Hepatocellular carcinoma in Child-Pugh C cirrhosis: prognostic factors and survival benefit of nontransplant treatments.

A retrospective multicenter study was conducted to clarify the survival benefit of nontransplant treatments for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) associated with Child-Pugh C cirrhosis. Data on 436 patients, including 203 treated patients with HCC, were collected from 20 institutions in Japan. Cox's proportional hazards model corrected for bias by propensity score analysis clearly showed the following as significant independent prognostic factors, including all four nontransplant treatments examined: transarterial chemoembolization, hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy, percutaneous ethanol injection therapy, radiofrequency ablation, hepatitis B virus, number of tumors, log α-fetoprotein, encephalopathy, ascites and prothrombin time.

Intraductal tubulopapillary neoplasms of the pancreas: case report and review of the literature.

A 69-year-old woman was referred to our hospital after incidental identification of a pancreatic mass during follow-up for diabetes mellitus. Various imaging examinations showed a tumor in the main pancreatic duct, without apparent hypersecretion of mucin. Brush cytologic examination revealed class V disease (adenocarcinoma).

Hepatitis C virus relapse was suppressed by long-term self-injection of low-dose interferon in patients with chronic hepatitis C after pegylated interferon plus ribavirin treatment.

Aim: The recommended treatment for chronic hepatitis C is a combination of pegylated interferon (PEG IFN) plus ribavirin (RBV). However, the sustained virological response (SVR) rate of PEG IFN-RBV therapy was approximately 50% in patients with genotype 1b and a high viral load. Thus, we compared the efficiencies and side-effects of PEG IFN-RBV and self-injected low-dose natural (n) IFN-α in patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV).

Visual perceptual strengths and weaknesses in adults with intellectual disabilities compared with a birth year-matched norm.

Background: The ventral and dorsal streams are considered to be the brain substrates of vision for perception and action, respectively. Using the Developmental Test of Visual Perception (DTVP), the current study examined whether visual perceptual strengths and weaknesses in adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) were attributable to the dichotomy of the visual streams.

Method: In study 1, DTVP performance was compared among mild, moderate and severe adult ID groups; study 2 contrasted adult ID groups with and without Down syndrome (DS).

Effect of astigmatism on apparent accommodation in pseudophakic eyes.

Purpose: To investigate the factors affecting apparent accommodation in pseudophakic eyes from a clinical viewpoint and the effects of corneal and refractive astigmatism on this accommodation from an optical viewpoint.

Methods: We retrospectively examined 62 eyes of 33 patients who had undergone phacoemulsification with monofocal intraocular lens implantation. We quantitatively assessed the amplitude of apparent accommodation using an accommodometer 3 months after surgery.