Publications by authors named "Yusuke Honzawa"

Background: A serum biomarker for diagnosing ulcerative colitis (UC) remains to be established. Although we recently reported an anti-integrin αvβ6 antibody (V6 Ab) for diagnosing UC with high sensitivity and specificity, no large-scale validation study exists. This study aimed to validate the diagnostic value of V6 Ab for UC using a nationwide multicenter cohort study.

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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).

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  • The study investigates the role of serum leucine-rich alpha-2 glycoprotein (LRG) as a potential biomarker for predicting clinical relapse in patients with Crohn's disease (CD) who are currently in remission.
  • Data from 94 patients showed that while LRG levels did not correlate with patient-reported outcomes, they strongly correlated with C-reactive protein and serum albumin levels.
  • LRG was found to be an independent predictor of relapse, with lower LRG levels (< 13.8 μg/mL) associated with a significantly higher non-relapse rate, making it a useful tool for assessing prognosis in CD patients.
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  • The study analyzed non-cancerous Barrett's esophagus (BE) samples from patients, comparing them to samples from patients with esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC).
  • The researchers found a specific marker was present in only 22.7% of EAC tissue, but it was more common in EAC and linked to aggressive disease characteristics.
  • Additionally, they discovered that the amount of this marker in non-cancerous BE correlated with conditions like hiatal hernia and telomere shortening, suggesting a potential connection between Barrett's esophagus and esophageal cancer.
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Janus 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.

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Background And Aims: Non-cardiac chest pain (NCCP) is a frequent complication of endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) for early-stage esophageal cancer. However, little is known about relationships between ESD findings and NCCP. This study aims to evaluate the risk factors for NCCP, including ESD findings related to injury to the muscle layer.

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Introduction: Whether white blood cell (WBC) counts are predictors for the effectiveness of thiopurine treatment in ulcerative colitis (UC) has been inconclusive in previous studies with small sample sizes. We investigated the association between WBC counts and future relapses in UC patients in a large-scale multi-center study.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study enrolled a total of 723 UC patients in remission from 33 hospitals and followed up for 3 years.

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  • The study investigates the role of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the MEFV gene and their impact on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), specifically Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis among Japanese patients.
  • The most prevalent SNP identified was E148Q, which was linked to more severe disease features, including a higher presence of strictures in patients with Crohn's disease.
  • Enhanced activity of inflammatory cytokines IL-1β and IL-18 was found in patients with the E148Q SNP, suggesting it may act as a modifier gene that contributes to fibrosis in Crohn's disease.
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DNA methylation is involved in esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) and Barrett's esophagus (BE). Microarchitectures of on-neoplastic BE associated with DNA methylation status were examined using magnifying narrow-band imaging (NBI) endoscopy. Using biopsies from non-neoplastic BE without cancer (n = 66; N group), with EAC (n = 27; ADJ group) and EAC tissue (n = 22; T group), methylation of and  genes were quantified.

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This 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.

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Background: Colorectal cancer is a disease of unmet medical need. Although extracellular vesicles (EVs) have been implicated in anti-tumor responses, discrepancies were observed among studies. We analyzed the role of tumor-derived EVs (TEVs) in tumor progression in vivo by focusing on regulatory T (Treg) cells, which play essential roles in tumor development and progression.

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  • * Researchers examined early cancer stages by analyzing various markers in AOM/DSS mice that were sacrificed 4 to 6 weeks after treatment, revealing micro-neoplastic lesions that were difficult to identify.
  • * Findings indicate that certain molecular markers, particularly pSmad2/3L-Thr, are associated with both tissue stem cells and cancer stem cells, suggesting their potential role in cancer development during colitis.
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Early-stage gastric cancer (EGC) found after Helicobacter pylori (Hp) eradication is often difficult to diagnose using conventional white light (WL) endoscopy. We aimed to evaluate whether Texture and Color Enhancement Imaging (TXI), a new image-enhanced endoscopy enhances the EGC lesions after Hp eradication. We also compared diagnostic accuracy and lesion detection time between WL and TXI in trainee endoscopists.

