Publications by authors named "Akihiko Morita"

Article Synopsis
  • * MRI scans revealed that 14 of the 20 patients with hypoesthesia had brain lesions in the thalamus or pontine tegmentum, while 6 had lesions in other areas.
  • * Patients with hypoesthesia had higher blood pressure and a greater likelihood of small-vessel occlusion, but had shorter hospital stays and similar disability scores compared to those without hypoesthesia.
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The introduction of the guidelines has resulted in an increase of laparoscopic surgeries performed, but the rate of early surgery was still low. Here, the initial effect of the introduction of the guideline was confirmed in single center, and factors disturbing early cholecystectomy were analyzed. This study included 141 patients who were treated for acute cholecystitis from January 2010 to October 2014 at Kanazawa Medical Center.

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Background/aims: Undernutrition is common in patients after acute ischemic stroke (AIS) and predicts poor clinical outcomes. We assessed the relationship between undernutrition and prognosis after AIS.

Methods: We retrospectively assessed consecutively hospitalized AIS patients aged ≥65 years.

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Intramedullary spinal cord abscess (ISCA) is an extremely rare infection of the central nervous system. We report a 17-year old man with ISCA that suggested rupture confirmed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The patient presented with meningeal signs, severe paraplegia, sensory impairment with a sensory level, and urinary retention.

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Article Synopsis
  • An adult female experienced a condition where she perceived the right eyes of others as enlarged, a phenomenon known as prosopometamorphopsia.
  • Diffusion-weighted imaging revealed an abnormal high-intensity area in her brain, specifically in the splenium of the corpus callosum and the right major forceps.
  • Along with the visual distortion, she also had a left-ear hearing deficit, which is unusual because such a combination hasn't been reported in other patients with similar visual disorders, highlighting the significant role of eye perception in face recognition.
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Parkinson's disease (PD) reportedly show disturbed visual exploration. However, whether this disturbance is due to dysfunctional visual information processing remains unclear. To clarify the effects of PD on visual information processing when exploring for targets and to compare disease effects with aging effects, we used an infrared eye-movement assessment system.

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Background: A concept of sensory tracts in the spinal cord has been established in relation to a dorsolateral pathway which is located in the posterior part of the lateral column and conveys the deep sense.

Methods: The clinical status at onset, neurological symptoms, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings in 13 patients of spinal cord infarction were studied.

Results: The clinical status was acute in 11 patients and subacute in 2 patients.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The case discusses a 17-year-old diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma who experienced initial symptoms of paraneoplastic sensory neuropathy, including facial and limb dysesthesiae and an unsteady gait.
  • - Despite unremarkable cerebrospinal fluid results and ineffective treatments like immunoglobulin and steroids, medical imaging revealed nerve enhancements, leading to the lymphoma diagnosis through a biopsy.
  • - Following chemotherapy, the patient's symptoms improved significantly, highlighting the importance of recognizing paraneoplastic syndromes in young patients with sensory neuropathy and the potential for recovery with cancer treatment.
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With the aging of society, surgery for elderly colorectal cancer(CRC)patients is also increasing. We examined 11 elderly CRC patients who underwent palliative resection in our institute. The reasons other than age for which palliative resection was chosen, included dementia, basic disease, and social backgrounds such as living alone, etc.

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Background: Knowledge of adult patients with influenza-associated acute encephalopathy (IAE) is limited. We conducted a detailed survey to investigate the prevalence, clinical features, associated outcomes, and prognostic factors in adult IAE patients.

Method: A nationwide questionnaire on IAE patients was sent to the departments of Internal Medicine, Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Emergency and Critical Care at all hospitals with ≥200 beds in Japan.

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Background: Infarction of the vermis and the tonsil in the cerebellum presents as truncal and gait ataxia. Acute rotatory vertigo is often present in infarction of the nodulus in the caudal vermis, which is closely associated with the vestibular pathway, but is minor in infarction of the rostral vermis. The rostral vermis receives input from the dorsal spinocerebellar tract (DSCT) which conveys unconsciousness proprioceptive signals from the ipsilateral lower trunk and leg.

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Localized scleroderma (LS) is a sclerotic skin disorder rarely reported in the veterinary literature. We herein report the first case of a linear LS-like skin lesion in a cat. A 1-year-old castrated male Himalayan cat was presented with a 1-month history of an alopecic, indurated, serpiginous, branched skin lesion on the dorsal cervical to scapular area.

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Objective An abnormal high intensity area (HIA) on diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) indicates the presence of cytotoxic edema and has been reported to be observed in the hippocampus of patients with transient global amnesia (TGA). The appearance of an HIA on DWI is usually delayed after the onset of patients with amnesia in TGA; thus, the significance of the HIA was evaluated in patients with TGA. Methods Three adult TGA patients who had a unilateral HIA on DWI (right, n=2; left, n=1) were enrolled.

