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A 30-year-old female received living donor kidney transplantation from her mother. The surgical procedure was uneventfully performed and urine output was observed a few minutes after reperfusion. However, 24 hours after the surgery, the urine volume rapidly decreased with worsened renal blood flow as determined by Doppler ultrasonography, diagnosed as accelerated acute rejection (AAR). Plasma exchange (PE) combined with therapies including administration of steroids and OKT3 dramatically improved the renal status, resulting in maintenance of good renal function (serum Cr; 1.5 mg/dl) even after 18 months PE was considered as a powerful tool for AAR, and the literature was reviewed.

A 37-year-old man was hospitalized for a soft tissue mass around the aorta which had been incidently found by abdominal CT. Radiological finding and laboratory data were nonspecific for retoroperitoneal fibrosis, lymphnode metastasis of testicular carcinoma and lymphoma. Ultrasonography guided biopsy of the mass revealed ganglioneuroma of the retoroperitoneum. No growth of the mass was observed at 14 months follow up.

A case of primary carcinoma of the remaining ureter is reported. A 70-year-old man presented with asymptomatic gross hematuria. Three years ago, he had received right nephrectomy for pyonephrosis. Although drip infusion pyelography (DIP) and cystoscopy showed no abnormal findings, computed tomography (CT) and retrograde ureterography demonstrated the irregular thickening of the right remaining ureteral wall. He underwent right ureterectomy with bladder cuff resection. Pathological examination revealed transitional cell carcinoma of the remaining ureter. He has been free of disease for 3 years.

In order to assess the ability of our protocol for antibiotic prophylaxis to prevent perioperative infections in urologic surgery, 1,353 operations of open and laparoscopic urologic surgery conducted in 21 hospitals between September 2002 and August 2003 were subjected to analyses. We classified surgical procedures into four categories by invasiveness and contamination levels: Category A; clean less invasive surgery, Category B; clean invasive or clean-contaminated surgery, Category C; surgery with urinary tract diversion using the intestine. Prophylactic antibiotics were administrated intravenously according to our protocol, such as Category A; first or second generation cephems or penicillins on the operative day only, Category B; first and second generation cephems or penicillins for 3 days, and Category C; first, second or third generation cephems or penicillins for 4 days. The wound conditions and general conditions were evaluated in terms of the surgical site infection (SSI) as well as remote infection (RI) up to postoperative day (POD) 30. The SSI rate highest (23.3%) for surgery with intestinal urinary diversion, followed by 10.0% for surgery for lower urinary tract, 8.9% for nephroureterctomy, and 6.0% for radical prostatectomy. The SSI rates in clean surgery including open and laparoscopic nephrectomy/adrenalectomy were 0.7 and 1.4%, respectively. In SSIs, gram-positive cocci such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (58.8%) or Enterobacter faecalis (26.5%) were the most common pathogen. Similarly, the RI rate was the highest (35.2%) for surgery using intestinal urinary diversion, followed by 16.7% for surgery for lower urinary tract, 11.4% for nephroureterctomy, and 7.6% for radical prostatectomy, while RI rates for clean surgery were less than 5%. RIs most frequently reported were urinary tract infections (2.6%) where Pseudomonas aeruginosa (20.3%) and Enterobacter faecalis (15.3%) were the major causative microorganisms. Parameters such as age, obesity, nutritional status (low proteinemia), diabetes mellitus, lung disease, duration of operation, and blood loss volume were recognized as risk factors for SSI or RI in several operative procedures. Postoperative body temperatures, peripheral white blood counts, C reactive protein (CRP) levels in POD 3 were much higher than those in POD 2 in cases suffering from perioperative infections, especially suggesting that CRP could be a predictable marker for perioperative infections.

We reviewed the outcome of three methods employed for living-related renal transplantation (RTx) in our institution to assess triple immunosuppressive regimens. Between January 1989 and July 2003, a total of 35 living-related RTxs were performed at our institution. The immunosuppressive regimen given to 16 patients (group A) was cyclosporine (CsA), steroid and azathoprine (AZ) that given to 9 patients (group B) was tacrolimus (TAC), steroid and AZ and that given 9 patients (group C) was TAC, steroid and mycophenolate mofetil (MMF). Graft survival rate, serum creatinine, proteinuria, acute rejection, chronic allograft nephropathy (CAN), cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection and drug-induced nephropathy were investigated. There was no significant difference in graft survival rate among the three groups. Although serum creatinine levels (mg/dl) at 3 months post-transplant were 1.22+/-0.37 in group A, 1.43+/-0.14 in group B, 1.30+/-0.34 in group C, respectively (p<0.05; A vs. B), there was no significant difference at 1 year post-transplant. Frequency of proteinuria in groups A, B and C was 75.0, 50.0, 25.0%, respectively (p<0.05; A vs. C). The incidences of acute rejection and CAN within 1 year post-transplant were, respectively, 56.3% and 43.8% in group A, 37.5% and 37.5% in group B; and, 25.0% and 12.5% in group C (NS). The incidence of drug-induced nephrotoxicity was 12.5, 50.0% and 37.5% in groups A, B and C, respectively (p<0.05; A vs. B). The triple immunosuppressive therapy including calcineurin inhibitors, especially the regime of TAC, MMF, and steroids decreased the frequencies of proteinuria and rejections, which deteriorated the long-term outcome in living-related RTxs.

