Publications by authors named "Naoaki Ichihara"

Article Synopsis
  • Selective sinus replacement can be a good choice for patients needing one or two sinuses of Valsalva replaced due to conditions like acute aortic dissection, especially when there's a high bleeding risk.
  • Six patients (mostly older males) had successful selective replacements of the right sinus of Valsalva, with all surviving the surgeries and no need for re-exploration due to bleeding.
  • Long-term follow-up showed that most patients remained asymptomatic, though some experienced varying degrees of aortic regurgitation, indicating the need for further studies with more patients to validate these findings.
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Aim: A comprehensive description of morbidity and mortality risk factors for post liver transplant has not been available to date. In this study, we established real-time risk models of postoperative morbidities and mortality in liver transplant recipients using two Japanese nationwide databases.

Methods: Data from two Japanese nationwide databases were combined and used for this study.

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Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) alters dose-effect relationship not only of drugs eliminated by the kidney but also of some drugs metabolized by the liver and not renally excreted. It is not known whether impaired renal function alters dose-effect relationship of warfarin in Asian patients. It is also unknown whether the maintenance dose of warfarin can be predicted more accurately by incorporating renal function in Asians.

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Background: In the 'Millennium Genome Project', we identified ATP2B1 as a gene responsible for hypertension through single-nucleotide polymorphism analysis. The ATP2B1 gene encodes the plasma membrane calcium ATPase isoform 1, which contributes to the maintenance of intracellular calcium homeostasis by removing calcium ions.

Method: Since ATP2B1 knockout mice are reported to be embryo-lethal, we generated systemic heterozygous ATP2B1 null (ATP2B1(+/-)) mice, and evaluated the implication of ATP2B1 in blood pressure.

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We reported previously that ATP2B1 was one of the genes for hypertension receptivity in a large-scale Japanese population, which has been replicated recently in Europeans and Koreans. ATP2B1 encodes the plasma membrane calcium ATPase isoform 1, which plays a critical role in intracellular calcium homeostasis. In addition, it is suggested that ATP2B1 plays a major role in vascular smooth muscle contraction.

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We cloned a novel molecule interacting with angiotensin II type 1 receptor, which we named ATRAP (for angiotensin II type 1 receptor-associated protein). Previous in vitro studies showed that ATRAP significantly promotes constitutive internalization of the angiotensin II type 1 receptor and further attenuates angiotensin II-mediated hypertrophic responses in cardiomyocytes. The present study was designed to investigate the putative functional role of ATRAP in cardiac hypertrophy by angiotensin II infusion in vivo.

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An 87-year-old man had been treated under a diagnosis of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy and sick sinus syndrome since 1996. His heart failure was worsened by atrial fibrillation in August 2004. He received amiodarone from October 2004.

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