Publications by authors named "Mizuma K"

Introduction: School refusal is one of the serious problems with children's mental health, and various studies have examined its prevalence and factors among students. Although many studies suggested that anxiety and depression are deeply associated with school refusal, there is little agreement as to effective interventions. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of mindfulness yoga intervention in children with school refusal.

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Lassa virus (LASV) is an Old World (OW) mammarenavirus that causes Lassa fever, a life-threatening acute febrile disease endemic in West Africa. Lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) is a worldwide-distributed, prototypic OW mammarenavirus of clinical significance that has been largely neglected as a human pathogen. No licensed OW mammarenavirus vaccines are available, and the current therapeutic option is limited to the off-label use of ribavirin, which offers only partial efficacy.

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Intercurrent events and estimands play a key role in defining the treatment effects of interest precisely. Sometimes the median or other quantiles of outcomes in a principal stratum according to potential occurrence of intercurrent events are of interest in randomized clinical trials. Naïve analyses such as those based on the observed occurrence of the intercurrent events lead to biased results.

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Article Synopsis
  • A new variant of SARS-CoV-2, called EG.5.1, is spreading rapidly and has been studied using various scientific methods to understand its features.
  • Key mutations in EG.5.1, specifically S:F456L and ORF9b:I5T, enhance its viral fitness compared to other variants like XBB.1.5.
  • Structural differences were found in the spike proteins of EG.5.1 versus XBB.1.5, and the research helps us understand the evolution of emerging viruses that can affect human health.
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Article Synopsis
  • The emergence of a new Variant of Interest, XBB.1.5, is linked to mutations from the pre-existing variant XBB.1, specifically an S486P spike mutation and a nonsense mutation in ORF8.
  • Phylogenetic analysis indicates that XBB.1.5 maintains similar immune escape abilities compared to XBB.1, and structural studies reveal that the spike proteins of both variants are largely similar.
  • Research involving hamsters shows that the ORF8 nonsense mutation in XBB.1.5 reduces MHC suppression and results in lower virulence in this variant compared to XBB.1.
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Article Synopsis
  • In late 2023, the SARS-CoV-2 BA.2.86 variant emerged alongside the dominant XBB descendants like EG.5.1, distinguishing itself with over 30 mutations in its spike protein.
  • Modeling showed BA.2.86 has a higher reproduction number compared to EG.5.1, suggesting it spreads more easily.
  • Despite its increased spread, BA.2.86 demonstrated lower pathogenicity and replication capacity in hamsters, indicating it may be less severe, while remaining sensitive to four existing antiviral treatments.
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Objective: Previous studies have used selective recall and descriptive dietary record methods, requiring considerable effort for assessing food and water intake. This study created a simplified lifestyle questionnaire to predict habitual water intake (SQW), accurately and quickly assessing the habitual water intake. We also evaluated the validity using descriptive dietary records as a cross-sectional study.

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Introduction: Solid and sensitive infectious disease surveillance systems need to be developed and implemented to prevent and control epidemics. Although statutory national infectious disease surveillance systems have been developed in many countries, some challenges remain, such as their limited timeliness, representativeness, and sensitivity, as well as the fact that they cannot capture all local outbreaks that occur in small communities. To overcome these limitations, local community-based infectious disease surveillance systems that meet local needs and can operate with constrained resources need to be developed, especially in remote and rural low-resource areas.

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Background: Heterozygous KCNQ2 variants cause benign familial neonatal seizures and early-onset epileptic encephalopathy in an autosomal dominant manner; the latter is called KCNQ2 encephalopathy. No case of KCNQ2 encephalopathy with arthrogryposis multiplex congenita has been reported. Furthermore, early-onset scoliosis and opisthotonus have not been documented as characteristics of KCNQ2 encephalopathy.

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The mammarenavirus Lassa virus (LASV) causes a life-threatening acute febrile disease, Lassa fever (LF). To date, no US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-licensed medical countermeasures against LASV are available. This underscores the need for the development of novel anti-LASV drugs.

