Publications by authors named "Takayuki Imai"

Objective: Hyperactive delirium with agitation following head and neck surgeries with free tissue transfer reconstruction (HNS-FTTR) represents a critical and potentially life-threatening postoperative complication. Although preoperative risk assessment is important, no established risk screening tool has been developed to accurately predict its occurrence.

Methods: In this retrospective observational study, we examined 192 consecutive patients who underwent HNS-FTTR between August 2019 and January 2024.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Lipomas are superficial tumors that occur primarily in the subcutaneous region and very rarely occur deeply within or between the muscle layers. No reports to date have described cervical lipomas in patients with head and neck cancer who underwent neck dissection. We herein report a case involving a 72-year-old woman with supraglottic carcinoma complicated by a cervical lipoma who underwent simultaneous neck dissection and lipoma removal.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - Cholangiocarcinoma is a deadly cancer with few treatment options, and researchers have identified the gene FADS2 as crucial for its tumor growth.
  • - Depleting FADS2 led to reduced tumor growth and cell division, as well as decreased ability of cancer cells to migrate and form spheres, while increasing cell death and markers for ferroptosis.
  • - Analysis showed that when FADS2 was knocked down, levels of triglycerides and cholesterol esters dropped, which lowered energy production and reduced the aggression of cancer cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * A patient with a history of small bowel surgery faced recurrent symptoms 10 years later and was hospitalized, where multiple intestinal strictures were discovered.
  • * Following surgery and a diagnosis of SM, treatment with corticosteroids significantly improved the patient's symptoms, leading to a prolonged remission period.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Cold snare polypectomy (CSP) is widely performed for small colorectal polyps. However, small colorectal polyps sometimes include high-grade adenomas or carcinomas that require endoscopic resection with electrocautery. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of a novel resection technique, hot snare polypectomy with low-power pure-cut current (LPPC-HSP) for small colorectal polyps, compared with CSP and conventional endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

RNAs, such as noncoding RNA, microRNA, and recently mRNA, have been recognized as signal transduction molecules. CD271, also known as nerve growth factor receptor, has a critical role in cancer, although the precise mechanism is still unclear. Here, we show that CD271 mRNA, but not CD271 protein, facilitates spheroid cell proliferation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Endoscopic healing (EH) in ulcerative colitis (UC) is a target for treatment, but many patients experience relapses even after achieving it.
  • A study assessed how recent systemic steroid use affects relapse risk in UC patients with confirmed EH, including 1212 patients over two years.
  • Results showed a significant increase in relapse rates for those who used steroids within the last year (28.8%) compared to those who haven’t used steroids recently (5.6%), indicating that time since steroid use is crucial for assessing relapse risk.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A 70-year-old man was diagnosed with early gastric cancer with ulcerative findings. Endoscopic submucosal dissection as an absolute indication was performed, and en bloc resection was achieved. Pathological examination revealed a well-differentiated adenocarcinoma, 3 × 2 mm in size, intramucosal, with an ulcerative scar, no lymphovascular invasion, and a tumor-free margin.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The association between thiopurine use and testicular reproductive functions remains unclear. In this study, we investigated whether thiopurines affect testicular functions based on the NUDT15 genotypes using Nudt15 knock-in mice.

Methods: The male Nudt15 knock-in mice (9-12 weeks) were treated with mercaptopurine (MP: 0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Bladder cancer is a urothelial cancer and effective therapeutic strategies for its advanced stages are limited. Here, we report that CD271, a neurotrophin receptor, promotes the proliferation and migration of bladder cancer cells. CD271 knockdown decreased proliferation in both adherent and spheroid cultures, and vice versa when CD271 was overexpressed in bladder cancer cell lines.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study aims to determine the effectiveness of perioperative immunonutrition in adult patients undergoing surgery for head and neck or gastrointestinal cancers, focusing on those with or without malnutrition.
  • A review of randomized controlled trials showed that immunonutrition, involving specific nutrients like arginine and omega fatty acids, significantly decreased both total and infectious postoperative complications compared to standard nutritional care.
  • The findings suggest that integrating immunonutrition in the perioperative phase can lead to better clinical outcomes for patients undergoing elective surgery for these types of cancers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: In-stent thrombotic occlusion is a serious ischemic complication that can also result in ischemia in the distal perfusion territory and the territory of side branches for the artery in which the flow diverter (FD) stent is deployed.

