Interactive effects of hearing aid use and cognitive function in patients with hearing loss.

Background: There has been a significant increase in scientific investigations of the hearing-dementia association among the research on potentially modifiable risk factors for cognitive impairment. We tested two clinical questions. Analysis 1: does persistent hearing aid (HA) use decrease the decline in cognitive function caused by ageing? Analysis 2: does cognitive function at the time of HA fitting predict future persistent HA use?

Methods: This case-control study performed at two referral centres reported data obtained over a 4.

Pharmacokinetics of monoclonal antibodies locally-applied into the middle ear of guinea pigs.

Countless therapeutic antibodies are currently available for the treatment of a broad range of diseases. Some target molecules of therapeutic antibodies are involved in the pathogenesis of sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL), suggesting that SNHL may be a novel target for monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapy. When considering mAb therapy for SNHL, understanding of the pharmacokinetics of mAbs after local application into the middle ear is crucial.

Efficient Bone Conduction Hearing Device With a Novel Piezoelectric Transducer Using Skin as an Electrode.

Objective: Bone conduction hearing aids are the only non-surgical devices used for conductive hearing loss. However, they are impractical for lifelong use since they require close contact of the transducer with the head skin, causing skin erosion and discomfort. Bone conduction hearing implants and active middle ear implants do not present these issues; however, they require surgery and can sometimes cause issues in the skin surrounding the devices.

Efficient production of the rare sugar l-gulose using a wheat-bran culture extract of Penicillium sp. KU-1.

We found that l-gulose, a rare sugar, was produced from d-sorbitol efficiently, using a wheat-bran culture extract of the fungus Penicillium sp. KU-1 isolated from soil. The culture extract showed enzyme activity for the oxidation of d-sorbitol to produce l-gulose; a high production yield of approximately 94% was achieved.

Incidence of alveolar capillary dysplasia with misalignment of pulmonary veins in infants with unexplained severe pulmonary hypertension: The roles of clinical, pathological, and genetic testing.

Background: Alveolar capillary dysplasia with misalignment of pulmonary veins (ACDMPV) is a rare and fatal disorder that occurs in the developing fetal lungs; at birth, infants exhibit an oxygenation disorder accompanied by severe pulmonary hypertension (PH) and have a very short life span. ACDMPV is definitively diagnosed by pathological findings, and infants born with unexplained severe PH may not be properly diagnosed without a biopsy or autopsy.

Methods: Japanese infants with unexplained severe PH were enrolled in this study.