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重度誤嚥で苦しむ2症例に対し，鹿野らにより修正された声門閉鎖術を行った。甲状軟骨ならびに輪状軟骨を鉗除した後に正中にて喉頭内腔に侵入し視野を展開した。その後，上下声帯粘膜弁ならびに胸骨舌骨筋弁を用いて声門閉鎖を行った。この術式はこの2症例に対し成功し，かつ術後経過も良好であった。結論として，成人の嚥下性肺炎の治療としては，本術式は効果的でリスクも少ないと思われた。

One hundred fifty patients have been tracheostomised in the past five years at Yamada Red Cross Hospital. Of these 150 patients, 90 were proposed for tracheostomy by other departments, and such cases are on the increase. Thirty-two patients showed indications for tracheostomy in the stenosis of the aero-tract caused by the tumors or mucosal swelling. Prophylactic tracheostomy was performed in 23 cases due to a delayed stenosis of the aero-tract. Emergent tracheostomy was performed in 31 cases, and, of these cases, an incision of the cricothyroid membrane was performed in one case. Though tracheostomies have been performed in many departments, the determination of accurate indications and safe operative techniques for different cases are best assisted when performed by head and neck surgeons.

Recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) paralysis is a major complication after thyroidectomy. Immediate reconstruction of the RLN is proposed in such cases.Four cases underwent concurrent recurrent laryngeal nerve reconstruction at our department between 1997 and 1998.Nerve transfer was performed in three cases and the great auricular nerve and the ansa cervicalis were chosen as nerve grafts. Direct anastomosis of the ansa cervicalis to the peripheral end of the RLN was conducted in one case. Both procedures resulted in a good post-operative status, and hoarseness and mis-swallowing in no cases were observed.The operated-side vocal cords in all cases were observed to be fixated at the paramedian portion, without atrophy. The average maximum phonation time (MPT) was 14.5 seconds, and this was longer than that in cases who had not undergone reconstruction of the recurrent laryngeal nerve (their average MPT was 8.9 seconds).We concluded that an immediate reconstruction of the RLN should be disirable for cases who need a nerve resection in a thyroid operation.

The development of preoperative diagnosis for thyroid cancer has restricted the surgical indication for benign thyroid disease, but surgical management should still be performed for hyperthyroidism, enlarged thyroid tumors and so on. Also, it is possible to diagnose for thyroid papillary carcinoma preoperatively, but it is difficult to do so for follicular carcinoma. Therefore, we must operate for some solitary tumor cases in order to rule out the latter type of cancer. In this study, we evaluated the thyroid patients treated in our department and proposed indications for benign solitary thyroid tumor.Between 1989 and 1998, 555 patients with thyroid disease were treated in our department. 204 cases were benign, and 351 showed thyroid malignancy. 185 cases were benign thyroid nodules, and 17 were follicular carcinoma. In this study, the tumors that were large in size were found to be follicular carcinoma more frequently. We concluded that a case with a solitary tumor≥40-50mm should undergo a thyroid operation for the purpose of ruling out follicular carcinoma.

Recently, we have performed microvascular anastomoses in the reconstructive surgery of the esophagus: 3 cases at the Department of Surgey of Yamada Red Cross Hospital, and 3 cases at the Department of Surgery of Saiseikai Matsusaka Hospital. In these 6 cases, a gastric pull-up technique in 3 cases, a colonic pull-up technique in 2 cases, and a pedicled jejunum technique in 1 case were performed to reconstruct the esophagus.Microvascular anastomoses were performed in the cervical region in all 6 cases; for the artery alone in 1 case, the vein alone in 1 case, and for both vessels in 4 cases.Major complications (except for the minor leakage in 1 case) were not observed, and the reconstructions by organ transfer were successful.Microvascular anastomoses in the cervical region for adjuvant circulation is safe and easy, bacause the cervical region has many adequate vessels for anastomoses and is a stable in terms of respiratory movement.For head and neck surgeons, participation in a team operation of the thoracic esophagus is important and necessary in order to be able to examine the laryngeal findings and detect double cancers in the head and neck regions.

Since we use fine-needle aspiration cytology under ultrasonographic imaging for the diagnosis of thyroid tumors, we can easily detect small thyroid cancers.However, there is a question whether to operate on the small well-differentiated thyroid cancers or not, because the majority of the thyroid cancer have a good prognosis.Therefore, we studied 95 patients with pre-operative T1NO thyroid cancer who had been treated in our department from 1986 to 1996. 35 patients of the 95 had positive nodes (38.9%), 21 had intrathyroidal metastases (22.1%) ; and 7 had extra-thyroidal invasions (7.4%) . Two patients out of these 7 showed an invasion of the trachea that might have had an influence on survival.We feel that surgical treatment is indicated for small thyroid cancer based on.