The clinical characteristics of vitamin D deficiency in childhood: a systematic literature review of Japanese patients.

To describe the characteristics of children with vitamin D deficiency, we reviewed the reports of vitamin D deficiency among Japanese children that were published between 1989 and 2008. We identified 25 patients with vitamin D deficiency in 9 published studies and evaluated their clinical characteristics together with those of 3 patients we recently treated. The patients were distributed in two distinct age groups at diagnosis: < 1 year old and > or = 1 year old.

Recent changes in the trends of seasonal influenza outbreaks in the Nagano Prefectural area of Japan: an oseltamivir effect?

We carried out a study to assess the pharmacological role of oseltamivir in the regulation of influenza epidemics in Japan, examining data for the years 1998 to 2006 from Nagano Prefecture. Oseltamivir is effective for the treatment of influenza, and its use in Japan has increased in the 3 years from 2003 to 2006. We found that, in the Nagano Prefectural area, the peak in the number of influenza infections showed a deviation to later periods after the 2003 season.

Thalidomide for treatment of intestinal involvement of juvenile-onset Behçet disease.

Background: Thalidomide has been identified and its anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties clarified. This report expands our report of 2 entero-Behçet disease children who developed significant steroid toxicity and improved dramatically with thalidomide.

Methods: We studied the effects of thalidomide in 7 juvenile-onset patients with severe, recurrent intestinal involvement of Behçet disease.

Simultaneous onset of type 1 diabetes in monozygotic twins younger than 1 year.

This report describes type 1 insulin deficient diabetes mellitus (IDDM) arising in identical twins aged under one year. One twin presented with symptoms and was diagnosed with type 1 IDDM; the diagnosis of type 1 IDDM was simultaneously made in the second twin without clinical symptoms. Both twins were positive for anti-GAD (glutamic acid decarboxylase) antibody at first, and then positive for islet cell antibodies.