Familial Mediterranean fever with sigmoid colon stricture.

We describe a case of familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) with sigmoid colon stricture. The patient, a woman in her 30 s, had a 12-year history of ileocolitis-type Crohn's disease. The colonoscope could not pass because of the sigmoid colon stricture, and the patient was referred to our hospital with complaints of abdominal pain and fever.

Application of plasma alternative to serum for measuring leucine-rich α2-glycoprotein as a biomarker of inflammatory bowel disease.

Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic intestinal disorder characterized by recurrent flare-ups and remission. Leucine-rich α2-glycoprotein (LRG) has been developed as a new serum biomarker of disease activity in patients with IBD. However, there have been no reports on whether plasma LRG can be used as an alternative to serum LRG.

Visibility of early gastric cancers by texture and color enhancement imaging using a high-definition ultrathin transnasal endoscope.

We evaluated whether texture and color enhancement imaging (TXI) using a high-definition ultrathin transnasal endoscope (UTE) improves the visibility of early gastric cancer (EGC) compared with white-light imaging (WLI). This study included 31 EGCs observed by TXI mode 2 using a high-definition UTE prior to endoscopic submucosal dissection. The first outcome was to compare the color differences based on Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage L*a*b* color space between EGCs and the surrounding mucosa by WLI and TXI using the UTE (objective appearance of EGC).

Involvement of cochlin binding to sulfated heparan sulfate/heparin in the pathophysiology of autosomal dominant late-onset hearing loss (DFNA9).

Late-onset non-syndromic autosomal dominant hearing loss 9 (DFNA9) is a hearing impairment caused by mutations in the coagulation factor C homology gene (COCH). COCH encodes for cochlin, a major component of the cochlear extracellular matrix. Though biochemical and genetic studies have characterized the properties of wild-type and mutated cochlins derived from DFNA9, little is known about the underlying pathogenic mechanism.