COVID-19 is now considered endemic in many countries. On May 8, 2023, Japan reclassified COVID-19 from a pandemic to an endemic status, shifting surveillance from universal to sentinel reporting and transitioning the testing and treatment cost of COVID-19 from public funding to individual health insurance coverage. Restrictions on movement, events, and business hours were lifted, potentially increasing cases and complicating tracking.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHigh-mobility group AT-hook 2 (HMGA2) is a nuclear protein involved in the differentiation and proliferation of epithelial-derived tumors and also considered to be involved in the growth and differentiation of various malignant tumors, including thyroid cancer. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) for HMGA2 has been reported to show diffuse positivity in several follicular thyroid carcinoma (FTC) cases. This study aimed to investigate whether positive immunohistochemical staining for HMGA2 in primary tumors can be used to predict the prognosis and detect prognostic factors in malignant thyroid tumors associated with metastatic recurrence in FTC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Pregnancy Childbirth
January 2025
Background: Restless legs syndrome (RLS) with insomnia is presumed to be associated with antenatal depression. RLS without insomnia, however, has not been investigated in association with antenatal depression. We aimed to examine whether RLS without insomnia during pregnancy is associated with antenatal depressive symptoms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackgrounds: Menstruation-related symptoms are a common and serious health problem even without a specific diagnosis such as premenstrual dysphoric mood disorder (PMDD) or dysmenorrhea. Various adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) might be associated with menstruation-related symptoms, not only traditional traumatic events such as abuse, but also expanded ACEs such as childhood poverty, school bullying, or natural disasters.
Objective: This study examined the association between expanded ACEs (ACEs for Japanese) and menstruation-related symptoms among Japanese working women.
Background: Deep sternal wound infection after cardiovascular surgery is one of the most devasting complications in both a short and long term. The addition of prophylactic negative pressure wound therapy( pNPWT) to standard surgical site infection( SSI) prophylaxis could be promising approach for the reduction of this problem.
Methods: We evaluated 117 consecutive patients who underwent median sternotomy for cardiovascular surgery at our institution from July 2021 to December 2021.
Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a refractory, chronic inflammatory bowel disease of unknown etiology. Although platelets are activated in UC, their relevance in pathophysiology remains unclear. We analyzed the correlation of platelet activation and platelet-monocyte complexes (PMCs) with severity of mucosal inflammation using the Mayo endoscopic subscore (MES).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is a need to better understand ulcerative colitis (UC) patient and healthcare provider (HCP) treatment satisfaction, acceptability, and preferences.
Methods: Two international, cross-sectional, web-based surveys were conducted among participants of a phase 3 mirikizumab study (NCT03519945). The questions captured moderate-to-severe UC patients' experience, HCPs' perception of patients' experience, and HCPs' own experience with mirikizumab administration through intravenous (IV) infusions and subcutaneous (SC) injections.
Background: Thyroid hormones (TH) regulate the basal metabolic rate through their receptors THRα and THRβ. TH activates lipid metabolism via THRβ, however, an excess amount of TH can lead to tachycardia, bone loss, and muscle wasting through THRα. In recent years, TH analogs that selectively bind to THRβ have gained attention as new agents for treating dyslipidemia and obesity, which continue to pose major challenges to public health worldwide.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Reprod Infant Psychol
July 2024
Background: Although the association between a history of infertility treatment and perinatal depression has been investigated, most research has been cross-sectional and has not used diagnostic assessment tools.
Aims: This study investigates longitudinally the association between a history of infertility treatment and perinatal depression using WHO-Composite International Diagnostic Interview 3.0 (WHO-CIDI 3.
