1993 Volume 24 Issue 2 Pages 223-232
For surgical therapy of gastric cancer, depending on the degree of cancer extension, a gastrectomy combined with splenectomy is carried out to enhance surgical radicality. To evaluate the postoperative influence of splenectomy on non-specific cell mediated immunity of patients undergoing operation for gastric cancer, immunological. examinations were performed at 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months and 3 months postoperatively. Assays of these postoperative fluctuation rates were made by dividing the curative resection cases into the splenectomy group and the non-splenectomy group. The results were as follows. 1. Postoperative fluctuations of white blood cell and lymphocyte showed an increase of significant difference in the splenectomy group until 2 months postoperatively but at 3 months postoperatively, a significant difference was not seen between the two groups. 2. Postoperative fluctuations of PHA blastgenetic reaction and NK cell activity did not show significant differences between the two groups and it was considered that splenectomy did not influence lymphocyte functions. 3. The postoperative fluctuations of 0KT3^+ cell, OKT4^+/OKT8^+ rate and OKIal^+ cell did not show significant differences between the two groups and it was considered that splenectomy did not influence lymphocyte subsets. 4. For operations of advanced gastric cancer, from a viewpoint of surgical radicality, it was concluded that gastrectomy combined with splenectomy may take precedence.
