PURPOSE We reviewed 77 patients of renal pelvic and ureteral tumor treated at Osaka Police Hospital between 1990 and 2003. METHODS The patients consisted of 55 males and 22 females. The median age was 69 years, ranging from 42 to 91 years. Median follow-up period was 42 months. RESULTS & CONCLUSIONS The overall 3, 5 and 10-year cause-specific survival rates were 87.9, 75.3%, 75.3%, respecti...

Radiation planning for cancer therapy is becoming more and more dependent on the prediction of microscopic tumor spread to regional lymph nodes for its success. It is known that microscopic spread tends to follow established lymphatic drainage pathways in the head and neck based on the location of the primary tumor. In this paper,we propose a novel model for the prediction of regional lymphatic...

Purpose: Lymph node metastasis is an important prognostic factor in patients with early gastric cancer. Therefore, we analyzed the predictive factors for lymph node metastasis in submucosal gastric cancer and explored the feasibility of minimally invasive surgery. Methods: The clinicopathological features of 317 patients with submucosal gastric cancer, who underwent radical gastrectomy with lym...

The growth of new lymphatic vessels (lymphangiogenesis) in tumors is an integral step in the metastatic spread of tumor cells, first to the sentinel lymphnodes that surround the tumor and then elsewhere in the body. Currently, no selective agents designed to prevent lymphatic vessel growth have been approved for clinical use, and there is an important potential clinical niche for antilymphangio...

Lymphatic vessel dysfunction is associated with various pathologic conditions, including immunologic disorders, lymphedema, as well as tumor dissemination. Yet, the knowledge about the regulation of lymphatic vessel development is still limited. Our study elucidates cyclin dependent kinase 5 (Cdk5) as an essential player in the development of lymphatic vessels. Deletion of Cdk5 in the mouse end...

cancer stem cells (cscs) are unique subpopulations that have the capacity to drive malignant progression with renewal abilities. recently the role of some of cscs in gastric adenocarcinoma has been studied. this study was performed in order to evaluate cd44 and cd133 expressions by immunohistochemistry in 95 primary gastric adenocarcinoma and their relation to clinical and pathological paramete...

In the present report, we show real-time imaging of cancer cell trafficking in lymphatic vessels. Cancer cells labeled with both green fluorescent protein (GFP) in the nucleus and red fluorescent protein (RFP) in the cytoplasm or with GFP only or RFP only were injected into the inguinal lymph node of nude mice. The labeled cancer cells trafficked through lymphatic vessels where they were imaged...

Many solid tumors produce vascular endothelial growth factor C (VEGF-C), and its receptor, VEGFR-3, is expressed in tumor blood vessels. To study the role of VEGF-C in tumorigenesis, we implanted MCF-7 human breast carcinoma cells overexpressing recombinant VEGF-C orthotopically into severe combined immunodeficient mice. VEGF-C increased tumor growth, but unlike VEGF, it had little effect on tu...

The lack of appropriate tumor models of primary tumors and corresponding metastases that can reliably predict for response to anticancer agents remains a major deficiency in the clinical practice of cancer therapy. It was the aim of our study to establish patient-derived tumor tissue (PDTT) xenograft models of colon carcinoma with lymphatic and hepatic metastases useful for testing of novel mol...

Tumor metastasis and its impact on the organism are the main causes of death in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck region. The presence of metastasis at the time of diagnosis represents a negative prognostic parameter of overall survival and correlates with a 50 % mean reduction of life expectancy, independent of tumor size. The potential for metastasis depends on factor...