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Aims Maspin is known to be a tumour suppressor protein, and few studies focused upon its prognostic significance in patients with small-size lung adenocarcinoma have been reported; however, its clinical significance remains controversial. We explored the prognostic value of maspin with particular reference to its subcellular localization in patients with resected lung adenocarcinoma measuring

Thoracoscopic left lower lobectomy with lymph node dissection for lung cancer was performed in a 76-year-old man. The diagnosis was pT2aN2M0 adenocarcinoma. Sixteen months after surgery, CT revealed a pleural tumor measuring 38 mm at the surgical port wound. CT-guided biopsy revealed fibroma. However, the tumor size increased 4 months after biopsy, and surgery was performed. An intraoperative diagnosis revealed benign fibroma. Thoracoscopic tumorectomy was conducted. The pathological diagnosis was desmoid tumor. As the margins of the resected specimen were positive, radiotherapy was performed. During the 16-month follow-up period, there has been no relapse. Pleural desmoid tumors must be differentiated from port-site relapse.

Background and objective: The Japanese Respiratory Society recently proposed ‘lung age’ as an easily understood concept of respiratory function. In this study, we evaluated whether ‘lung age’ could be a useful predictor of post-operative respiratory complications and survival patients with lung cancer treated surgically. Methods: The study recruited 308 patients who underwent surgery for primary non-small-cell lung cancer. All patients had preoperative pulmonary function testing. ‘Lung age’ was determined using the methods advocated by the Japanese Respiratory Society. Based on the difference between ‘real age’ (R) and ‘lung age’ (L), patients were classified into five groups: group A: R−L > 15 (n = 37), B: 5 R−L (n = 94). Clinicopathological factors, post-operative respiratory complications and survival were compared between the groups. Results: Gender, smoking status and index, histology, operative approach and FEV1 were significantly associated with the group classification. The incidence of complications was significantly higher in group E compared with other groups (P = 0.003). Multivariate analysis showed that the group classification by ‘lung age’ was an independent predictor of post-operative respiratory complications (P = 0.02). Overall survival differed significantly between the groups (P = 0.03). Conclusions: ‘Lung age’ could be useful for the prediction of post-operative respiratory complications and survival in patients with lung cancer treated surgically.

Inverters which are used for distributed power supply, such as solar cell or fuel cell system, tend to stop easily as a result of voltage sag. In the present electric power system, there is little problem due to this characteristic of inverter. But if the number of those inverters connected to the power system increases, the quality of system voltage and frequency may deteriorate by stop of the inverters. In addition, regarding the fuel cell system, its output power cannot be controlled quickly, and the whole system may stop by a rise of inside temperature. Copyright © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. For these problems, we tried to realize high continuous operation ability of inverters used for distributed power supply under voltage sag condition. This paper shows a control method of inverter for the over-current caused by sudden change or unbalance of the system voltage and examination results with three-phase 200 V–4 kW class inverter system. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 169(1): 28–40, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ eej.20888

In lung cancers, lymph node metastasis of cancer cells is one of the most important prognostic factors, and lymphatic vessel invasion (LVI) is very important in the stage preceding lymph node metastases. Recently, it has been reported that lymphatic vessel density (LVD) is associated with lymph node metastasis. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the relationship between LVD and LVI based on the immunohistochemical expression of podoplanin or D2-40, which are new specific markers for lymphatic endothelium. Using 76 cases of pulmonary adenocarcinoma, the relationship between LVD and LVI, lymph node metastases, vascular endothelial growth factor C (VEGF-C), VEGF-D or hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) expression was investigated. LVD was significantly associated with LVI, lymph node metastases and VEGF-D expression. LVI was also associated with lymph node metastases, histological subtype, VEGF-C or VEGF-D expression. High LVD, induced by VEGF-C or VEGF-D expression of cancer cells, is a good indicator of lymphatic metastases and LVI in pulmonary adenocarcinoma.

