Publications by authors named "Anzai N"

Arketamine, the (R)-enantiomer of ketamine, exhibits both therapeutic and sustained prophylactic effects in an inflammation-driven model of depression, although the precise mechanisms remain elusive. Given the involvement of γδ T cells in inflammatory processes, this study explored their role in the effects of arketamine. To assess therapeutic outcomes, mice received lipopolysaccharide (LPS:1.

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  • The study investigates how family visits to psychiatric inpatients before evacuating due to the FDNPP accident influenced their return to Fukushima.
  • It analyzed data from 44 patients who were evacuated on March 11, 2011, comparing return times between those who had family visits and those who did not.
  • Results indicated that patients who received family visits returned to Fukushima significantly earlier, emphasizing the importance of family support for rehabilitation and reintegration after disasters.
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Aim: To support the achievement of life goals and social participation of persons with mental illness, based on the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF), we generated items, identified domains, and examined the content validity of the Comprehensive Assessment of Functioning for Mental Illness-Subjective Version (CAMI-S). The purpose was to assess patients' strengths and weaknesses by incorporating the patient and public involvement perspective.

Methods: Focus group interviews on the items to be included were conducted with Group A.

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  • Early diagnosis is crucial for treating invasive fungal infections, which are challenging to identify especially from sterile abscess biopsies.
  • A case study on a 65-year-old Japanese male with acute myeloid leukemia showed that despite antifungal prophylaxis, no fungi were detected in blood cultures, but fragmented fungi were found in a liver biopsy and spleen abscess.
  • Retrospective analyses and deep sequencing of the fungal genome allowed identification of the causative fungus, confirmed through hybridization with a DNA probe.
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Background: Isatuximab, an anti-CD38 antibody, has been widely used in treatments for patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (MM). Despite its high efficacy, not all patients achieve a lasting therapeutic response with isatuximab.

Objective: We tried to identify biomarkers to predict the effectiveness of isatuximab by focusing on the host's immune status before treatment.

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  • - LAT1 is a protein that helps transport important amino acids and is linked to cancer growth, particularly in castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), where it is highly expressed.
  • - The study utilized JPH203, a LAT1 inhibitor, which significantly reduced leucine uptake and inhibited CRPC cell growth, migration, and invasion, while having little effect on castration-sensitive LNCaP cells.
  • - RNA sequencing revealed that JPH203 downregulated CD24 in CRPC cells, interfering with the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, suggesting that JPH203's potential anticancer effects are linked to mTOR signaling and CD24 modulation.
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A sublethal ischemic episode [termed preconditioning (PC)] protects neurons in the brain against a subsequent severe ischemic injury. This phenomenon is known as brain ischemic tolerance and has received much attention from researchers because of its robust neuroprotective effects. We have previously reported that PC activates astrocytes and subsequently upregulates P2X7 receptors, thereby leading to ischemic tolerance.

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P-glycoprotein (P-gp) is an ATP-binding cassette transporter known for its roles in expelling xenobiotic compounds from cells and contributing to cellular drug resistance through multidrug efflux. This mechanism is particularly problematic in cancer cells, where it diminishes the therapeutic efficacy of anticancer drugs. P-gp inhibitors, such as elacridar, have been developed to circumvent the decrease in drug efficacy due to P-gp efflux.

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  • The study aimed to identify key factors that affect the effectiveness of exercise training in patients with chronic heart failure by analyzing data from the HF-ACTION study involving 2,130 patients.
  • Significant factors influencing exercise effects on mortality and hospitalization included beta-blocker use, pulse pressure, hemoglobin levels, and body mass index, leading to a hypothetical scoring system to identify which patients might benefit most from exercise.
  • The research emphasizes the importance of considering individual patient backgrounds when recommending exercise training, while acknowledging that exercise can still benefit many patients with various health issues despite some limitations in the study's findings.
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This study sought to explore factors related to community transition after the mandatory evacuation of psychiatric inpatients to other hospitals owing to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident. A retrospective cohort design was adopted and 391 psychiatric patients were examined. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to confirm the association between the achievement or non-achievement of discharge to community living and their backgrounds (age, gender, evacuation destination, psychiatric diagnoses, and physical complications).

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Background/aim: The prognostic significance of androgen receptor amplification (AR amp) in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) was studied in Japanese patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC).

Patients And Methods: A total of 120 serum samples were obtained from 38 patients with CRPC. Serum cfDNA was purified and the AR copy number was determined.

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  • L-type amino acid transporter 1 (LAT1) is found in many types of cancer and helps cancer cells grow by taking in essential amino acids.
  • Cabazitaxel is an important drug for treating advanced prostate cancer, but its effectiveness decreases when cancer cells become resistant to it.
  • The study showed that LAT1 is more active in cabazitaxel-resistant cancer cells, and a specific LAT1 inhibitor, JPH203, successfully reduced growth and spread of these resistant cells both in the lab and in living organisms, indicating that targeting LAT1 could be a promising treatment strategy.
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  • Fludarabine-based conditioning regimens in cord blood transplantation (CBT) have varying effectiveness, with the study analyzing five different combinations in 1395 adult patients suffering from myeloid malignancies.
  • The results showed that the combination of fludarabine and melphalan with high-dose total body irradiation (FM140T) had the highest 3-year survival rate (67%), while other regimens had significantly lower rates, indicating FM140T as the most favorable option.
  • These outcomes suggest that survival rates in CBT for myeloid cancers depend greatly on the type and dosage of alkylating agents used alongside fludarabine, with FM140T being recommended over fludarabine/busulfan
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Xenin is a 25-amino acid peptide identified in human gastric mucosa, which is widely expressed in peripheral and central tissues. It is known that the central or peripheral administration of xenin decreases food intake in rodents. Nesfatin-1/NUCB2 (nesfatin-1) has been identified as an anorexic neuropeptide, it is often found co-localized with many peptides in the central nervous system.

