Bone marrow ring sideroblasts in hematological diseases: an analysis of consecutive 1300 samples in a single institution.

The incidence of MDS-RS in Japan has been recognized as about 5% which is lower than that in European countries. Insufficient use of iron staining tests in Japan has been noted as one conceivable factor contributing to this apparently lower prevalence. To investigate this issue, we analyzed the proportion of ring sideroblasts (RS) in 1300 bone marrow samples from patients with hematological diseases at Kitasato University Hospital, including iron staining of all samples.

The clinical outcomes of chronic myeloid leukemia patients harboring alternatively spliced BCR-ABL variants.

Objectives and importance: Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are indispensable for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). However, alternative splicing variants have been recently proposed as mechanisms of TKI resistance, although the clinical significance of these mutations remains controversial. We here present the long-term clinical courses of three CML patients harboring such unique mutations and try to assess their clinical significances.

Arteriolar Hyalinosis Predicts Increase in Albuminuria and GFR Decline in Normo- and Microalbuminuric Japanese Patients With Type 2 Diabetes.

Objective: This study investigated the association between renal histology, as assessed by morphometric analysis using light (LM) and electron (EM) microscopy, and changes in urinary albumin excretion (UAE) and glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in Japanese people with type 2 diabetes in the early stages of diabetic nephropathy.

Research Design And Methods: We performed percutaneous renal biopsies in 29 patients with type 2 diabetes (22 men, mean ± SD age 49 ± 10 years and GFR 119 ± 27 mL/min/1.73 m, with 15 normoalbuminuric [UAE <20 μg/min] and 14 microalbuminuric [UAE 20-200 μg/min]) to clarify which histological factors were associated with changes in UAE and GFR during 8.