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Background: Medial medullary infarction (MMI) is a rare ischemic stroke. Frequency of each neurological finding in MMI was different in each study.

Methods: We retrospectively evaluated the medical records of patients with cerebral infarction who were admitted between March 1998 and October 2015.

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Article Synopsis
  • A 79-year-old Japanese woman was diagnosed with probable multiple system atrophy (MSA) and dementia after displaying symptoms like cerebellar ataxia, rigidity, and cognitive decline.
  • Neuropathological examination revealed degenerative changes not only typical of MSA, such as olivopontocerebellar and striatonigral degeneration, but also notable changes in the parahippocampal region with a unique presence of neuronal cytoplasmic inclusions (NCIs) and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs).
  • This case highlights an unusual finding of alpha-synuclein-related pathology localized in the perirhinal cortex without significant hippocampal involvement, suggesting new insights into the
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A 63-year-old man was seen by his family doctor for epigastric distress, and he was referred to our hospital with a diagnosis of gastric cancer. Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy revealed type 3 gastric cancer(por1>tub2>tub1)at the lesser curvature of the stomach. Computed tomography suggested thickening of the wall of the stomach at the lesser curvature and bulky lymph node swelling.

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We studied the clinical efficacy of pre-operative combination chemotherapy using S-1 plus oxaliplatin for advanced gastric cancer. Four patients hadclinical Stage IV disease, 1 patient had clinical Stage III C disease, 2 patients had clinical Stage III B disease, and 1 patient had clinical Stage III A disease. The patients received 2-8 courses of oxaliplatin(130mg/m2)on day 1, andS -1 on days 1-14 every 3 weeks.

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A 65-year-old man had been receiving hemodialysis for chronic renal failure. We diagnosed colonic ileus with transverse colon cancer and synchronous multiple liver metastases(liver segments 4 and 6)based on symptoms of abdominal pain and distension. After stent placement in the region of the colonic stenosis, left hemicolectomy was performed for transverse colon cancer.

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We studied the significance of gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel(GnP)therapy for locally progressive pancreatic cancer. We enrolled 10 patients with local progression without distant metastasis. We used GnP therapy for the ablative borderline resectable(BR)and unresectable(UR)cases based on images that followed NCCN pancreatic cancer treatment guidelines.

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A 43-year-old Japanese man presented with a history of bacterial meningitis (BM). He was admitted to our department with a one-day history of headache and was diagnosed with relapse of BM based on the cerebrospinal fluid findings. The conventional imaging studies showed serial findings suggesting left otitis media, a temporal cephalocele, and meningitis.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the link between executive dysfunction (ED) in Parkinson's disease (PD) and brain connectivity assessed through EEG coherence.
  • The research involved 68 non-demented PD patients who were evaluated with a specific test for executive function and analyzed brain activity in two electrode pairs during different frequency ranges.
  • Results showed that lower EEG coherence on the left side was associated with worse executive function, indicating that decreased connectivity may contribute to executive dysfunction in PD patients.
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Central nervous system (CNS) mycosis is a potentially life-threatening but treatable neurological emergency. CNS mycoses progress slowly and are sometimes difficult to distinguish from dementia. Though most patients with CNS mycosis have an underlying disease, such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, cancer, diabetes mellitus, and/or use of immunosuppressants, cryptococcosis can occur in non-immunosuppressed persons.

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Case 1: The patient was a 42-year-old man who was diagnosed with intraductal papillary-mucinous carcinoma with liver metastasis. After S-1+gemcitabine and S-1 chemotherapy, the liver metastasis had disappeared and we performed a pancreaticoduodenectomy( PD). Case 2: The patient was a 70-year-old woman who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer with liver metastasis.

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A 69-year-old woman was diagnosed with descending colon cancer with multiple liver metastases, and a left hemicolectomy was performed. The patient was treated with capecitabine/oxaliplatin (CapeOX) plus bevacizumab (Bmab). After 5 courses of chemotherapy, the number and size of liver metastases remarkably reduced, and after the 12th course, because of peripheral neuropathy, a "stop-and-go"fashion of administering oxaliplatin (L-OHP) was initiated.

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Here, we report a 54-year-old man diagnosed with type 3 advanced gastric cancer who underwent a total gastrectomy and splenectomy plus D2 lymphadenectomy. The pathologic diagnosis was Stage Ⅳ (T3N0H0P0CY1M1). Sixteen courses of combined S-1/CPT-11 chemotherapy were completed, at which time the CPT-11 was discontinued because of malaise, and S-1 alone was continued for a year.

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