Objectives: We evaluated the usefulness and complications of laparoscopic partial nephrectomy for small renal tumors using a microwave tissue coagulator without renal pedicle clamping., Methods: Between September 1999 and March 2003, 19 patients with small renal tumors 11 to 45 mm in diameter underwent laparoscopic partial nephrectomy without renal ischemia., Results: Six and 13 patients were treated by the transperitoneal and retroperitoneal approaches, respectively. Excluding a case with open conversion due to dense perirenal adhesions, 18 patients successfully underwent laparoscopic procedures. The mean operative time was 240 minutes with minimal blood loss in 14 patients and 100 to 400 ml in 4. In a patient, frozen sections revealed a positive surgical margin and additional resection was performed. Postoperative complications included extended urine leakage for 14 days, arteriovenous fistula and almost total loss of renal function, respectively, in a patient. With the median follow-up of 19 months, no patients showed local recurrence or distant metastasis by CT scan., Conclusions: Laparoscopic non-ischemic partial nephrectomy using a microwave tissue coagulator may be useful for treating small renal tumors because it does not require advanced laparoscopic skill. However, the indication of this procedure should be highly selective in order to minimize serious complications secondary to unexpected collateral damage to surrounding structures.

A 30-year-old man was referred to our hospital with a complaint of male infertility, presenting abnormal semen analysis (semen volume 0.1 ml, sperm concentration 1.2 x 10(6)/ml, sperm motility 0%). Radiological examinations demonstrated right renal agenesis and a cystic mass extending from the prostate to the posterior of the bladder. Our final diagnosis was obstruction of the ejaculatory duct secondary to right ectopic ureter associated with ipsilateral renal agenesis. The patient was treated by transurethral unroofing of the cyst. Three months after the surgery, the cystic mass disappeared and the seminal findings showed marked improvement.

A 58-year-old female presented with a well-encapsulated tumor in the left renal hilum on computed tomography (CT). On magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the tumor showed low intensity on the T1-weighted image, high intensity on the T2-weighted image. Laparoscopic radical nephrectomy was performed because we could not exclude the possibility of malignancy such as renal cell carcinoma. Histopathological examination revealed that the tumor was a benign Schwannoma. Although renal hilum is a common site of renal schwannoma, it is difficult to differentiate benign tumors from malignant ones, and then nephrectomy is usually performed.

We report 3 cases of prostatic involvement of transitional cell carcinomas (TCCs). All cases presented positive urinary cytology after intravesical instillation of Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) and then random biopsy of bladder and transurethral resection (TUR)-biopsy of prostatic urethra were performed. TUR-biopsy demonstrated TCC in the prostate, although random biopsy failed to detect tumors in the bladder in all cases. Case 1 was treated with cystourethrectomy with ileal conduit, case 2 was treated with cystourethrectomy with bilateral ureterocutaneostomy and case 3 was treated with cystectomy with orthotopic ileal neobladder reconstruction. All cases are alive with no evidence of disease. TUR-biopsy of prostatic urethra should be perfomed when patients present positive urinary cytology after BCG instillation therapy, because prostatic involvement of TCC associated with bladder carcinoma in situ is not rare.

A 74-year-old female with a complaint of genital bleeding was referred to our hospital. In her past history, 4 times of transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TUR-BT) for bladder cancers and right nephroureterectomy with cuff for right ureteral tumors were performed during these 17 years, followed by simple cystectomy 3 years before. A punch biopsy of anterior vaginal wall demonstrated metastases of transitional cell carcinoma. Although total histero-vaginectomy was performed, recurrence of disease was observed in bone, skin and inguinal lymph nodes 9 months after the operation. This case is the 13th report of vaginal metastases of transitional cell carcinoma in the world.

A variety of regimens of high-dose chemotherapy with hematopoietic stem cell support for poor risk germ cell tumors have been established. However, a series of chemotherapy steps carried out prior to the harvest sometimes leads to an insufficient number of peripheral blood stem cells. Here, we report a case of a patient who successfully underwent high-dose chemotherapy for the treatment of poor risk extragonadal germ cell tumor by receiving peripheral blood stem cell transplantation donated from his genomically identical twin brother.