Publications by authors named "Masataka Kawamoto"

The position of the mental foramen is reported to change with age. This study aimed to examine age-related changes in the position of the mental foramen in men and women. Among 200 cases (age 21-100 years; 400 foramina) that underwent postmortem computed tomography, 109 (age 21-93 years; 218 foramina) with mandibular first and second premolars were examined using image analysis software to classify the position of the mental foramen according to Fishel's classification, and the χ² test was performed.

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Article Synopsis
  • * A fatal case in Japan revealed that a patient with multiple prescriptions, including pregabalin, overdosed; while initial screenings missed pregabalin, further tests confirmed its presence at a dangerous level.
  • * The case highlights the need for Japanese healthcare professionals to recognize the risks of pregabalin overdose and suggests that it should be included in routine drug screenings postmortem to better understand its potential dangers.
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Introduction: Various therapeutic agents are being developed for the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Therefore, it is crucial to accumulate information regarding the features of drug-resistant viruses to these antiviral drugs.

Methods: We investigated the emergence of dual-drug resistance in a kidney transplant recipient who received sotrovimab (from day 0) and remdesivir (RDV) (from day 8 to day 17).

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Identification of unknown cadavers is an important task for forensic scientists. Forensic scientists attempt to identify skeletal remains based on factors including age, sex, and dental treatment remains. Forensic scientists commonly consider skull or pelvic shape to evaluate the sex; however, these evaluations require sufficient experience and knowledge and lack objectivity and reproducibility.

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Human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) is used in clinical medicine as a particularly important indicator to determine pregnancy. In this study, it was necessary to determine whether the urine spots on car seat fabric from a murder 5 years previously were from a pregnant woman. The HCG in the dried urine spot on a car seat was detected using an immunochromatography kit.

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Although age estimation upon death is important in the identification of unknown cadavers for forensic scientists, to the best of our knowledge, no study has examined the utility of deep neural network (DNN) models for age estimation among cadavers. We performed a postmortem computed tomography (CT) examination of 1000 and 500 male and female cadavers, respectively. These CT slices were converted into 3-dimensional images, and only the thoracolumbar region was extracted.

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Estimation of the age at death is an important task for forensic scientists. Although the correlation between age and bone mineral density is already known, including for cadavers, to our knowledge, there are no published studies on age estimation with quantitative computed tomography. Quantitative computed tomography can be used to measure bone mineral density based on the mean computed tomography value of the cancellous bone.

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Autopsy was performed on a COVID-19 patient, who suddenly died despite the extensive anti-viral and anti-inflammatory therapies. Although moderate subpleural fibrosis was seen, pathology of DAD, a well-known cause for pulmonary failure, was minimum. Instead, severe hemorrhage was observed.

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The maintenance of oral health contributes to the overall health of an individual. Similar to the Adult Dental Health Survey in the UK, the Survey of Dental Diseases (SDD) is being conducted in Japan. However, our routine oral examination of autopsy cases showed that the oral cavities of the autopsied bodies were unhealthy as compared to the SDD data.

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