Insufficient thyroid hormone production in newborns is referred to as congenital hypothyroidism. Multinodular goiter (MNG), characterized by an enlarged thyroid gland with multiple nodules, is usually seen in adults and is recognized as a separate disorder from congenital hypothyroidism. Here we performed a linkage analysis of a family with both nongoitrous congenital hypothyroidism and MNG and identified a signal at 15q26.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPatients with ulcerative colitis sometimes need a total colectomy with ileal pouch-anal anastomosis due to medically refractory disease or colitis-associated neoplasia. Up to 50% of patients with ulcerative colitis postoperatively develop pouchitis and the rate of chronic inflammatory pouch conditions requiring pouch excision or diverting ileostomy is reported to be 10%. In order to diagnose and monitor pouchitis, pouchoscopy is essential to assess endoscopic inflammatory findings of the J pouch and to survey neoplasia development, particularly in the remnant distal rectum.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJanus kinase (JAK) inhibitors have been developed and are clinically available for management of active UC patients although most studies have been conducted for the outpatients and few studies have demonstrated its efficacy in endoscopic and histological remission of hospitalized patients with UC. The aim of the present study was to investigate the efficacy of upadacitinib, which is a novel selective JAK1 inhibitor, in the treatment of ulcerative colitis. We present the cases of three hospitalized patients with ulcerative colitis who achieved clinical remission after significant and rapid improvement with upadacitinib.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study investigated the usefulness of serum leucine-rich alpha-2 glycoprotein (LRG) and fecal immunochemical tests (FIT) for predicting relapse in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC). Data of 194 patients tested for LRG between January 2020 and June 2022 were retrospectively collected and clinical characteristics were recorded. LRG was strongly correlated with CRP levels and it had a moderately negative correlation with albumin levels, whereas FIT was not significantly correlated with either CRP or albumin levels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInvited for the cover of this issue is the group of Hiromu Kashida and Hiroyuki Asanuma at Nagoya University and co-workers. The image depicts the orientation dependence of circularly polarized luminescent. Read the full text of the article at 10.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe have investigated the chiroptical activities of pyrene clusters incorporated within a DNA duplex. Three pyrene derivatives were prepared on d-threoninol linkers to allow incorporation within a DNA strand. DNA scaffolds containing dimers, tetramers, and hexamers of the pyrene derivatives were prepared.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: We report on the efficacy of the Prevena incisional wound management system, a negative pressure wound care system, in patients at a high risk of wound infection following cardiac surgery.
Methods: Ten patients with a mean Fowler risk score of 4.6( 1.
The number of deaths due to oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), a malignant tumor of the oral cavity, is on the increase. We examined fibrinogen (FIB) expression in patients with OSCC and developed novel immunoprofile classification methods that include FIB. The plasma FIB level in patients with OSCC was elevated compared with that in patients with non-tumor oral disease (non-T); using a cut-off point of 342 mg/dL, we found the area under the curve-receiver operating characteristic level for OSCC was 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNihon Shokakibyo Gakkai Zasshi
November 2022
A 43-year-old woman was suffering from epigastric pain. Her gastroscopy revealed polyposis of the stomach, and her biopsy revealed a hyperplastic polyp. During the 18-month follow-up, the polyps proliferated, and the patient was referred to our institute for further investigation and treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHerein is reported a circularly polarized luminescent (CPL) probe that can respond to the chirality of nucleic acids. An achiral nanostructure was prepared by the hybridization of symmetric serinol nucleic acid (SNA) containing pyrene-modified residues. When chiral oligomers that were complementary to the SNA were added, they induced helicity into the SNA nanowire.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe report a new Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) system for structural analyses of DNA duplexes using perylene and Cy3 as donor and acceptor, respectively, linked at the termini of a DNA duplex via D-threoninol. Experimentally obtained FRET efficiencies were in good agreement with theoretical values calculated based on canonical B-form DNA. Due to the relatively long Förster radius, this system can be used to analyze large DNA structures, and duplexes containing photo-reactive molecules can be analyzed since perylene can be excited with visible light.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrion disease is a neurodegenerative disorder with progressive neurologic symptoms and accelerated cognitive decline. The causative protein of prion disease is the prion protein (PrP), and structural transition of PrP from the normal helix rich form (PrP) to the abnormal β-sheet rich form (PrP) occurs in prion disease. While so far numerous therapeutic agents for prion diseases have been developed, none of them are still useful.
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