Observations: A 49-year-old female with a large paraclinoid internal carotid artery (ICA) aneurysm was treated with an FD involving the orifice of the anterior cerebral artery (ACA). The antiplatelet dose was reduced because of an increased clopidogrel response postintervention.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) pathway is designed to facilitate recovery after surgery by packaging evidence-based protocols specific to each aspect of the perioperative period, including the preoperative, intraoperative, postoperative, and post-discharge periods. The ERAS pathway, which was originally developed for use with colonic resection, is now being expanded to include a variety of surgical procedures, and the ERAS Society has published a consensus review of the ERAS pathway for head and neck surgery with free tissue transfer reconstruction (HNS-FTTR). The ERAS pathway for HNS-FTTR consists of various important protocols, including early postoperative mobilization, early postoperative enteral nutrition, abolition of preoperative fasting, preoperative enteral fluid loading, multimodal pain management, and prevention of postoperative nausea and vomiting.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Pain and post-operative nausea and vomiting are the main factors that impair the quality of recovery after surgery. Very few reports have analyzed patient-reported outcomes to investigate the efficacy of an enhanced recovery after surgery protocol to alleviate these symptoms after head and neck surgeries with free tissue transfer reconstruction.

Methods: We investigated post-operative pain and post-operative nausea and vomiting in 47 patients who underwent head and neck surgeries with free tissue transfer reconstruction with enhanced recovery after surgery support between February 2021 and August 2022.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Thiopurines, such as 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP), are widely used as cytotoxic agents and immunosuppressants for leukemia and autoimmune or inflammatory diseases. A nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphism (p.Arg139Cys; R139C) of the nucleoside diphosphate-linked moiety X-type motif 15 (NUDT15) gene causes the loss of thiopurine detoxification, inducing myelosuppression.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: There is no established methodology for the perioperative management of head and neck cancer surgery and free tissue transfer reconstruction (HNS-FTR). A single dose of corticosteroid administered immediately before surgery has been shown to reduce postoperative pain and nausea/vomiting after some types of surgery. However, the efficacy of this strategy has not been demonstrated in HNS-FTR, and the increased risk of infectious complications associated with its use cannot be ruled out.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: Impacted common bile duct stones cause severe acute cholangitis. However, the early and accurate diagnosis, especially iso-attenuating stone impaction, is still challenging. Therefore, we proposed and validated the bile duct penetrating duodenal wall sign (BPDS), which shows the common bile duct penetrating the duodenal wall on coronal reformatted computed tomography (CT), as a novel sign of stone impaction.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Occurrence of hyperactive postoperative delirium (POD) with agitation after head and neck surgery with free tissue transfer reconstruction (HNS-FTTR) is associated with the risk of life-threatening complications. The relationships between occurrence of hyperactive POD after HNS-FTTR and inflammatory markers reflecting the surgical stress response, represented by postoperative interleukin-6 levels, are not fully understood.

Methods: A retrospective study was conducted on 221 consecutive patients who underwent HNS-FTTR at our department between September 2016 and December 2021.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The outcome of head and neck cancer has improved in recent years but survival is not yet satisfactory. Interleukin (IL)-6 is a representative inflammatory cytokine and inducer of systemic inflammatory response. It is not known whether preoperative serum level of IL-6 is a prognostic factor in head and neck cancer surgery.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The rapid increase in the number of bacteria that are resistant to many commonly used antimicrobial agents and their global spread have become a major problem worldwide. In particular, for periodontal disease, which is a localized infection, there is a growing need for treatment methods that do not primarily involve antimicrobial agents, and antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (aPDT) is attracting attention. In this study, the bactericidal effects of a mid-infrared free electron laser (MIR-FEL) on E.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

CD271 (also referred to as nerve growth factor receptor or p75) is expressed on cancer stem cells in hypopharyngeal cancer (HPC) and regulates cell proliferation. Because elevated expression of CD271 increases cancer malignancy and correlates with poor prognosis, CD271 could be a promising therapeutic target; however, little is known about the induction of CD271 expression and especially its promoter activity. In this study, we screened transcription factors and found that RELA (p65), a subunit of nuclear factor kappaB (NF-κB), is critical for CD271 transcription in cancer cells.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Aim: Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) is diagnosed by using quantitative culture of duodenal aspirates and/or a hydrogen breath test. However, few studies have analyzed bacterial microbiota in Japanese patients with SIBO.

Methods: Twenty-four patients with any abdominal symptoms and suspected SIBO were enrolled.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background/aims: The gut virome is mainly composed of bacteriophages and influences gut homeostasis and pathogenic conditions. In this study, we analyzed the gut prokaryotic virome in Japanese patients with Crohn's disease (CD).

Materials/methods: We collected 19 fecal samples from CD patients and 16 samples from healthy controls.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In the treatment of head and neck cancer, radiation therapy is an effective modality and is often used in routine clinical practice. Although rare, pyogenic spondylitis has been reported as a complication of radiation therapy. Here, we report a case of nasopharyngeal carcinoma resulting in pyogenic spondylitis from a catheter-related bloodstream infection after chemoradiotherapy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF