungen. Auf dem Gebiet der Speicheldrüsentumoren sind durch den Einsatz neuer Methoden (Immunhistochemie, Molekularpathologie, Prolifikationsmarker, Chromosomenanalyse) viele neue Erkenntnisse gesammelt worden.

Die Speicheldrüsen sind in mannigfacher Weise in den Organismus eingebunden, so daß aus der Analyse des Speichels Rückschlüsse auf krankhafte Funktionen anderen Organsysteme gezogen werden können. Wechselwirkungen zwischen Speicheldrüsen und Organismus spielen in der Ätiologie und Pathogenese der verschiedenen Formen der Sialadenitis eine bedeutsame Rolle. Hierzu gehören Immunkrankheiten, metabolische Erkrankungen, hormonale Dysfunktionen, neurologische und auch genetische Erkrankungen. Auf dem Gebiet der Speicheldrüsentumoren sind durch den Einsatz neuer Methoden (Immunhistochemie, Molekularpathologie, Prolifikationsmarker, Chromosomenanalyse) viele neue Erkenntnisse gesammelt worden.

The Fifth World Congress of the International Society for Diseases of the Esophagus was held in the historic city of Kyoto, Japan, from August 5 through 8, 1992. Approximately 40 countries throughout the world participated and roughly 500 presentations were made. Excellent authors were selected and they were requested to send in their manuscripts for publication of this book. It is our ardent hope that this book will prove to be beneficial to the doctor interested in the esophagus and that it will provide the reader with first-hand information from leading scientists and clinicians in this field. The incidence of esophageal diseases vary greatly from country to country and in recent years, worldwide interest in these diseases has resulted in various international studies. The International Society for Diseases of the Esophagus was inaugurated by Professor Komei Nakayama in 1979 and since that time it has actively contributed to the exchange of information regarding these diseases and has made endeavors in bringing about advancement in the struggle against diseases of the esophagus in every way possible.

Information analysis centers were developed to help the scientist and practitioner cope with the ever­ increasing mass of published and unpublished information in a specific field. Their establishment resulted from a further extension of those pressures that had brought about the formation of the specialized primary journal and the abstracting services at the turn of the century. The information analysis center concept was greatly advanced by the 1963 report of the President's Science Advisory Committee Panel on Science Information. This report stated:'... scientific interpreters who can collect relevant data, review a field, and distill information in a manner that goes to the heart of a technical situation are more help to the overburdened specialist than is a mere pile of relevant docu­ ments.'Such specialized information centers are operated in closest possible contact with working scientists in the field. These centers not only furnish information about ongoing research and dis­ seminate and retrieve information but also create new information and develop new methods of infor­ mation analysis, synthesis, and dissemination. The continually expanding biomedical literature produced by scientists from the world's laboratories, research centers, and medical centers led the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke in 1964 to initiate a National Neurological Information Network of specialized centers for neurological information. The Centers are designed to bring under control and to promote ready access to important segments of the literature.