The Kuchi-kara Taberu index as a predictive marker of oral intake recovery in patients with aspiration pneumonia.

Aim: In recent years, the Kuchi-kara Taberu (KT) index has been used as a new tool for the evaluation of dysphagia; however, its predictive ability remains unknown. This study was conducted to examine the validity of oral intake recovery prediction using the KT index in patients with aspiration pneumonia.

Methods: The subjects were older inpatients admitted to an acute-care hospital for the treatment of aspiration pneumonia.

Hokuriku-plus familial hypercholesterolaemia registry study: rationale and study design.

Introduction: Familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) is an autosomal-dominant inherited genetic disease. It carries an extremely high cardiovascular risk associated with significantly elevated low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. The diagnostic rate of this disease in some European nations is quite high, due to the presence of multiple prospective registries.

Thrombosis Prediction Based on Reference Ranges of Coagulation-Related Markers in Different Stages of Pregnancy.

Introduction: Careful monitoring of the hypercoagulable state is required during pregnancy. However, coagulation and fibrinolysis markers are not fully utilized because there are no reference values reflective of coagulation and fibrinolysis dynamics during pregnancy, which differ from the nonpregnant state.

Methods: Changes in antithrombin (AT), fibrinogen (Fbg), prothrombin fragment 1+2 (F), thrombin-antithrombin complex (TAT), soluble fibrin (SF), D-dimer (DD), and protein S (PS) were investigated in healthy pregnant women, and reference ranges in the early, mid, late, and end stages of pregnancy were established.

Acute adrenal insufficiency after unilateral adrenalectomy in Cushing's syndrome: precipitation by lithium-induced thyrotoxicosis during cortisol replacement.

We present a patient with Cushing's syndrome due to adrenocortical adenoma who developed acute adrenal insufficiency one month after unilateral adrenalectomy. She had received lithium carbonate for five years for manic-depressive psychosis. Drug administration was interrupted for 2 weeks postoperatively and was resumed thereafter.