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  • Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) can exacerbate active ulcerative colitis (UC) in patients not responding to standard treatments, and various diagnostic tests (like biopsy and PCR) are commonly used.
  • A study analyzed 82 UC patients, finding that higher HCMV-DNA levels in colonic tissue were linked to positive immunohistochemistry results and antigenemia tests, identifying a specific DNA copy number as a strong predictor for positive results.
  • The findings suggest that both antigenemia assays and histopathological tests can effectively diagnose HCMV colitis in UC patients, with endoscopic evaluations potentially aiding this process.
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Background: Crohn's disease (CD) is a disease with an impaired immune response characterized by chronic, relapsing-remitting, and progressive inflammation mainly affecting the gastrointestinal tract. Certolizumab pegol (CZP) is a biological agent that regulates the impaired immune response by controlling tumour necrosis factor-α (TNFα). However, the efficacy and safety of long-term administration of CZP for people with CD with inflammation under control are not well understood.

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Background: The relationship of bidirectional sharing of information between physicians and patients to patient satisfaction with treatment decision-making for ulcerative colitis (UC) has not been examined. Here, we conducted a web-based survey to evaluate this relationship.

Methods: Patients aged ≥ 20 years with UC were recruited from the IBD Patient Panel and Japanese IBD Patient Association.

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Background And Aims: Ulcerative colitis is the most frequent type of inflammatory bowel disease and is characterized by colonic epithelial cell damage. Although involvement of autoimmunity has been suggested in ulcerative colitis, specific autoantigens/antibodies have yet to be elucidated.

Methods: Using 23 recombinant integrin proteins, we performed enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays on sera from patients with ulcerative colitis and controls.

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 Mucosal healing (MH) is associated with clinical outcome in ulcerative colitis (UC) patients. In most clinical trials, a Mayo endoscopic subscore (MES) of 0 or 1 is defined as MH. However, several recent studies have reported that clinical outcome is different between UC patients with MES 0 and those with MES 1.

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Monoclonal antibodies have accelerated the availability of treatment options for many diseases in which the molecular mechanism has been elucidated in detail. Therefore, an assay that can universally analyze antibodies for clinical pharmacokinetics and cross-sectional studies would be indispensable. We have developed a universal antibody bioanalysis with a Fab-selective tryptic reaction, named nano-surface and molecular-orientation limited (nSMOL) proteolysis, that collects the specific antibody signature peptides in biological samples.

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Rationale: Tricho-hepato-enteric syndrome (THES) is a rare disorder caused by mutations in the TTC37 or SKIV2L genes and characterized by chronic diarrhea, liver disease, hair abnormalities, and high mortality in early childhood due to severe infection or liver cirrhosis.

Patient Concerns: The patient is the second child of three siblings born to non-consanguineous healthy Japanese parents. She had intrauterine growth retardation and was delivered at 33 weeks of gestation due to placental abruption.

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Background/aims: Our physicians work to expand the possibilities to treat female patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) who wish to become pregnant. Although many drugs, including 5-aminosalicylate (5-ASA), corticosteroids, immunomodulators, and biologics, are used safely during pregnancy, few reports have described the therapeutic regimen throughout pregnancy and the management of patients who relapse during pregnancy precisely. The aim of this study was to assess the management of patients with IBD during pregnancy.

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Lipocalin 2 (Lcn2), also called neutrophil gelatinase B-associated lipocalin (NGAL), is an anti-microbial peptide originally identified in neutrophil granules. Although Lcn2/NGAL expression is increased in the inflamed intestinal tissues of patients with inflammatory bowel disease, the role of Lcn2/NGAL in the development of intestinal inflammation remains unclear. Here we investigated the role of Lcn2/NGAL in intestinal inflammation using a spontaneous mouse colitis model, interleukin-10 knock out (IL-10 KO) mice.

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