[Conducting disaster assistance drills for patients who receive a home ventilator care].

Individual assistance plan in the event of disaster has been formulated for neurodegenerative disease patients who wear a ventilator. This study was conducted for evacuation drills by simulating an actual disaster. Disaster assistance drills were conducted with the participation of relevant parties like home care service providers and local community association; the drills were sought to make sure that patients could be transported safely.

[Our attempt to disaster response for patients receiving home ventilator care].

An improvement of support system for patients who need assistance in the event of a disaster is crucial. Evacuation support plan (individual plan) has recently begun to include patients with intractable disease, and specific guidelines are being drafted to establish a support plan for patients with intractable disease in the event of disaster. Here, we report our attempt to a disaster response for patients receiving home ventilator care.

An adult case of hand, foot, and mouth disease caused by enterovirus 71 accompanied by opsoclonus myoclonica.

We reported a 23-year-old female who was treated for rash due to hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD). On day 4 of hospitalization, the patient showed opsoclonus (jerky eye movements in all directions), myoclonus of the neck, trunk, and extremities, and cerebellar ataxia. Based on the changes in serum viral antibody titer, the patient was diagnosed as enterovirus 71 infection.

[Case of Marfan's syndrome with anterior sacral meningocele along with recurring bacterial meningitis].

We reported a 46-year-old woman with Marfan's syndrome exhibiting an incomplete Currarino triad and recurrent bacterial meningitis which recurred three times in about six months. An anterior sacral meningocele (ASM) was noted in a lumbar MRI, and multiple bone defects in the sacrum were noted in 3D-CT. Surgical approach to prevent the recurrence of infection was limited to plasty for the meningocele, but no meningitis has been observed for two years.

Analysis of the polymorphic structure of the D7S808-short tandem repeat (STR) locus.

We analyzed the polymorphic structure of the short tandem repeat (STR) (AARG) locus D7S808 by DNA sequencing and examined the D7S808 allele distribution in a Japanese population. The sequence analysis confirmed that this locus consists of repeats of the tetranucleotides cttt and cctt, but that the number of repeats of the cctt motif does not vary with the allele, and that this STR polymorphism is due to variation in the number of cttt repeats alone. Although the results in this study suggest that the numbers of repeats range from 7 (allele 7) to 22 (allele 22), alleles 9, 10, 19, and 21 were not observed in the Japanese samples examined.

Analysis of the polymorphic structure of short tandem repeats locus D18S555.

We analyzed the polymorphic structure of the short tandem repeats (STR) (RRGG) locus D18S555 by DNA sequencing, and examined the distribution of alleles in DNA samples from Japanese and Chinese individuals. DNA sequence analysis showed that the alleles at this locus consisted of deletions or insertions of (gaaagaaagaat), (ggaa), (ggaaggaaggag), (ggaaggagggaaggaaggag), (gggaggaa), and (ggga) 5, with each allele having its own DNA sequence. Analysis of 200 unrelated Japanese and 169 unrelated Chinese subjects identified 11 alleles, of which alleles 4, 6, and 13 occurred with a high frequency.

[Aseptic meningitis as a complication caused by an allergic reaction after microvascular decompression: two case reports].

We report here two cases of patients complicated with aseptic meningitis after microvascular decompression (MVD). The first case, a 56-year-old female complained of headache with high fever 18 days after the MVD for right trigeminal neuralgia. The amount of cells in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) had so much increased that bacterial meningitis was suspected.