Surveys on the prevalence of pediatric bronchial asthma in Japan: a comparison between the 1982, 1992, and 2002 surveys conducted in the same region using the same methodology.

Background: We conducted and reported the first (1982; 55,388 subjects), and second (1992; 45,674 subjects), epidemiological surveys conducted on bronchial asthma in elementary students across 11 prefectures in western Japan. The 2 surveys were conducted in the same regions using the same methodology employing a modified Japanese version of the American Thoracic Society-Division of Lung Diseases (ATS-DLD) Epidemiology Questionnaire. We conducted the third survey in 2002, and compared the findings to those of previous studies.

Malignancy: Subsequential Alterations of Telomeric DNA Length Correlate with Cytogenetic Response in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Treated with Interferon alpha.

Telomeres consist of simple tandem hexametric (TTAGGG) repeats and progressively shorten with cell replication. To determine a relationship between telomeric erosion and response to treatment, we measured telomere length following treatment in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in the chronic phase. We used 70 samples of bone marrow mononuclear cells obtained from 26 patients with CML in the chronic phase subsequently.