Issues associated with medical tourism for cancer care in Japan.

Background: Medical tourism has grown globally, especially in oncology field, but it may cause serious problems. We aimed to elucidate concerns generated by medical tourism at a Japanese hospital and recommend solutions.

Methods: We evaluated 72 consecutive patients with cancer who had traveled from abroad to receive second opinions, clinical examinations or treatments at our hospital between January 2015 and December 2016.

SSCP screening of the dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase gene polymorphisms of the Japanese population using a semi-automated electrophoresis unit.

The single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) procedure has been applied in routine testing for hereditary diseases. Temperature, running buffer, gel composition, and fragment length can influence its sensitivity. Mutation detection in the clinical setting depends on the development of automated technology, especially for large genes, such as the dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPYD) gene, which codes the initial, rate-limiting enzyme in the catabolism of 5-fluorouracil (5FU).

[Analysis of proteins in urinary tract stones and urine of urolithic patients].

In order to investigate the mechanism of urinary tract stone formation, we analyzed protein components in urine and the stone. Urinary proteins of healthy subjects and urolithic patients as well as protein components urinary tract stone of the urolithic patients were analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). Electrophoretic patterns of urinary proteins of the patients differed from those of healthy subjects after separating protein patterns into those larger than 66kDa or smaller than 30kDa.