Area of Residual Tumor Measurement After Preoperative Chemotherapy as an Objective and Quantitative Method for Predicting the Prognosis of Gastric Cancer: A Single-Center Retrospective Study.

Background: Pathological regression grade after chemotherapy evaluated by surgically resected specimens is closely related with prognosis. Since usefulness of measuring the area of the residual tumor (ART) has been reported, this study aimed to evaluate the utility of ART in predicting the prognosis of patients with gastric cancer (GC) who received preoperative chemotherapy.

Methods: This single-center retrospective study examined the relationship between ART and survival outcomes.

Novel desensitization therapy of mesalamine intolerance in patients with ulcerative colitis.

Background: Mesalamine is the first-line drug for treating mild-to-moderate ulcerative colitis (UC); however, some patients develop symptoms of intolerance. Although several desensitization methods have been reported, these desensitization regimens were rather complicated for physicians to prescribe in daily clinical practice; therefore, it has not yet become a major therapeutic option for intolerance patients. Thus, we developed an alternative desensitization protocol.

Subcutaneous adipose tissue radiodensity as a predictor of poor prognosis in advanced biliary tract cancer.

Background: High subcutaneous adipose tissue radiodensity (SATr), an indirect surrogate marker of adipose tissue quality, was associated with poor prognosis in various cancers. The present study aimed to assess the association of SATr with survival outcomes in patients with advanced biliary tract cancer (BTC).

Methods: This retrospective, single-center study included patients with unresectable or recurrent BTC who underwent chemotherapy/chemoradiotherapy.

Risk Factors and Prognostic Effects of Aspergillosis as a Complication of Nontuberculous Mycobacterial Pulmonary Disease: A Nested Case-Control Study.

Objective: The global prevalence of nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease (NTM-PD) has been steadily increasing. A few small retrospective studies have reported a poor prognosis associated with chronic pulmonary aspergillosis (CPA) as a complication of NTM-PD. Furthermore, the prognostic impact of CPA may have been inadequately assessed due to differences in background factors.

Successful granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor inhalation therapy for recurrent autoimmune pulmonary alveolar proteinosis after lung transplantation: A case report.

Sargramostim, a recombinant human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) inhalation therapy, was recently approved for pharmaceutical use in Japan and shows promise as a treatment for autoimmune pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (APAP). For APAP patients with severe respiratory failure due to advanced lung fibrosis, lung transplantation is also a treatment option; however, APAP may recur after the procedure. Here, we report a case of successful sargramostim inhalation therapy for post-transplant APAP relapse in a patient who underwent living lung transplantation owing to severe fibrosis.

A Case of Peritoneal Dialysis-Related Peritonitis Caused by Kocuria rhizophila.

A 63-year-old woman undergoing peritoneal dialysis (PD) presented to our hospital with abdominal pain, diarrhea, and cloudy PD effluent. An elevated white blood cell count in the PD effluent led to a diagnosis of PD-associated peritonitis. She was subsequently started on intraperitoneal cefazolin and ceftazidime, after which her condition improved rapidly.

Impact of Janus kinase inhibitors and methotrexate on interstitial lung disease in rheumatoid arthritis patients.

Objectives: Little is known about how various treatments impact the progression of interstitial lung disease (ILD) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. Here, we compared ILD progression in RA patients treated with Janus kinase inhibitors (JAKi) or biological disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (bDMARDs). experiments were also performed to evaluate the potential effects of the drugs on epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), a key event in pulmonary fibrosis.

Antifungal Treatment for Japanese Patients with Chronic Pulmonary Aspergillosis.

Introduction: Despite the ongoing efforts to refine treatment durations and methods for patients with chronic pulmonary aspergillosis, the clinical use of antifungal agents remains unclear. This study aimed to describe the treatment practices, trajectories, and prognoses of newly diagnosed patients with chronic pulmonary aspergillosis.

Methods: Data from a longitudinal database from hospitals in Japan was used.

A Case of Peritoneal Dialysis-Related Peritonitis Due to Moraxella osloensis.

A 46-year-old woman on peritoneal dialysis (PD) had cloudy peritoneal dialysis effluent that had persisted for 10 days by the time she visited our hospital. The white blood cell count in the effluent was elevated to 1500/μL, leading to a diagnosis of peritoneal dialysis-associated peritonitis. The effluent cleared within two days with treatment using cefazolin and ceftazidime, and the white blood cell count dropped to 0/μL by day 6.

Impact of Underdosing of Direct Oral Anticoagulants on Clinical Outcomes in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation Undergoing Percutaneous Coronary Intervention.

Background: Underdoses of direct oral anticoagulants (DOAC) are sometimes prescribed due to bleeding risk concerns in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). We investigated the prevalence of DOAC underdosing and its impact on clinical outcomes in AF patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

Methods And Results: This multicenter observational cohort study enrolled patients with AF on DOAC undergoing PCI between January 2015 and March 2021 at 15 institutions across Japan.

Deep learning detected histological differences between invasive and non-invasive areas of early esophageal cancer.

The depth of invasion plays a critical role in predicting the prognosis of early esophageal cancer, but the reasons behind invasion and the changes occurring in invasive areas are still not well understood. This study aimed to explore the morphological differences between invasive and non-invasive areas in early esophageal cancer specimens that have undergone endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD), using artificial intelligence (AI) to shed light on the underlying mechanisms. In this study, data from 75 patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) were analyzed and endoscopic assessments were conducted to determine submucosal (SM) invasion.

