Publications by authors named "Kaoru Hirokawa"
Objective: To investigate the clinical significance of anti-TS1-RNA antibodies in patients with mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD).
Methods: Anti-TS1-RNA antibodies were detected by immunoprecipitation using 32P-UTP labeled TS1-RNA as the antigen source. In total, 104 patients with MCTD, 30 with Sjögren's syndrome, 30 with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), 25 with systemic sclerosis, 23 with polymyositis or dermatomyositis, and 10 with rheumatoid arthritis were examined.
The effect of AST-120 and dilazep dihydrochloride on serum creatinine levels and urinary protein excretion was assessed in patients with chronic renal failure. We found that both drugs in combination provide an additive renoprotective effect over each drug in some chronic renal failure patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To define a novel RNA epitope recognized by serum from a patient with Sjögren's syndrome (SS) from a randomized RNA epitope library and investigate the epitope reactivity of the anti-RNA antibodies in patients with various connective tissue diseases.
Methods: Serum from a patient with SS was used to select ligands from a library of RNA oligomers with a central region of 25 degenerate nucleotides. Bound RNA was recovered by reverse transcription, PCR amplification, and subcloning.
Background: We previously reported urinary podocytes to be a marker of glomerular injury. The aim of the present study was to determine whether cerivastatin, a newly developed, potent synthetic statin, affects proteinuria and urinary podocyte excretion in patients with chronic glomerulonephritis (CGN).
Methods: We randomly assigned 40 normotensive hypercholesterolemic patients with CGN to receive either cerivastatin 0.