Secondary amyloidosis associated with Castleman's disease.

A rare case of secondary amyloidosis associated with Castleman's disease is reported. A 53-year-old woman was referred for investigation of proteinuria. Biopsy specimens from kidney and gastric mucosa revealed numerous amyloid deposits, defined as AA amyloidosis by immunohistological staining.

Effectiveness of a ligating device for endoscopic surgery.

A new detachable snare for hemostasis in the removal of large polyps or other elevated lesion was developed by the author (Olympus Ligating Device). It allows ligation to be performed through the channel of an endoscope using a nonconductive loop that can be detached from the ligator. At Sakura National Hospital, endoscopic ligation with this device was performed in 80 patients from May 1989 to January 1994.

Relationship between the therapeutic effects or side-effects and the serum disopyramide or mono-N-dealkylated disopyramide concentration after repeated oral administration of disopyramide to arrhythmic patients.

After we had developed a method to determine simultaneously the blood concentrations of disopyramide (DP) and its metabolite mono-N-dealkylated disopyramide (MND) by high-performance liquid chromatography, DP was administered repeatedly to arrhythmic patients in order to examine the relationship between the serum DP or MND concentration and the therapeutic effects or side-effects. To 79 arrhythmic patients (57 patients with ventricular premature contraction, 13 with supraventricular arrhythmia and 9 with atrial fibrillation), DP was administered repeatedly at an initial oral dose of 200 to 400 mg/day. Of the 61 patients which were possible to evaluate after reaching a steady state, 32 were evaluated as effective and 29 as non-effective, the effective rate being 52.

[Clinicopathological report of cisplatin encephalopathy].

A 61-year-old woman was treated with cisplatin and etoposide for ovarian carcinoma. After the second course of chemotherapy she developed acute encephalopathy which manifested itself as headache, fever, a partial seizure, confusion, and mild right hemiparesis, although no evidence of a central nervous system infection was found. Ten days after the onset of neurological symptoms, she experienced a sudden loss of vision in both eyes.

Immunohistochemical study of human advanced glycosylation end-products (AGE) in chronic renal failure.

In patients with diabetic renal failure plasma advanced glycosylation end-products (AGE) levels are reported to be elevated and dialyzer of continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) is usually used with a high glucose concentration. Here, an immunohistochemical study on human AGE accumulation in vascular beds and peritonea of patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) or those on CAPD was undertaken. Further, the influence of aging was studied using AGE-specific monoclonal antibody.

[A case of pontine hemorrhage presenting with abnormal vertical ocular movements].

A 52-year-old woman was admitted to hospital because of sudden loss of consciousness. Neurological examination on admission revealed a comatose consciousness level, horizontal and upward palsies of both eyes and quadriparesis. The diagnosis of pontine hemorrhage was confirmed based on a brain CT scan, which showed a high density area involving the bilateral pontine tegmentum and right midbrain tegmentum at the inferior collicular level.

Descending necrotizing mediastinitis secondary to a retropharyngeal abscess.

A rare case of descending necrotizing mediastinitis (DNM) secondary to a nontraumatic retropharyngeal abscess is reported. Even in the era of antibiotics, the mortality of DNM is still around 40%. In spite of drainage of a localized neck abscess, and the administration of systemic antibiotics, the retropharyngeal abscess extended to the pericardial and pleural cavities.

IDDM susceptibility associated with polymorphisms in the insulin gene region. A study of blacks, Caucasians and orientals.

Previous studies have suggested an association between polymorphisms in the insulin gene region and insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM). Most of the studies so far have been performed in Caucasoid populations. We have investigated 418 random IDDM patients and 422 healthy control subjects from three different ethnic groups; Tanzanian blacks, Norwegian Caucasians and Japanese orientals.

IgA nephropathy associated with portal hypertension in liver cirrhosis due to non-alcoholic and non-A, non-B, non-C hepatitis.

A 69-year-old female was admitted to our hospital because of leg edema, proteinuria (2.1 g/day), and gross hematuria. She had non-alcoholic liver cirrhosis of unknown etiology.

[A Japanese pedigree with oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy].

We investigated a Japanese pedigree with oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy (OPMD) which included the probands of two sisters and a brother. Case 1 (Fig. 1): A woman born in 1940 at Fuji City, Shizuoka prefecture (Pacific coast side, which located about 80 miles west from Tokyo) was insidiously suffering from dysphagia and eye lid ptosis since her age of 40.

Effect of modifying histidine residues on the action of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens and barley-malt alpha-amylases.

Modification of porcine pancreatic alpha-amylase (PPA) and Taka-amylase A(TAA) with diethyl pyrocarbonate (DEP) causes activation of the release of p-nitrophenol from p-nitrophenol alpha-maltoside (G2PNP), and a decrease in amylase activity (hydrolysis of alpha-1,4 glucosidic bonds in starch). Among the possible sites of modification, attention focuses on three histidine residues present around the active site of alpha-amylases of many different origins. In PPA these are His 101, His 201, and His 299, with His 101 and His 299 being very close to the site of catalysis and thus perhaps directly or indirectly involved in the catalysis.

