Comparison of postoperative morbidity in elderly patients who underwent pancreatic resection.

Background/aims: Operative indications for pancreatectomy in elderly patients with pancreatic disease remain controversial. We examined clinicopathological characteristics and early outcomes in each generation of 147 patients who underwent pancreatectomy.

Methodology: Patients were divided into four groups: Group 1 (n=15, 10%), young patients <50 years old; Group 2 (n=65; 44%), patients at 50- 69 years old; Group 3 (n=61, 42%), patients at 70-79 years old and Group 4 (n=6, 4%), elderly patients >80 years old.

Indiscriminable sounds determine the direction of visual motion.

On cross-modal interactions, top-down controls such as attention and explicit identification of cross-modal inputs were assumed to play crucial roles for the optimization. Here we show the establishment of cross-modal associations without such top-down controls. The onsets of two circles producing apparent motion perception were accompanied by indiscriminable sounds consisting of six identical and one unique sound frequencies.

Diagnosis of small-bowel metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma by double-balloon enteroscopy.

Introduction: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major cause of cancer-related deaths around the world. Nearly half of patients with HCC display metastatic disease at the time of initial diagnosis, frequently involving the liver, bone, brain, lungs, and adrenal glands, but gastrointestinal involvement is rare. Melena occurring secondary to a metastatic tumor from HCC is particularly rare.

Distal pancreatectomy with en bloc celiac resection for locally advanced pancreas carcinoma.

In locally advanced pancreatic body cancers, cancer infiltrates major vessels such as the celiac axis, common hepatic artery and superior mesenteric artery or vein, which is the borderline of resectability. Patients also suffer severe abdominal pain. Kondo and Hirano et al.

Evaluation of surgical resection for pancreatic carcinoma at a Japanese single cancer institute.

Background/aims: Surgical resection is a radical treatment option for pancreatic carcinoma (PC); however, it is still difficult to cure and patient prognosis is poor at this stage.

Methodology: We examined the demographics, surgical records and outcome in 64 patients with hilar PC undergoing surgical resection.

Results: Pancreatoduodenectomy (PD) was carried out in 48 patients, distal pancreatectomy (DP) in 14 and total pancreatectomy in two.

Usefulness of omental wrapping to prevent biliary leakage and delayed gastric emptying in left hepatectomy.

Background/aims: To identify the clinical significance of the omental wrapping (OW) technique after left hepatectomy to reduce bile leakage and delayed gastric emptying. We examined clinical and surgical parameters after left hepatectomy with or without biliary reconstruction in 79 patients.

Methodology: This was a retrospective study of data from 14 patients undergoing OW compared to 65 patients in the control group.

Cardiovascular protective effects of on-line hemodiafiltration: comparison with conventional hemodialysis.

Atherosclerotic complications have a significant effect on mortality in patients undergoing hemodialysis (HD) therapy. However, anti-atherosclerotic and cardioprotective effects of on-line hemodiafiltration (HDF) remain to be elucidated. We prospectively compared the anti-atherosclerotic and cardioprotective effects in two randomly divided groups, i.

Suppression of electrical synapses between retinal amacrine cells of goldfish by intracellular cyclic-AMP.

Retinal amacrine cells of the same class in cyprinid fish are homotypically connected by gap junctions. The permeability of their gap junctions examined by the diffusion of Neurobiotin into neighboring amacrine cells under application of dopamine or cyclic nucleotides to elucidate whether electrical synapses between the cells are regulated by internal messengers. Neurobiotin injected intracellularly into amacrine cells in isolated retinas of goldfish, and passage currents through the electrical synapses investigated by dual whole-patch clamp recordings under similar application of their ligands.

Portal vein anastomosis with parachute method in hepatectomy and pancreatectomy.

In advanced cancers of hepatobiliary and pancreatic lesions, major vascular resection and reconstruction are necessary to accomplish curative resection. Stenosis of vascular anastomosis is a concern in case of portal or superior mesenteric venous anastomosis with different vascular calibers. We attempted to apply parachute anastomosis in such a situation, which has often been used in the field of cardiovascular surgery.

Sounds can alter the perceived direction of a moving visual object.

Auditory temporal or semantic information often modulates visual motion events. However, the effects of auditory spatial information on visual motion perception were reported to be absent or of smaller size at perceptual level. This could be caused by a superiority of vision over hearing in reliability of motion information.

Sound can enhance the suppression of visual target detection in apparent motion trajectory.

Detection performance is impaired for a visual target presented in an apparent motion (AM) trajectory, and this AM interference weakens when orientation information is inconsistent between the target and AM stimuli. These indicate that the target is perceptually suppressed by internal object representations of AM stimuli established along the AM trajectory. Here, we showed that transient sounds presented together with AM stimuli could enhance the magnitude of AM interference.

Effect of second language exposure on brain activity for language processing among preschoolers.

We investigated brain activity in 3-5-year-old preschoolers as they listened to connected speech stimuli in Japanese (first language), English (second language), and Chinese (a rarely exposed, foreign language) using near-infrared spectroscopy. Unlike the younger preschoolers who had been exposed to English for almost 1 year, brain activity in the bilateral frontal regions of the older preschoolers who had been exposed to English for almost 2 years was higher for Japanese and English speech stimuli than for Chinese. This tendency seemed to be similar to that observed in adults who had learned English for some years.

Experience of surgical resection for hilar cholangiocarcinomas at a Japanese single cancer institute.

Background/aims: Surgical resection is a radical treatment option for hilar bile duct carcinoma (HBDC); however, it is still difficult to cure and postoperative morbidity is high at this stage.

