Machine learning is considered a potential aid to support human decision making in disease prediction. In this study, we determined the utility of various machine learning algorithms in classifying peripheral vestibular (PV) and non-PV diseases based on the results of equilibrium function tests. A total of 1009 patients who had undergone our standardized neuro-otological examinations were recruited.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA 57-year-old Japanese man on peritoneal dialysis developed peritoneal dialysis-associated peritonitis caused by Rhodococcus corynebacterioides. After the introduction of peritoneal dialysis, he had experienced four episodes of peritonitis, but the causative organism was not identified in any of episode. When he was hospitalized for the fifth episode of peritonitis, Rhodococcus corynebacterioides was detected in the ascitic fluid.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Middle ear pressure therapy (MEPT) is effective for intractable vertigo in patients with definite Meniere's disease (MD) and treatment-refractory delayed endolymphatic hydrops (DEH). Four-month MEPT with the EFET01, an MEPT device developed in Japan and covered by national health insurance since September 2018, has shown efficacy. However, efficacy and safety after 12 months of treatment, which is appropriate for determining the therapeutic effect of MEPT devices, is unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Middle ear pressure therapy (MEPT) is effective in treating intractable vertigo in patients with definite Meniere's disease (MD) and delayed endolymphatic hydrops (DEH) refractory to conservative treatment. A novel middle ear pressure device, the EFET01, which requires no transtympanic ventilation tubes, was developed in Japan, approved by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, and has been used under Japanese national health insurance since September 2018.
Objectives: To examine short-term therapeutic effect of MEPT using the ETET01 compared with previous clinical trial results.
Background: A 12-month follow-up study showed that middle ear pressure treatment with a transtympanic membrane massage (TMM) device had a similar effect to a Meniett device.
Objectives: The effects of pressure treatment with a TMM device were retrospectively compared to the effects of treatment with a Meniett device in patients with Meniere's disease (MD) and delayed endolymphatic hydrops (DEH) who were followed for a minimum of 24 months.
Materials And Methods: Twenty-seven patients were treated with the TMM device and 14 patients were treated with a Meniett device.
A 68-year-old male with gastric cancer was treated with tegafur/gimeracil/oteracil and oxaliplatin for 6 months. Thereafter, he was treated with paclitaxel and ramucirumab for 3 months. However, neither regimen had much effect.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSensory conflict among visual, vestibular, and somatosensory information induces vertiginous sensation and postural instability. To elucidate the cognitive mechanisms of the integration between the visual and vestibular cues in humans, we analyzed the cortical hemodynamic responses during sensory conflict between visual and horizontal rotatory vestibular stimulation using a multichannel near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) system. The subjects sat on a rotatory chair that was accelerated at 3°/s for 20 s to the right or left, kept rotating at 60°/s for 80 s, and then decelerated at 3°/s for 20 s.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA 48-year-old man was admitted to our department with generalized convulsive seizures followed by recurrent partial clonic convulsions in the left face and arm. Convulsions stopped temporarily after administration of diazepam, fosphenytoin, and levetiracetam. However, frequent partial seizures occurred repeatedly and general anesthesia was required to control seizures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe experienced therapy-related acute myeloid leukemia (t-AML) in a patient with extensive disease-small cell lung cancer (ED-SCLC). This case is rare and has educational message because ED-SCLC has a poor prognosis and often cannot survive until developing therapy related hematological malignancy. Furthermore this case had unique chromosomal abnormalities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCell morphology is recognized as an important hallmark of neural cells. During the differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) into neural cells, cell morphology changes dynamically. Therefore, characterization of the morphology of cells during this period is important to improve our understanding of the differentiation and development of neural cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA 62 year-old man, who was taking prednisolone for nephrotic syndrome, was diagnosed with herpes zoster of the trigeminal nerve and treated with oral valacyclovir. One month later, he reported pain from the right side of the head and vomiting. MRI revealed an acute infarction in the right frontal lobe and dissection of the internal carotid artery of the right cervix.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent clinical studies have identified olfactory dysfunction in patients with neuropsychiatric disorders. Although these studies showed differences in olfactory function between healthy individuals and neuropsychiatric patients, no studies have compared the differences in olfactory function among neuropsychiatric disorders. The aim of the present study was to investigate olfactory function among various neuropsychiatric disorders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Ophthalmol
October 2015
Background: Fingolimod is the first oral agent used for treatment of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. Macular edema, but not retinal hemorrhage, is a well-known adverse effect of fingolimod treatment. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case report of extensive retinal hemorrhages following fingolimod treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFKDEL receptors are responsible for retrotransporting endoplasmic reticulum (ER) chaperones from the Golgi complex to the ER. Here we describe a role for KDEL receptor 1 (KDELR1) that involves the regulation of integrated stress responses (ISR) in T cells. Designing and using an N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea (ENU)-mutant mouse line, T-Red (naïve T-cell reduced), we show that a point mutation in KDELR1 is responsible for the reduction in the number of naïve T cells in this model owing to an increase in ISR.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEarly detection and treatment are of vital importance to the successful eradication of various cancers, and development of economical and non-invasive novel cancer screening systems is critical. Previous reports using canine scent detection demonstrated the existence of cancer-specific odours. However, it is difficult to introduce canine scent recognition into clinical practice because of the need to maintain accuracy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, in which loss-of-function mutants and RNA interference (RNAi) models are available, is a model organism useful for analyzing effects of genes on various life phenomena, including behavior. In particular, RNAi is a powerful tool that enables time- or cell-specific knockdown via heat shock-inducible RNAi or cell-specific RNAi. However, conventional RNAi is insufficient for investigating pleiotropic genes with various sites of action and life stage-dependent functions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNippon Ganka Gakkai Zasshi
November 2013
Purpose: Aquired transsynaptic retrograde degeneration of the human visual system can be identified using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and optical coherence tomography (OCT), which can reveal optic tract atrophy, retinal nerve fiber layer loss, and ganglion cell complex (GCC) thinning. We investigated GCC changes in the first 4 years following post-geniculate lesions.
Methods: Nine patients with congruous homonymous hemianopia were scanned with OCT.
The dorsal and ventral parts of the lateral prefrontal cortex have been thought to play distinct roles in decision making. Although its dorsal part such as the frontal eye field (FEF) is shown to play roles in accumulation of sensory information during perceptual decision making, the role of the ventral prefrontal cortex (PFv) is not well-documented. Previous studies have suggested that the PFv is involved in selective attention to the task-relevant information and is associated with accuracy of the behavioral performance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDokai Bay in Kitakyushu, Japan, is polluted with complex mixtures of micro-pollutants originating from the extensive industry and urbanization. In order to evaluate effects of these micro-pollutants on benthic organisms in this almost completely enclosed bay, we screened for the occurrence of approximately 900 organic chemicals and heavy metals, and in addition quantified the density and biomass of benthic animals. For the chemical analysis, we used a newly developed comprehensive analytical method using an automated identification and quantification system with a GC-MS database.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP-4) inhibition is suitable mechanism for once daily oral dosing regimen because of its low risk of hypoglycemia. We explored linked bicyclic heteroarylpiperazines substituted at the γ-position of the proline structure in the course of the investigation of l-prolylthiazolidines. The efforts led to the discovery of a highly potent, selective, long-lasting and orally active DPP-4 inhibitor, 3-[(2S,4S)-4-[4-(3-methyl-1-phenyl-1H-pyrazol-5-yl)piperazin-1-yl]pyrrolidin-2-ylcarbonyl]thiazolidine (8 g), which has a unique structure characterized by five consecutive rings.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFZinc (Zn) is an essential trace metal required by many enzymes and transcription factors for their activity or the maintenance of their structure. Zn has a variety of effects in the immune responses and inflammation, although it has not been well known how Zn affects these reactions on the molecular basis. We here showed that Zn suppresses T(h)17-mediated autoimmune diseases at lest in part by inhibiting the development of T(h)17 cells via attenuating STAT3 activation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: It would be extremely useful if the location of the sentinel lymph node in breast cancer could be identified based on body surface landmarks. However, the identification of the sentinel node location by using surface landmarks in many reports is based on empirical methodologies.
Methods: We studied the distribution of the sentinel node location in 70 breast cancer patients based on the lateral line of the major pectoral muscle, the axillary skin fold that divides the trunk and the upper arm, and the nipple of the breast.
IL-17-producing Th (Th17) comprise a distinct lineage of pro-inflammatory Th that are major contributors to autoimmune diseases. Treatment with IL-6 and transforming growth factor beta (TGFbeta) induces naive CD4+ T cells to generate Th17, which also requires expression of the IL-6/TGFbeta target RORgammat. We reported that IL-6 transduces two signaling pathways via tyrosine redidues of the signal transducer gp130: one depends on signal transducers and activators of transcription (STAT)-3 activation and the other on Src homology region 2 domain-containing phosphatase 2 (SHP2)/Grb2 associated binder (Gab)/mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) activation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPatients with Omenn syndrome (OS) have hypomorphic RAG mutations and develop varying manifestations of severe combined immunodeficiency. It is not known which symptoms are caused directly by the RAG mutations and which depend on other polymorphic genes. Our current understanding of OS is limited by the lack of an animal model.
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