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Background: School refusal occurs in about 1-2% of young people. Anxiety and depression are considered to be the most common emotional difficulties for children who do not attend school. However, at present, no definitive treatment has been established for school refusal, although interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy have been used.

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Microbubble testing using transcranial Doppler (TCD) is an important screening tool for diagnosing paradoxical cerebral embolism with high-risk PFO. However, little is known about the association between the microbubble test by TCD and the features of high-risk PFO evaluated by transesophageal echocardiography (TEE). We studied 101 consecutive patients at Showa University, from April 2019 to October 2020, who underwent both TCD and TEE with a sufficient Valsalva maneuver and who were strongly suspected by neurologists as cryptogenic stroke.

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Background: The purpose of this study was to develop an objective, content-valid, and reliable assessment method for Kampo medicine using an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) for the assessment of clinical competence in Kampo medicine.

Methods: We developed a blueprint followed by a list of 47 assessment items and three task scenarios related to clinical competence in Kampo medicine. An eight-member test committee checked the relevance of the assessment items on a Likert scale.

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Platypnea-orthodeoxia syndrome (POS) is a rare condition wherein the magnitude of the interatrial shunt changes between the sitting and supine positions. We diagnosed POS in a case initially considered to be of embolic stroke of undetermined source and performed emergency foramen ovale closure as definitive management for the patient. In this case, additional risk factors for POS include spinal deformity, meandering of the aorta, and exclusion of the right atrium due to overextension.

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The increasing burden of tick-borne orthonairovirus infections, such as Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, is becoming a global concern for public health. In the present study, we identify a novel orthonairovirus, designated Yezo virus (YEZV), from two patients showing acute febrile illness with thrombocytopenia and leukopenia after tick bite in Hokkaido, Japan, in 2019 and 2020, respectively. YEZV is phylogenetically grouped with Sulina virus detected in Ixodes ricinus ticks in Romania.

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This study aimed to estimate the water intake of Japanese people from food moisture. For this purpose, we described a water conversion factor for cooking (WCFC) that focuses on how cooking changes the water content of complete dishes and not food ingredients, and investigated methods for calculating the water content of cooked dishes. In this study, we utilized 129 dishes commonly consumed by Japanese people.

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Background: Mutations in GNAO1 typically result in neurodevelopmental disorders, including involuntary movements. They may be improved using calcium-channel modulators.

Case: The patient visited our hospital at age 2 years because of moderate global developmental delay.

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Comprehensive discharge planning provided by interprofessional collaboration is critical for discharging patients from hospitals to home. For effective interprofessional discharge planning, the evaluation that clarifies the differences in assessment viewpoints between various healthcare professionals is needed. This study aimed to clarify the assessment viewpoints of multiple healthcare professional groups when discharging patients from a long-term care hospital (LTCH) to home.

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The recent emergence of novel tick-borne RNA viruses has complicated the epidemiological landscape of tick-borne infectious diseases, posing a significant challenge to public health systems that seek to counteract tick-borne diseases. The identification of two novel tick-borne phleboviruses (TBPVs), severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV) and Heartland virus (HRTV), as causative agents of severe illness in humans has accelerated the investigation and discoveries of novel TBPVs. In the present study, we isolated a novel TBPV designated Mukawa virus (MKWV) from host-questing females captured in Japan.

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With our aging society, more people hope for a long and healthy life. In recent years, researchers have focused on healthy longevity factors. In particular, calorie restriction delays aging, reduces mortality, and extends life.

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A 48-year-old woman with no previous neurological diseases was transferred to our hospital because of sudden-onset unconsciousness. On arrival, she showed consciousness disturbance (E1V1M3 on the Glasgow Coma Scale), tetraplegia, right conjugate deviation and bilateral pathological reflexes. These symptoms resulted in a NIH stroke scale score of 32.

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We report the case of a 7-month-old boy who developed hypofibrinogenemia (66.6 mg/dL; reference value, 170-405 mg/dL) during adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) therapy for infantile spasms. Although the patient showed no clinical signs of a bleeding diathesis, we recommend that plasma fibrinogen levels should be monitored during ACTH therapy, which should be discontinued when fibrinogen levels fall below hemostatic levels (60.

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