Effects of Statin Intensity on Long-term Outcomes After Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting.

Background: The current study sought to investigate the association between statin intensity and long-term clinical outcomes according to initial clinical presentation after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG).

Methods: The 6531 patients who underwent CABG included in this study were classified into 4 groups according to statin intensity: 731 in the no or low statin group (atorvastatin <10 mg), 2310 in the lower-moderate group (atorvastatin 10-mg equivalent), 2404 in the higher-moderate group (atorvastatin 20-mg equivalent), and 1086 in the high-intensity group (atorvastatin ≥ 40-mg equivalent). The primary endpoint was major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCE) at 5 years.

Long-term Outcomes of Clopidogrel Monotherapy versus Prolonged Dual Antiplatelet Therapy beyond 12 Months after Percutaneous Coronary Intervention in High-risk Patients.

Background: There are no data on comparison between clopidogrel monotherapy and prolonged dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) in patients at high-risk undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

Methods: Of 2,082 consecutive patients undergoing PCI using second-generation drug-eluting stent (DES), we studied 637 patients at high-risk either angiographically or clinically who received clopidogrel longer than 24 months and were event-free at 12 months after index PCI. Patients were divided into 2 groups: the clopidogrel monotherapy group and the prolonged DAPT group.

Differential effects of dual antiplatelet therapy in patients presented with acute coronary syndrome vs. stable ischaemic heart disease after coronary artery bypass grafting.

Aims: The current study sought to evaluate whether long-term clinical outcomes according to the use of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) or single antiplatelet therapy (SAPT) differed between acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and stable ischaemic heart disease (SIHD) patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting surgery (CABG).

Methods And Results: Between January 2001 and December 2017, 3199 patients with ACS (55.3%) and 2583 with SIHD (44.

Application of deep learning to the diagnosis of cervical lymph node metastasis from thyroid cancer with CT: external validation and clinical utility for resident training.

Purpose: This study aimed to validate a deep learning model's diagnostic performance in using computed tomography (CT) to diagnose cervical lymph node metastasis (LNM) from thyroid cancer in a large clinical cohort and to evaluate the model's clinical utility for resident training.

Methods: The performance of eight deep learning models was validated using 3838 axial CT images from 698 consecutive patients with thyroid cancer who underwent preoperative CT imaging between January and August 2018 (3606 and 232 images from benign and malignant lymph nodes, respectively). Six trainees viewed the same patient images (n = 242), and their diagnostic performance and confidence level (5-point scale) were assessed before and after computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) was included.

Multivariate analyses of MRI findings for predicting osteomyelitis of the foot in diabetic patients.

Background: There have been no previous magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies using multivariable analysis to diagnose osteomyelitis in patients with diabetic foot.

Purpose: To retrospectively investigate the MRI findings of osteomyelitis in patients with diabetic foot using multivariate analyses.

Material And Methods: From November 2015 to March 2018, 118 patients who underwent MRI of the foot to evaluate suspected osteomyelitis were included in this study.

Heme molecule functions as an endogenous agonist of astrocyte TLR2 to contribute to secondary brain damage after intracerebral hemorrhage.

Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) was recently shown to contribute to secondary brain damage after intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), although the molecular mechanisms of this contribution are elusive. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that hemin functions as a TLR2 endogenous agonist, causing proinflammatory astrocyte activation and secondary brain damage after ICH. Hemin administration to the mouse brain striatum induced ICH injury and neurological deficits, however, the brain injury volume and neurological deficits due to hemin injection were significantly reduced in TLR2 knock-out (KO) mice.

Alternatively activated brain-infiltrating macrophages facilitate recovery from collagenase-induced intracerebral hemorrhage.

Background: Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is one of the major causes of stroke. After onset of ICH, massive infiltration of macrophages is detected in the peri-hematoma regions. Still, the function of these macrophages in ICH has not been completely elucidated.

Toll-like Receptor 2 is Dispensable for an Immediate-early Microglial Reaction to Two-photon Laser-induced Cortical Injury In vivo.

Microglia, the resident macrophages in the central nervous system, can rapidly respond to pathological insults. Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) is a pattern recognition receptor that plays a fundamental role in pathogen recognition and activation of innate immunity. Although many previous studies have suggested that TLR2 contributes to microglial activation and subsequent pathogenesis following brain tissue injury, it is still unclear whether TLR2 has a role in microglia dynamics in the resting state or in immediate-early reaction to the injury in vivo.

TLR2-induced astrocyte MMP9 activation compromises the blood brain barrier and exacerbates intracerebral hemorrhage in animal models.

Background: The innate immune response plays an important role in the pathogenesis of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Recent studies have shown that Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) is involved in the innate immune response in various neurological diseases, yet neither its role in ICH nor the mechanisms by which it functions have yet been elucidated. We examined these in this study using a collagenase-induced mouse ICH model with TLR2 knock-out (KO) mice.

TLR4 enhances histamine-mediated pruritus by potentiating TRPV1 activity.

Background: Recent studies have indicated that Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), a pathogen-recognition receptor that triggers inflammatory signals in innate immune cells, is also expressed on sensory neurons, implicating its putative role in sensory signal transmission. However, the possible function of sensory neuron TLR4 has not yet been formally addressed. In this regard, we investigated the role of TLR4 in itch signal transmission.

[Early gastric cancer with cellulitis-like skin metastasis].

Skin metastasis from internal carcinoma rarely occurs and it has an incidence of 0.7% to 9%. Although the prognosis of the skin metastases varies considerably depending on the type of the primary malignancy, presence of metastatic skin cancer usually implies a widespread systemic disease and a high mortality.

[A case of basaloid squamous cell carcinoma of rectosigmoid colon].

Basaloid squamous cell carcinoma is a rare and aggressive variant of squamous cell carcinoma, which mostly occurs in the upper aerodigestive tracts. Basaloid squamous cell carcinoma also typically arises in the anal canal, but is extremely rare in the lower gastrointestinal tract. A 70-year-old man presented with loose stool and intermittent hematochezia 2 months ago.