The use of cis-platinum as therapeutic drug in malignant neoplasm has associated side effects such as nephrotoxicity and ototoxicity. The nephrotoxic effects of this drug is decreased by use of hydration method. The ototoxic effect, however, cause a irreversible sensorineural hearing loss and incidence of ototoxicity is not changed, so prevention of ototoxic effect is important.

The efficacies of fosfomycin, agent in ameliorating cisplatin induced ototoxicity, are investigated in guinea pig cochleas and the effects of pentoxifylline, agent in therapeutic drug of idiopathic sensorineural hearing loss, are evaluated anatomically by cochlear histology with scanning eletromicroscopy.

Protection against the distortion and injury of outer hair cell according to position of the cochlea caused by cicplatin was statistically significant in groups injected with fosfomycin. Also the injury of hair cells seen in groups injected with both pentoxifyllin and cisplatin was significantly higher than that of cisplatin only group.

Fosfomycin protects against cisplatin induced ototoxicity but pentoxifylline does not protect cesplatin induced ototoxicity.

To establish new in vitro model systems that better reflect in vivo condition, multicellular tumor spheroids(MTS) and raft culture were developed using cell lines of squamous cell carcinoma(SCCHN) of the head and neck in these 3-dimensional systems.

Four SCCHN cell lines were used for MTS and raft culture.

All cell lines formed MTS, but only Tu-138 showed a good stratification at the airliquid interface in the raft culture system.

MTS and raft culture system were established successfully from the SCCHN cell lines.

There are controversial evidences that children gain weight to a significant extent after adenotonsillectomy, usually associated with a general improvement in health. This study is aimed to evaluate the growth disturbance in children with adenotonsillar hypertrophy and the effect of adenotonsillectomy on subsequent growth in them.

Ninty-one children adenotonsillectomized had their weights recorded preoperatively, and reweighted twelve months after surgery.

The results showed the patients were generally not underweighted before surgery. Their median weight was on the 59.5 percentile. Their weights after surgery had increased by an average of 20 percent over what would have been expected. This increase in weight was not confined to underweight children but to the entire group.

Upper airway obstruction resulting from adenotonsillar hypertrophy might be suspected as a possible cause in the workup of children with suboptimum growth.

The aim of this study is to obtain the basic knowledge for safer clinical use of oxymetazoline, one of nasal decongestants, by observing changes of ciliary activity and histopa-thologic findings after topical application of oxymetazoline to the cultured human basak mucosa.

The nasal mucosa, obtained from the inferior tubinates in healthy non-smokers without any nasal symptoms or signs, was cultured and then, exposed to oxymetazoline solu-tion at different concentrations from 0.0123% to 0.25%, containing no preservatives. Ciliary activity was observed under an inverted microscope and the histopathology of the mucosa was examined by light microscopy 1,3,6,12,24 and 48 hours after exposure, respectively.

Oxymetazoline impaired ciliary activity and induced mucosal injury at dose- and time-dependent patterns. Once the ciliary activity disappeared, it was not restored at least for the next 48 hours. Furthermore, these functional and morphologic changes resulted from applying oxymetazoline at the concentration of clinical use.

Oxymetazoline as a topical vasoconstrictor should be administered for the minimal period even at clinical dose.

This study was performed to compare postoperative results of thyroplasty typeI and arytenoid adduction, which were recent phonosurgical procedures for the management of unilateral vocal cord paralysis.

Twenty-two cases of unilateral vocal cord paralysis with several etiologies were managed with thyroplasty typeI and/or arytenoid adduction. The subjective and MPT(maximum phonation time) improvements after those procedures were compared statistically.

The cause of paralysis were idiopathic(7 cases), thoracic lesion(6 cases) thyroidectomy(3 cases), neck mass excision(3 cases), neck trauma(2 cases) and diphtheria(case). The left side(15 cases) was paralyzed more frequently than the right(7 cases). There were significant increase(p=0.006) in MPT from 4 seconds preoperatively to 6 seconds postoperatively in thyrolasty cases, and also significant increase(p=0.014) from 5 seconds to 10.5 seconds in arytenoid adduction cases. Better result were observed in subjective improvement and MPT(p=0.0011) with arytenoid adduction. There was no significant complication.

Both arytenoid adduction and thyroplasty were effective and safe phonosurgical procedures for unilateral vocal cord paralysis. Better results were observed in arytenoid add-uction cases.

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma(HNSCC) has been associated with host immunosuppression, including depressed T-lymphocyte and natural killer cell function. This immunosuppression has been shown to be most pronounced in the locoregional environment of the tumor and appears to be mediated by soluble suppressor factor prostaglandinE₂(PGE₂). PGE₂ is a product of cell membrane phospholipid metabolism that is known to have potent immunoregulatory activity including inhibition of natural killer cell activity and antibody dependent cell mediated cytotoxicity(ADCC).

In our experiment, we have established an ADCC assay with IgGl cMAB SF-25, 323A/3 using human squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck cell line(PCI-50) as target. The measurement of cytotoxicity was determined by measuring the release of ⁵¹Chromium from the target cells after 4 hour incubation.

PGE₂ inhibited antibody dependant cell mediated cytotoxicity.

It thus implies that the production of prostaglandins by tumor cells may constitute a means by which the tumor cells subvert the effect of a cellular immune response that is directed against them and arming of NK cells with chimeric antibody could be considered in developing means for treatment of human SCCHN in adjuvant setting.