Publications by authors named "Machiko Shimakawa"

Objectives: Behçet's disease (BD) is a systemic inflammatory disorder polarised to the Th1 and Th17 immune systems. Allergic diseases are polarised to the Th2 immune system. The aim of the present study is to investigate the prevalence of allergic diseases in patients who have BD.

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We report a rare case of chronic refractory uveitis in a patient with childhood-onset cyclic neutropenia (CN). A 19-year-old woman, who had a history of CN beginning at age 2, presented with bilateral chronic nongranulomatous uveitis, complicated cataract, retinal vasculitis, cystoids macular edema, and vitreous hemorrhage. She had recurrent episodes of oral ulcers, tonsillitis, genital ulcers, and folliculitis during neutropenic nadir.

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Objective: Behçet's disease (BD) with uveoretinitis is a chronic refractory disease accompanied by ocular attacks. As the decrease in visual acuity due to ocular attack is seriously life-threatening, development of a new drug is anticipated. Since tumor necrosis factor-a (TNF-a) is involved in the symptoms of BD, particularly the activity of ocular symptoms, suppression of TNF-a might be effective in treating BD with uveoretinitis.

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Abstract To investigate the role of plasma adrenomedullin (AM) in the pathogenesis of Behçet's disease (BD) patients with inactive ocular complications or ocular attack, 18 consecutive BD patients with ocular complications, including 1 BD patient with ocular attack, another group of 6 BD patients with ocular attack, and 10 normal volunteers were evaluated. All BD patients were regularly followed at ophthalmic outpatient clinics. Levels of both total and mature AM in plasma were measured by immunoradiometric assay.

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