We studied the effect of vitamin K(MK-4) on the prevention of vitamin K deficiency in the early neonatal period. MK-4 (20 mg/day) was given orally for 1-7 days to 183 pregnant women at 37-39 weeks gestation. In the MK-4 treated group, there were no cases of melena neonatorum but there were 9 cases in the untreated group (9/757, 1.2%). To investigate the influence of MK-4 administration on liver function and the VK dependent coagulation system, maternal and umbilical venous blood were taken to measure T-Bil, GOT, GPT, gamma-GTP, LDH, and II, VII, X activity and HPT. There was no significant difference between these values in MK-treated and untreated groups. MK-4 concentrations were measured in the maternal and umbilical venous blood of 68 subjects. The level of MK-4 in umbilical venous blood was less than 0.1 ng/ml in 17 of 21 subjects not treated with MK-4 but it was over 0.1 ng/ml in 30 of 47 MK-4 treated subjects. However, no MK-4 was detected in 6 of 8 subjects who were treated for 1 day. The level of MK-4 in maternal blood was less than 0.1 ng/ml in 12 of 21 untreated subjects but it was 0.19-92.6 ng/ml in all of the 47 MK-4 treated subjects. The mean MK-4 concentration in cord blood as a percentage of that in maternal blood was 17.9%. These findings indicate that MK-4 is effectively transported from maternal to fetal blood through the placenta and its administration to pregnant women is useful in preventing melena neonatorum.

In a retrospective study of 724 patients with histologically proven carcinoma of the uterine cervix from 1980 through 1986, the histological classification and clinical stage (FIGO) were investigated for their prognostic value. The clinical stage was very important in relation to prognosis. The histological type of the squamous cell carcinoma (keratinizing, large cell non-keratinizing, small cell non-keratinizing) did not have any value in predicting survival, but small cell non-keratinizing tumor showed a less favorable prognosis than other tumors when surgery was employed. As to survival, there was no difference between adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma when compared in all patients, but adenocarcinoma had a worse prognosis than squamous cell carcinoma when surgery was employed. The pelvic lymphnode status at operation was correlated with the clinical stage. Adenocarcinoma had more positive nodes than squamous cell carcinoma. There was no significant difference in the frequency of pelvic node involvement among cell types of squamous cell carcinoma. The present histopathological classification of the uterine cervical carcinoma was of little prognostic value in predicting patient outcome.

Increased plasminogen activator (PA) secretion has been observed in malignant cells and tissue and PA is thought to be involved in the processes of tumorigenesis, cancer invasion and metastasis. Recently two types of plasminogen activator--tissue type PA(tPA) and urokinase type PA(uPA)--have been detected in human plasma. In this study, to investigate the relationship between circulating PA and the malignant state, we measured the plasma PA concentrations (PA activity, tPA and uPA antigen) in 69 women with gynecologic malignancies (cervical cancer 50, ovarian cancer 19). These concentrations were compared to those in control groups of 33 women with benign gynecologic tumors (uterine tumor 8, ovarian tumor 25). An enzyme-linked immunoassay for tPA and uPA antigens was performed by the modified method described by Takada et al. (1986). PA activity was measured by the sensitive spectrophotometric assay of Verheijen et al. (1982). The blood samples were taken from an arm vein with a minimum of venous occlusion before treatment. There was no correlation between PA activity or uPA antigen levels and the malignant state. However, in the case of uterine tumors, a significantly higher concentration of tPA antigen (10.5 +/- 5.1 ng/ml) was found in patients with cervical cancer, in stage IV, than in those in the benign group (5.2 +/- 2.0 ng/ml). Moreover the tPA antigen concentration in cervical cancer, stage IV, was higher than in stages 0-III.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)