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  • Haploidentical donor transplantation using posttransplant cyclophosphamide (PTCy) and cord blood transplantation (CBT) are effective alternatives when matched donor options are not available for patients with blood cancers.
  • The study analyzed 914 patients and found that mild acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) improved overall survival after PTCy-haplo and CBT but did not have the same benefit for matched donor transplants.
  • Additionally, while limited chronic GVHD positively impacted outcomes after CBT and matched donor transplants, it did not show the same effect after PTCy-haplo, highlighting that the impact of GVHD varies depending on the type of transplant.
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The importance of uric acid, the final metabolite of purines excreted by the kidneys and intestines, was not previously recognized, except for its role in forming crystals in the joints and causing gout. However, recent evidence implies that uric acid is not a biologically inactive substance and may exert a wide range of effects, including antioxidant, neurostimulatory, proinflammatory, and innate immune activities. Notably, uric acid has two contradictory properties: antioxidant and oxidative ones.

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Medical student knowledge and opinions of clinical research have important ramifications for how likely they will be to refer patients into clinical trials as practicing physicians. This study examined students understanding, knowledge, and attitudes about clinical trials at the start of medical school and after completion of a multi-faceted intervention designed to increase medical students' confidence in understanding and explaining clinical trials during the pre-clinical and clinical years. Medical students were surveyed about their knowledge of and attitudes toward clinical trials in their first (N = 724) and third (N = 191) years of medical school.

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Machine learning technology is expected to support diagnosis and prognosis prediction in medicine. We used machine learning to construct a new prognostic prediction model for prostate cancer patients based on longitudinal data obtained from age at diagnosis, peripheral blood and urine tests of 340 prostate cancer patients. Random survival forest (RSF) and survival tree were used for machine learning.

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  • - The study focused on improving outcomes of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation by using a personalized busulfan (BU) dosing strategy, comparing it to a fixed-dose regimen.
  • - Results showed that using a combination of test doses and therapeutic drug monitoring improved BU exposure control, particularly benefiting patients on fludarabine (FLU) regimens, with lower relapse rates and better overall survival compared to fixed doses.
  • - The trial demonstrated an impressive 85.5% progression-free survival rate at 100 days for the PK-guided group, suggesting that tailored dosing may enhance treatment effectiveness for hematological malignancies.
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The L-type amino acid transporter (LAT) family contains four members, LAT1~4, which are important amino acid transporters. They mainly transport specific amino acids through cell membranes, provide nutrients to cells, and are involved in a variety of metabolic pathways. They regulate the mTOR signaling pathway which has been found to be strongly linked to cancer in recent years.

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  • Cord blood transplantation (CBT) is a promising treatment for patients with blood cancers and can tolerate mismatches in HLA (human leukocyte antigen), which are vital for transplant compatibility.
  • A study of 492 patients found that higher levels of HLA DRB1 mismatches were linked to better outcomes, such as lower relapse rates and improved disease-free survival, particularly for those in complete or partial remission.
  • In contrast, while higher HLA class I mismatches were associated with increased risk of nonrelapse mortality for advanced stage patients, they did not show an advantage for preventing relapse, indicating the complexity of HLA mismatches' effects on transplant success.
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Buspirone, a cationic drug, is an anxiolytic and antidepressant drug. However, whether buspirone and its metabolites are interacted with organic cationic transporter remains uncertain. In this study, we examined the interaction of buspirone and its major metabolites 1-(2-pyrimidinyl)piperazine (1-PP) and 6-hydroxybuspirone (6'-OH-Bu) with hOCTs using human hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG2), human colorectal adenocarcinoma (Caco-2) cells, and S2 cells expressing OCT1 (S2hOCT1), 2 (S2hOCT2), or 3 (S2hOCT3).

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Background: Post-evacuation return after mandatory hospital evacuation due to complicated disasters is often overlooked and not well-discussed.

Aims: In this study, we explored the factors which are related to the ease or difficulty of the post-evacuation return to Fukushima prefecture of psychiatric inpatients who had been evacuated to hospitals outside the prefecture because of the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) and subsequent Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident.

Method: This retrospective cohort study included evacuated psychiatric hospital inpatients who were registered in the Matching Project for Community Transition (MPCT) and had been traced until July 31, 2019.

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Chronic oxidative stress in long-distance runners adversely affects conditioning. It is important to objectively assess and monitor oxidative stress, but measuring oxidative stress can be invasive or require skill to measure. Therefore, this study aimed to verify whether skin autofluorescence (SAF), a non-invasive, rapid, and easily calculable metric for calculating advanced glycation end products (AGEs), is useful as an oxidative stress biomarker.

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Amino acid transporters are responsible for the uptake of amino acids, critical for cell proliferation. L-type amino acid transporters play a major role in the uptake of essential amino acids. L-type amino acid transporter 1 (LAT1) exerts its functional properties by forming a dimer with 4F2hc.

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