PCPA reduces both monoaminergic afferents and nonmonoaminergic synapses in the cerebral cortex.

In order to examine the possible trophic, nontransmitter role of monoaminergic fibers in the adult CNS, synaptic structures were examined in different laminae of the somatosensory cortex of the rat following a p-chlorophenylalanine (PCPA)-induced decrease of monoamine. Synaptic densities were reduced in a dose-dependent fashion by 30-50% in the target area of monoamine fibers following four injections of PCPA made over a 1-week period. Although serotonin- and tyrosine hydroxylase-immunopositive profiles were frequently observed in all laminae of the cerebral cortex, only a few such profiles had the morphology of synapses.

[Idiopathic pure sudomotor failure].

We describe three cases of acquired generalized anhidrosis without other autonomic and somatic nervous dysfunctions (idiopathic pure sudomotor failure; IPSF) and a review of the literature was made in regard to the clinical features of this disease. Patient 1. A 17-year-old man was found to be severely anhidrotic and intolerant to heart loading, which produced an immediate sharp pain over the entire body surface in April, 1989.

Cross-resistance to diverse drugs is associated with primary cisplatin resistance in ovarian cancer cell lines.

We have previously obtained, by exposure to near continuous increasing concentrations of cisplatin, a panel of human ovarian cancer cell lines that exhibit a wide range of primary resistance to the drug (9- to > 400-fold). These cells had strikingly increased (4- to 50-fold) levels of glutathione (GSH) as compared with the drug-sensitive cells of origin (A. K.

[Pseudohyperkalemia in myotonic dystrophy].

Serum electrolytes were measured in 14 patients with myotonic dystrophy and 25 healthy controls. The serum level of sodium was 144.8 +/- 3.

Morphologic variations of dense deposit disease: light and electron microscopic, immunohistochemical and clinical findings in 10 patients.

Twenty-one renal biopsy specimens obtained from 10 patients with dense deposit disease (DDD) were investigated using light microscopy, electron microscopy and immunohistochemistry. The patients included four females and six males aged 6 to 35 years (mean 16.1 years).

Suppression of inflammatory responses to 12-O-tetradecanoyl-phorbol-13-acetate and carrageenin by YM-26734, a selective inhibitor of extracellular group II phospholipase A2.

1. YM-26734 [4-(3,5-didodecanoyl-2,4,6-trihydroxyphenyl)-7-hydroxy-2-(4-hydroxyph eny l) chroman] dose-dependently inhibited the activities of extracellular phospholipase A2 (PLA2): rabbit platelet-derived group II and porcine pancreas-derived group I PLA2, with IC50 values of 0.085 (0.

Transformation of rat ovarian epithelial and Rat-1 fibroblast cell lines by RAST24 does not influence cisplatin sensitivity.

Recent reports suggest that expression of an activated c-Ha-ras oncogene is associated with cisplatin resistance in NIH-3T3 fibroblasts. To investigate the generality of these observations, cisplatin cytotoxicity was determined in a series of clonal Rat-1 fibroblast and rat ovarian surface epithelial (ROSE) cell lines carrying a zinc-inducible metallothionein-RAST24 fusion gene, MTRAST24. Cisplatin sensitivity in RAS-transformed fibroblast sublines did not differ from parental controls.

[A case of paraneoplastic autonomic and sensorimotor neuropathy with dysfunction in the afferent limb of baroreflex arc].

A 65-year-old man visited our hospital with complaints of tingling sensation in the distal parts of his extremities and dysuria, which first appeared 2 months before admission. He had no abnormal findings on physical examination. Neurological examination revealed sensory impairment of glove and stocking type, mild motor weakness and muscular atrophy in the proximal parts of arms and legs, and absent tendon reflexes in knees and ankles.

Synaptic loss following removal of serotoninergic fibers in newly hatched and adult chickens.

Neurotransmitters such as serotonin (5HT) may have nontransmitter, trophic-like functions in the developing and adult nervous system. In order to examine this possibility in the avian spinal cord, we have quantified synapse numbers on spinal neurons following treatment with drugs that result in the destruction of 5HT positive axons. Either p-chlorophenylalanine or reserpine was injected into newly hatched or adult chickens.

Indispensable role of tissue-type plasminogen activator in growth factor-dependent tube formation of human microvascular endothelial cells in vitro.

Epidermal growth factor (EGF) stimulates the migration and proliferation of, and tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) synthesis in, human omental microvascular endothelial (HOME) cells in culture, as well as inducing the formation by these cells. In the present study, we examined the effects of various growth factors, i.e.