Immune complexome analysis reveals an autoimmune signature predictive of COVID-19 severity.

Background: The factors contributing to the development of severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) following infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) remain unclear. Although the presence of immune complexes (ICs), formed between antibodies and their antigens, has been linked to COVID-19 severity, their role requires further investigation, and the antigens within these ICs are yet to be characterized.

Method: Here, a C1q enzyme-liked immunosorbent assay and immune complexome analysis were used to determine IC concentrations and characterize IC antigens, respectively, in the sera of 64 unvaccinated COVID-19 patients with PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, enrolled at seven participating centers in 2020.

Deep generative abnormal lesion emphasization validated by nine radiologists and 1000 chest X-rays with lung nodules.

A general-purpose method of emphasizing abnormal lesions in chest radiographs, named EGGPALE (Extrapolative, Generative and General-Purpose Abnormal Lesion Emphasizer), is presented. The proposed EGGPALE method is composed of a flow-based generative model and L-infinity-distance-based extrapolation in a latent space. The flow-based model is trained using only normal chest radiographs, and an invertible mapping function from the image space to the latent space is determined.

Serum IL-6 concentration is a useful biomarker to predict the efficacy of atezolizumab plus bevacizumab in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.

Background: This study aims to identify biomarkers for treatment response of atezolizumab plus bevacizumab (Atezo+Bev) in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Methods: 96 patients who received Atezo+Bev or lenvatinib as a first-line systemic therapy were enrolled as the training group after propensity score matching (PSM), and 42 patients treated with Atezo+Bev were enrolled as the validation group. 17 serum cytokines were measured by Luminex multiplex assay at the start of treatment.

Pyloric Atresia in a Neonate With Epidermolysis Bullosa: A Case Report.

When surgery is performed in patients with EB, risks of blisters and epidermal detachment are always present. The Heineke-Mikulicz pyloroplasty cannot always be performed because of anatomical constraints. In such cases, it is necessary to select a more time-consuming surgical procedure (i.

Establishment of a novel benign meningioma cell line spontaneously immortalized under hypoxic conditions.

Meningiomas are the most frequent brain tumors, typically benign and curable by surgery. However, some patients experience repeated recurrences from residual tumors. To address such cases, the development of novel therapeutic options is crucial.

Association of proteinuria with improved prognosis in unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma treated with atezolizumab and bevacizumab, and the predictive role of serum vascular endothelial growth factor D levels: A multicenter retrospective study.

Aim: Atezolizumab/bevacizumab is a first-line therapy for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Among several adverse events, grade ≥2 proteinuria is considered a significant adverse event that may cause bevacizumab interruption. Studies have shown that proteinuria might predict improved prognosis, although data are scarce and the association remains controversial, and the mechanisms and predictive factors remain unclear.

Linked color imaging and upper gastrointestinal neoplasia.

White light imaging (WLI) can sometimes miss early upper gastrointestinal (UGI) neoplasms, particularly minimal changes and flat lesions. Moreover, endoscopic diagnosis of UGI neoplasia is strongly influenced by the condition of the surrounding mucosa. Recently, image-enhanced endoscopy techniques have been developed and used in clinical practice; one of which is linked color imaging (LCI), which has an expanded color range for better recognition of slight differences in mucosal color and enables easy diagnosis and differentiation of noncancerous mucosa from carcinoma.

The dual effect of fiber density and matrix stiffness on A549 tumor multicellular migration.

The tumor microenvironment features dynamic biomechanical interactions between extracellular matrix physics and tumor progression. Tumor growth compresses the supportive matrix, and the stiffness-gradient guides tumor invasion. From the mechanical perspective, the complexity of the matrix topology involving durotaxis-driven metastasis remains lacking in a comprehensive description.

Endothelial-derived nitric oxide impacts vascular smooth muscle cell phenotypes under high wall shear stress condition.

The Phenotypic states of vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) are essential to understanding vascular pathophysiology. SMCs in vessels generally express a specific set of contractile proteins, but decreased contractile protein expression, indicating a phenotypic shift, is a hallmark of vascular diseases. Recent studies have suggested the relation of abnormally high wall shear stress (WSS) of approximately 20 Pa with the aortic disease pathogenesis.

NETosis in pulmonary pleomorphic carcinoma.

Pulmonary pleomorphic carcinoma (PC) is a rare non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) with a poor prognosis, characterized by tumor necrosis (TN). NETosis is a form of neutrophil-specific cell death, which is morphologically characterized by prominent neutrophil infiltration and cell detritus in the necrotic foci. Seventy-six patients with pulmonary PC who underwent complete resection were enrolled.

High neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio at eradication increases the risk of eradication failure and post-eradication gastric cancer.

Introduction: Vonoprazan has been known to have a high () eradication rate since its launch in 2015. Yet, the risk factors for eradication failure and development of post-eradication gastric cancer (GC) using VPZ regimen remain unclear.

Methods: This single-center cohort study included 934 consecutive patients who underwent eradication using VPZ between February 2015 and June 2017 and were followed up for five years by the end of 2022.