Publications by authors named "Toru Kawai"

Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the effectiveness of 0-second versus 30-second balloon dilation times in improving patency rates for hemodialysis patients who undergo PTA for failed arteriovenous fistulas.
  • Results showed that the 3-month patency rate was significantly better for patients in the 30-second dilation group, while no significant differences were found in the 6-month rates.
  • The findings suggest that longer dilation time may lead to improved short-term outcomes after PTA, but the benefits do not carry over to the long-term patency rates at 6 months.
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Humoral and cellular responses are critical in understanding immune responses to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccination. Here, we evaluated these responses in hemodialysis (HD) patients after the booster vaccination. SARS-CoV-2 immunoglobulin (IgG) levels, neutralizing antibody titers, and the T-SPOT.

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Background: Dialysis patients are predisposed to severe disease and have a high mortality rate in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) due to their comorbidities and immunocompromised conditions. Therefore, dialysis patients should be prioritized for vaccination. This study aimed to examine how long the effects of the vaccine are maintained and what factors affect antibody titers.

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Background: Patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) who receive dialysis therapy develop more severe disease and have a poorer prognosis than patients who do not. Although various data on the treatment of patients not receiving dialysis therapy have been reported, clinical practice for patients on dialysis is challenging as data is limited. The Infection Control Committee of the Japanese Society for Dialysis Therapy decided to clarify the status of treatment in COVID-19 patients on dialysis.

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Systemic inflammatory response markers, including neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio and monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio, are useful prognostic factors for various malignant tumours. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical relevance of these markers in primary cutaneous angiosarcoma. Twenty-six patients were retrospectively divided into 2 groups according to pretreatment peri-pheral blood cell counts or systemic inflammatory response marker levels; overall survival and progression-free survival were compared.

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Background: The objective of this multicenter, prospective observational study was to determine the factors related to patency rates after construction of vascular access (VA) and the first percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA).

Methods: The 24-month primary and secondary patency rates after construction of a radiocephalic arteriovenous fistula (RC-AVF) and arteriovenous graft (AVG) were evaluated using the Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test. The 12-month post-PTA patency rate was also investigated.

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Importance: Patients with chronic kidney disease have impaired vitamin D activation and elevated cardiovascular risk. Observational studies in patients treated with hemodialysis showed that the use of active vitamin D sterols was associated with lower risk of all-cause mortality, regardless of parathyroid hormone levels.

Objective: To determine whether vitamin D receptor activators reduce cardiovascular events and mortality in patients without secondary hyperparathyroidism undergoing hemodialysis.

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Recent evidence on maintenance administration of epoetin beta pegol, a continuous erythropoiesis receptor activator (CERA), in dialysis patients shows the clinical benefit of bi-weekly administration (Q2W) in improving hematopoiesis and iron use efficiency. We undertook a single-center observational study of 33 Japanese maintenance dialysis patients, whose anemia had been kept stable through weekly administration (Q1W) of darbepoetin (DA), to evaluate the effectiveness of CERA Q2W switched from DA in maintaining hemoglobin (Hb) levels over a 12-month period. The target Hb level was 10.

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Purpose: This study was performed to investigate the effect of the balloon dilation pressure on the 12-month patency rate in patients with failed arteriovenous fistulas undergoing hemodialysis.

Materials And Methods: In this multicenter, prospective, randomized trial, the 4-mm-diameter YOROI balloon was used for dilation of stenotic lesions. The balloons were inflated to a pressure of 8 atm (low-pressure group) or 30 atm to achieve complete expansion (high-pressure group).

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We attempted the isolation of variant infectious bursal disease (IBD) viruses by using sentinel chickens immunized with inactivated classical-type IBD vaccine. Immunized sentinel chickens with high levels of neutralizing antibodies and non-immunized sentinel chickens were raised together with broiler chickens in a commercial farm. Severe atrophy of the bursa of Fabricius was observed from the second week after cohabitation in non-immunized sentinel chickens.

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Laparoscopic surgery for the treatment of a ruptured visceral artery aneurysm is recognized as a challenging procedure. Here, we describe our experience with laparoscopic surgery to treat a ruptured aneurysm of the right gastric artery. A 72-year-old woman was diagnosed with intra-abdominal hemorrhage caused by a ruptured aneurysm of the right gastric artery.

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Background: Combination therapy of aliskiren and an angiotensin II receptor blocker (ARB) has been reported to be effective for reducing the level of proteinuria. However, it remains unclear whether this combination therapy contributes to suppression of kidney disease progression. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of aliskiren on hard renal endpoints, when added to an ARB, in patients with advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD).

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Objective: Although lipid disorders are a well-known risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the general population, the optimal management with lipid-lowering therapy to reduce CVD risks and mortality in hemodialysis (HD) patients remains controversial. In the clinical setting, dyslipidemia can be diagnosed based on the detection of elevated lipid concentrations at the beginning of HD. This study investigated changes in the levels of serum lipids during a single HD session.

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Marine mammals in the past mass mortality events may have been susceptible to infection because their immune systems were suppressed through the bioaccumulation of environmental pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). We compiled mortality event data sets of 33 marine mammal species, and employed a Finely-Advanced Transboundary Environmental model (FATE) to model the exposure of the global fish community to PCB congeners, in order to define critical exposure levels (CELs) of PCBs above which mass mortality events are likely to occur. Our modelling approach enabled us to describe the mass mortality events in the context of exposure of higher-trophic consumers to PCBs and to identify marine pollution 'hotspots' such as the Mediterranean Sea and north-western European coasts.

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We propose a new metric for long-range transport potential (LRTP), GIF, based on source-receptor analyses and evaluate the LRTP and persistence of a wide variety of chlorinated and brominated organic compounds using GIF and overall persistence (POV), respectively. We calculated GIF and POV using our global 3D dynamic multimedia model (FATE). Physicochemical properties were obtained from quantitative structure-property relationship (QSPR) models.

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