Publications by authors named "Naoko Kobayashi"

Background: We aimed to examine the effectiveness of a nurse-led, screening-triggered early specialized palliative care intervention program for patients with advanced lung cancer.

Methods: Patients with advanced lung cancer who underwent initial chemotherapy were randomized to intervention and usual care groups between January 2017 and September 2019. The intervention comprised comprehensive needs assessments, counseling, and service coordination by advanced-level nurses.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The pursuit of molecules capable of binding to wood lignin is pivotal for advancing lignin degradation technology, particularly when combined with lignin degradation catalysts. In this study, synthetic polymers bearing histidine moieties, demonstrating remarkable affinity for wood lignin are reported. These polymers, featuring varying degrees of histidine substitution in the form of histidine methyl esters, are synthesized through controlled radical polymerization of an activated ester-bearing monomer, employing a fluorescein-labeled chain transfer agent and subsequent postpolymerization amidation with histidine methyl ester.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The safety and efficacy of hemoglobin vesicles (HbVs) as artificial oxygen carriers encapsulating a purified and concentrated Hb solution in liposomes have been studied extensively. The HbV surface, modified with PEG by incorporating a PEG-conjugated phospholipid, is beneficial for storage and biocompatibility. However, it might be possible that interaction of PEG and the pre-existing anti-PEG antibody in the bloodstream causes acute adverse reaction.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Interprofessional collaboration in the community is becoming essential in primary care, particularly collaboration between public health nurses and general practitioners. However, the precise value of such collaboration has not been sufficiently studied. The purpose of this study was to conduct a qualitative analysis of collaboration between general practitioners and public health nurses in the community to explore the details of the phenomenon and its possible impact on the community.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Gabapentinoids are specific ligands for the αδ-1 subunit of voltage-gated calcium channels. This class of drugs, including gabapentin and pregabalin, exert various pharmacological effects and are widely used for the treatment of epilepsy, anxiety, and chronic pain. The mechanism of action of gabapentinoids involves both direct modulation of calcium channel kinetics and inhibition of channel trafficking and expression, which contribute to the above pharmacological effects.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Strategies to implement early specialized palliative care have not yet been established. The present study investigated the feasibility of a nurse-led, screening-triggered early specialized palliative care intervention programme and obtained data to design a randomized controlled trial.

Methods: Patients with metastatic lung cancer undergoing first-line platinum-based chemotherapy were eligible.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Clinical situations arise in which blood for transfusion becomes scarce or unavailable. Considerable demand for a transfusion alternative persists because of various difficulties posed by blood donation and transfusion systems. Hemoglobin-vesicles (Hb- V) are artificial oxygen carriers being developed for use as a transfusion alternative.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: In the home medical care setting, the factors causing emergency home visits (EHV) remain unclear. This study aimed to determine those factors and examine their relationship with EHV requests.

Methods: This is a single-center retrospective observational study from data obtained from a home medical care clinic.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: It has been suggested that palliative care integrated into standard cancer treatment from the early phase of the disease can improve the quality of life of patients with cancer. In this paper, we present the protocol for a multicentre randomised controlled trial to examine the effectiveness of a nurse-led, screening-triggered, early specialised palliative care intervention programme for patients with advanced lung cancer.

Methods And Analysis: A total of 206 patients will be randomised (1:1) to the intervention group or the control group (usual care).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: The use of high-dose per fraction radiotherapy delivered as stereotactic body radiotherapy is a standard of care for prostate cancer. It is hypothesized that high-dose radiotherapy may enhance or suppress tumor-reactive immunity. The objective of this study was to assess both antitumor and immunosuppressive effects induced by high-dose radiotherapy in prostate cancer coclinical models, and ultimately, to test whether a combination of radiotherapy with targeted immunotherapy can enhance antitumor immunity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: Sleep duration is known to affect physiological and circadian metabolites and human homeostasis. However, little is known about the relationship between sleep quality and metabolite and cognitive function during exercise. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the impact of sleep quality on metabolite level and cognitive function in female volleyball athletes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The alkyne aza-Prins cyclization of 3,5-diynyl amides and various aldehydes was developed using TfOH with/without (Me2AlO)2SO2. This method, which could be applied to homopropargyl amides, provides TfO-substituted pyrrolidines with E-selectivities and exclusive regioselectivities. This work represents a first example of the aza-Prins cyclization with the introduction of TfO groups.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: A great challenge in the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer is distinguishing between indolent or local disease and aggressive or metastatic disease. Antibody-based positron emission tomography (immuno-PET) as a cancer-specific imaging modality could improve diagnosis of primary disease, aid the detection of metastases to regional lymph nodes as well as to distant sites (e.g.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Inadequate diagnostic methods for prostate cancer lead to over- and undertreatment, and the inability to intraoperatively visualize positive margins may limit the success of surgical resection. Prostate cancer visualization could be improved by combining the complementary modalities of immuno-positron emission tomography (immunoPET) for preoperative disease detection, and fluorescence imaging-guided surgery (FIGS) for real-time intraoperative tumor margin identification. Here, we report on the evaluation of dual-labeled humanized anti-prostate stem cell antigen (PSCA) cys-minibody (A11 cMb) for immunoPET/fluorescence imaging in subcutaneous and orthotopic prostate cancer models.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: The inability to intraoperatively distinguish primary tumor, as well as lymphatic spread, increases the probability of positive surgical margins, tumor recurrence, and surgical toxicity. The goal of this study was to develop a tumor-specific optical probe for real-time fluorescence-guided surgery.