Methodology: We examined the demographics, surgical records and outcome in 38 patients with hilar cholangiocarcinoma undergoing operation.

Results: Five patients (13%) underwent probe laparotomy because of peritoneal dissemination or liver metastasis.

Effect of plasma lipids, hypertension and APOE genotype on cognitive decline.

We examined the combined effect of plasma lipids/hypertension and apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype on cognitive function in elderly individuals. Plasma concentrations of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), APOE, and history of hypertension were evaluated in 622 community-dwelling individuals aged 65 years and older. We investigated the associations between plasma lipids/hypertension and cognitive function in apolipoprotein E4 allele (APOE4) carrier (E4+) and APOE4 noncarrier (E4-) groups using 3-year longitudinal data.

An adult patient with acute infection with hepatitis B virus genotype C that progressed to chronic infection.

In 2008, a 28-year-old woman consulted our hospital due to general fatigue. Her ALT level was within normal range but she was positive for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). Her ALT level was nearly within normal range thereafter and she was consistently positive for HBeAg.

Perioperative non-tumorous factors associated with survival in HCC patients who underwent hepatectomy.

Aim: To clarify perioperative factors associated with poor survival following hepatectomy.

Patients And Methods: Clinical parameters and stress score, including surgical stress score (SSS) and comprehensive risk score (CRS) were examined from 183 hepatocellular carcinoma patients who underwent hepatectomy.

Results: Factors associated with tumor relapse were increased blood loss/weight, uncontrolled ascites and grade B liver damage (p<0.

Recent trends of Japanese hepatocellular carcinoma due to HCV in aging society.

Background/aims: The mean age of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients has increased (=65 years old). We want to identify the recent trend of the clinical features of HCC patients due to hepatitis C virus (HCV) (HCV-HCC).

Methodology: From 2000 to 2009, 855 naive HCC patients were admitted.

Interweaving microRNAs and proinflammatory cytokines in gastric mucosa with reference to H. pylori infection.

Using endoscopic biopsies, gastric mucosal expression levels of interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, IL-8, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) messenger RNA (mRNA) and microRNAs (miRNAs) that were differentially expressed in association with Helicobacter pylori were assessed by quantitative reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. Among the H. pylori-positive mucosa, 17 out of 29 miRNAs had significant correlations with at least one of the four proinflammatory cytokines in expression.

Sequence analysis of porcine kobuvirus VP1 region detected in pigs in Japan and Thailand.

Porcine kobuvirus is a new candidate species of the genus Kobuvirus in the family Picornaviridae, and information is still limited. The identification of porcine kobuvirus has been performed by the sequence analyses of the 3D region of the viruses. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to characterize the molecular properties of VP1 nucleotide sequences of the porcine kobuviruses isolated from porcine stool samples in Japan during 2009 and Thailand between 2006 and 2008.

Removal of 17 cytokines, HMGB1, and albumin by continuous hemofiltration using a cellulose triacetate membrane: an ex vivo study.

Background: Hemofiltration is often used to treat critically ill patients with renal failure and septic shock. Although hemofiltration has been reported to remove humoral mediators such as cytokines, most studies have investigated the removal of only limited kinds of cytokines. Here, we assessed the removal of 17 cytokines, HMGB1, and albumin by continuous hemofiltration (CHF) with a cellulose triacetate membrane (2.

Abdominal imaging findings of a patient with hepatocellular carcinoma associated with glycogen storage disease type 1a.

A hepatic tumor was found in a 57-year-old man with glycogen storage disease type 1a (GSD1a) with a mutation in exon 5 of the glucose-6-phosphatase gene (G727T). Partial hepatectomy was performed, and the tumor was histologically diagnosed as moderately differentiated hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). On contrast-enhanced ultrasonography, the tumor had a late phase defect.

Role of major histocompatibility complex class II in the development of autoimmune type 1 diabetes and thyroiditis in rats.

Although the MHC class II 'u' haplotype is strongly associated with type 1 diabetes (T1D) in rats, the role of MHC class II in the development of tissue-specific autoimmune diseases including T1D and autoimmune thyroiditis remains unclear. To clarify this, we produced a congenic strain carrying MHC class II 'a' and 'u' haplotypes on the Komeda diabetes-prone (KDP) genetic background. The u/u homozygous animals developed T1D similar to the original KDP rat; a/u heterozygous animals did develop T1D but with delayed onset and low frequency.

Inhibition of target detection in apparent motion trajectory.

Letter discrimination performance is degraded when a letter is presented within an apparent motion (AM) trajectory of a spot. This finding suggests that the internal representation of AM stimuli can perceptually interact with other stimuli. In this study, we demonstrated that AM interference could also occur for pattern detection.

Effect of hemopurification rate on doripenem pharmacokinetics in critically ill patients receiving high-flow continuous hemodiafiltration.

  Hemopurification is an effective therapy for acute kidney injury, defined as creatinine clearance less than 30 ml/min, which occurs frequently in the intensive care unit. These critically ill patients often have severe infectious complications and are thus often treated with antibiotics. However, the effect of hemopurification on the pharmacokinetics of antibiotics is not well understood.

A novel mechanism in maggot debridement therapy: protease in excretion/secretion promotes hepatocyte growth factor production.

Maggot debridement therapy (MDT) is effective for treating intractable wounds, but its precise molecular mechanism, including the association between MDT and growth factors, remains unknown. We administered MDT to nine patients (66.3 ± 11.