Reported herein is a case of benign clear cell tumor of the lung in a 60-year-old man. Chest X-ray and CT examination revealed an abnormal nodule with homogenous density and a clear margin in the lower lobe of the left lung. The resected tumor was 13 mm in size, well-circumscribed and was graysh-white on cut surface. Histological examination showed a diffuse growth pattern of polygonal tumor cells with indented and pleomorphic nuclei, and clear abundant cytoplasm with a distinct cell border surrounded by thin-walled vascular spaces and sinusoid-type vessels. The clear cytoplasm contained numerous glycogen granules as demonstrated by PAS staining. In the present case there was focal immunoreactivity for S-100 protein, HMB-45, neuron-specific enolase, cathepsin B and melan A, which are consistent with reported immunohistochemical staining patterns of benign clear cell tumor. Based on these findings, the tumor was diagnosed as a benign clear cell tumor of the lung. Although most clear cell tumors are considered to belong to the family of neoplasms with perivascular epithelioid cell differentiation (PEComas), histogenesis of benign clear cell tumor of the lung has remained unclear. This first report of CD1a expression in this tumor might provide a new insight into its histogenesis and diagnosis.

We report a rare case of thymic metastasis of breast cancer. A 68-year-old woman, who had undergone surgery for cancer in her right breast and had been free of recurrence for 22 years, was noted to have an abnormal shadow on a chest X-ray at a regular medical checkup. Further workup, including chest CT, revealed a 22 × 18-mm mass in the anterior mediastinum. Fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose-PET showed increased fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose uptake that was highly suggestive of thymoma. Thoracoscopic thymothymectomy was performed. The tumor had invaded the pericardium, which was also resected. A small nodule was found in the right lung, and it was also resected. The intraoperative frozen-section diagnosis was breast cancer metastasis to the thymus and lung. The pathological diagnosis was luminal A solid tubular carcinoma (strongly estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor positive, HER2 negative) with an MIB-1 index of less than 5%. After surgery, the patient was treated with an aromatase inhibitor. As of August 2013, she has been free of recurrence for more than 36 months. It is extremely rare for breast cancer to metastasize to the thymus more than 20 years after surgery.

A 58-year-old woman visited our hospital with the chief complaint of an abnormal chest shadow. Chest CT showed an 18-mm ground-glass opacity in the right upper lobe, which became enlarged over time, and lung cancer was suspected. At the same time, a tracheal bronchus originating directly from the trachea was observed. She underwent thoracoscopic right upper lobectomy and mediastinal lymph node dissection. During surgery, in addition to the tracheal bronchus, a pulmonary vein variation was seen running dorsal to the pulmonary artery. Her postoperative course was uneventful. Tracheal bronchus is a rare anomaly, with an incidence of 0.1%-5%. Since tracheal bronchus is often accompanied by pulmonary vessel variations and may be associated with repeated previous infections, care should be taken when performing thoracoscopic lung resection.

Herein, we report a patient with a rare disease, intrapulmonary schwannoma. The patient was a 61-year-old woman who had a 20 mm × 18 mm nodule, with a clear boundary and homogeneous content, on the central side of S4 in the right lung on chest CT. On PET with 18- fluorodeoxyglucose scanning, 18-fluorodeoxyglucose accumulations with a maximal standardized uptake value of 2.5 and 3.3 were observed in the early and late phases, respectively, suggesting a malignant tumor. A thoracoscopic right middle lobectomy was performed because the tumor was present in the segmental bronchial region of the middle lobe. Intrapulmonary schwannoma accounts for 0.2% of lung tumor cases, and cases involving patients who have undergone preoperative PET with 18- fluorodeoxyglucose scanning have rarely been reported.

This paper studies the problem of scheduling jobs on a multiprocessor system with a common memory to minimize , where fi denotes flow-times of jobs i, and wi(fi) denotes monotonically nondecreasing functions of fi. Arriving jobs are assigned to available processors according to an appropriate scheduling rule. Once a job is placed on a processor, it retains the processor during its processing and repeats local computations and accesses to the common memory. First, the scheduling problem is formulated into a zero-one integer programming problem. Next, a procedure is presented for computing a lower bound on the optimal cost. Finally, the performance of the proposed procedure is evaluated using simulation experiments for the problem of minimizing mean flow-time.