Experimental Design: A humanized antibody fragment against PSCA (A11 minibody, A11 Mb) was conjugated with a near-infrared fluorophore, IRDye800CW.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Previously, we have demonstrated the potential of plasma 2-hydroxyglutarate (2HG) as an easily detectable biomarker for skeletal muscle injury in rats. Here, we examined whether plasma 2HG was superior to conventional skeletal muscle damage biomarkers, including aspartate aminotransferase (AST), creatine kinase (CK), and skeletal muscle-type CK isoenzyme (CK-MM) levels, in rats. Skeletal muscle injury was induced in 4- or 9-week-old male Fischer 344 rats by cerivastatin (CER) or tetramethyl-p-phenylenediamine (TMPD) administration.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Pancreatic cancer has a high mortality rate due to late diagnosis and the tendency to invade surrounding tissues and metastasize at an early stage. A molecular imaging agent that enables both presurgery antigen-specific PET (immuno-PET) and intraoperative near-infrared fluorescence (NIRF) guidance might benefit diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, staging, and surgical resection, which remains the only curative treatment. We developed a dual-labeled probe based on A2 cys-diabody (A2cDb) targeting the cell-surface prostate stem cell antigen (PSCA), which is expressed in most pancreatic cancers.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) for lithium is recommended in guidelines; however, the prevalence of TDM for lithium is seldom reported. We have therefore investigated the prevalence of TDM for lithium and evaluated the impact of the regulatory warnings requiring routine TDM for lithium.

Methods: Monthly claims data covering around 1.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Molecular iodine catalyzes a cyclization of N-aryl-2-alkynylanilines, which proceeds through the iodocyclization of 2-alkynylanilines followed by the protodeiodination of the iodocyclized intermediates at room temperature. Furthermore, the molecular iodine catalysis can be applied to the cascade cyclization of 2-(enynyl)aniline and to the tandem cyclization-addition reaction of 2-alkynylanilines with α,β-enones.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

To identify new candidate biomarkers for skeletal muscle toxicity, an unbiased metabolomic analysis was performed in rats treated with two distinct myotoxicants, cerivastatin (CER) and tetramethyl-p-phenylenediamine (TMPD). Skeletal muscle toxicity was induced in male Fischer 344 rats by administering CER or TMPD and monitored using established endpoints, such as increased plasma creatine kinase (CK) activity and histopathology, and a metabolomic analysis of skeletal muscle and plasma samples. Plasma CK levels in CER-treated rats were markedly elevated at Day 11; however, those in TMPD-treated rats showed a statistically significant decrease at 24 hr after dosing.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study analyzed different Chlorella species for their biomass and lipid production capabilities through various culture conditions.
  • The strains C. sorokiniana UTEX 1230, C. vulgaris UTEX 395, and UTEX 259 were tested under vigorous aeration with filtered atmospheric air and a controlled 3% CO2 environment.
  • Results showed that UTEX 1230 had double the biomass in both conditions, while UTEX 395 and 259 thrived even more under 3% CO2, increasing their biomass and triacylglycerol content significantly, highlighting the importance of extra CO2 for lipid accumulation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

While photosynthetic microalgae, such as Chlorella, serve as feedstocks for nutritional oils and biofuels, heterotrophic cultivation can augment growth rates, support high cell densities, and increase triacylglycerol (TAG) lipid content. However, these species differ significantly in their photoautotrophic and heterotrophic characteristics. In this study, the phylogeny of thirty Chlorella strains was determined in order to inform bioprospecting efforts and detailed physiological assessment of three species.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Chlorella sorokiniana CS-01, UTEX 1230 and UTEX 2714 were maintained in 10% anaerobic digester effluent (ADE) from cattle manure digestion and compared with algal cultivation in Bold's Basal Medium (BBM). Biomass of CS-01 and UTEX 1230 in ADE produced similar or greater than 280mg/L after 21days in BBM, however, UTEX 2714 growth in ADE was suppressed by more than 50% demonstrating a significant species bias to synthetic compared to organic waste-based media. The highest accumulation of protein and starch was exhibited in UTEX 1230 in ADE yielding 34% and 23% ash free dry weight (AFDW), respectively, though fatty acid methyl ester total lipid measured less than 12% AFDW.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF