Patient-reported difficulty in activities of daily living and corresponding muscle weakness in elderly patients undergoing haemodialysis.

Aim: Patients undergoing haemodialysis have reduced muscle strength and impaired activities of daily living (ADL). We examined possible relationship between difficult ADL and corresponding muscle weakness in elderly haemodialysis patients.

Methods: This was a single-centre, cross-sectional study.

Quantitative analysis of isolated and clustered DNA damage induced by gamma-rays, carbon ion beams, and iron ion beams.

Ionizing radiation induces multiple damaged sites (clustered damage) together with isolated lesions in DNA. Clustered damage consists of closely spaced lesions within a few helical turns of DNA and is considered to be crucial for understanding the biological consequences of ionizing radiation. In the present study, two types of DNA, supercoiled plasmid DNA and linear lambda DNA, were irradiated with gamma-rays, carbon ion beams, and iron ion beams, and the spectra and yield of isolated DNA damage and bistranded clustered DNA damage were fully analyzed.

Analysis of complex DNA lesions generated by heavy ion beams.

Ionizing radiation induces clustered DNA damage, which contains localized multiple lesions in duplex DNA molecules. It has been thought that due to complex nature, clustered DNA damage is refractory to repair or associated with error-prone repair and results in severe biological endpoints as compared to sparsely-distributed lesions. High linear energy transfer (LET) radiations such as heavy ion beams exert a greater relative biological effect (RBE) than low LET radiations such as X- and gamma-rays.

Analysis of DNA damage generated by high-energy particles.

Ionizing radiation generates isolated and localized multiple (i.e., clustered) lesions in DNA, and the latter is believed to be primarily responsible for deleterious biological consequences such as cell killing and mutations.