Kurume Medical Journal

AIM: In autism spectrum disorder (ASD), abnormal sensory processing patterns are observed in various sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, touch, olfactory, taste, vestibular, and proprioceptive senses. Few studies have examined the relationship between sensory processing patterns and emotions, or their effects on daily life. We investigated the relationship between sensory processing patterns and emotional/behavioral problems in children with ASD. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: A retrospective chart review was conducted...

AIM: The relationship between chemotherapy response score (CRS), a widely used response predictor of neoadjuvant chemotherapy-interval debulking surgery (NAC-IDS), and multidrug resistance 1 (MDR1) and CA125 ELIMination rate constant K (KELIM), is undetermined. We evaluated CRS in advanced ovarian cancer patients undergoing NAC and looked for associations between CRS and MDR1 and CA125 KELIM. Our aim was to predict the therapeutic effect of NAC before interval debulking surgery (IDS) by examining its association with CRS...

Mean platelet volume (MPV) can provide important information about the course and prognosis of many diseases. MPV is an early indicator of platelet activation, which has an important role in the pathogenesis of thrombosis. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether MPV was a predictive marker for the development of thrombosis in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 infection. Fifty-seven patients whose courses were followed after the diagnosis of COVID-19 infection using a polymerase chain reaction test during the pandemic were included in the study...

Portal vein embolization (PVE) is recommended as a preoperative procedure for patients with biliary tract cancer scheduled to undergo hepatic resection of more than 50%-60% of the liver. However, details and/or information regarding the follow-up of unresectable cases are often lacking, and the clinical course of unresectable cases is not well analyzed and reported. This study aimed to clarify the clinical prognosis of patients with unresectable biliary tract cancer after PVE. We retrospectively analyzed the clinical backgrounds of patients with biliary tract cancer who underwent PVE without subsequent resection between January 2011 and October 2022...

BACKGROUND: Treatment with antiviral drugs for non-severe, early time from onset, adult outpatients with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) had not been established in 2021. However, some new variants of SARS-CoV-2 had caused rapid exacerbation and hospitalization among non-elderly outpatients with COVID-19, contributing to widespread crises within healthcare systems. METHODS: From July to October 2021, we urgently assessed a therapeutic program using oral colchicine (1...

BACKGROUND: Lower gastrointestinal tract stenosis is commonly diagnosed and is typically treated with surgery or endoscopic balloon dilation (EBD). Radial incision and cutting (RIC) is a novel treatment approach that has several benefits compared with EBD and surgery. Although RIC has demonstrated a high technical success rate and has been shown to improve subjective symptoms, previous studies revealed that restenosis after RIC remain unsolved. Herein, we report the design of a prospective, multicenter, single-arm, interventional, phase II trial to evaluate the safety of local triamcinolone acetonide (TA) administration and its feasibility in preventing restenosis after RIC for lower gastrointestinal tract stenosis...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

The purpose of this study was to identify the fundamental roles of visiting nurses as a foundation for creating effective educational programs for nurses of medically dependent (MD) children being treated at home. The relationship among the statements representing 3 types of roles was analyzed using structural equation modeling. There were 296 participants involved in performing home-visit nursing for MD children. Their structural roles related to home-visit nursing systems and skills were strongly correlated with the interpersonal roles related to support for MD children and their families, arrangements for whole families, and interprofessional collaborations...

To prevent unpleasant symptoms in medical students during systematic anatomy practice, we aimed to develop and validate a model that predicts the likelihood of these symptoms occurring during practice based on risk factors prior to the start of practice. A total of 452 medical students enrolled from 2014 to 2018 were surveyed before and during practice, with questions regarding their sex, psychological status, subjective symptoms, and allergies. The sum of the scores concerning three subjective symptoms related to the eyes and three subjective symptoms related to the nose and fatigue were defined as the "eye-score" and "mask-score," respectively, and a total score of 7 or more was considered symptomatic...

PURPOSE: We explored factors affecting gastric emptying in neurologically impaired (NI) patients using the 13 C-acetate breath test. METHODS: Twenty-four NI patients were classified by the presence of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), which was treated by fundoplication plus gastrostomy, or the absence of GERD, which was treated by gastrostomy alone, along with gastric malposition involving cascade stomach and organoaxial gastric volvulus (OGV). Gastric emptying parameters (GEPs), which were the emptying half time (T 1/2 , minute), the lag phase time (T lag , minute), and the gastric emptying coefficient (GEC), were measured before and after surgery...

Gastric-type mucinous carcinoma (GAS) of the uterine cervix is the most common adenocarcinoma that develops independently of human papillomavirus infection; it is typically diagnosed at an advanced stage and has a poorer prognosis than usual-type endocervical adenocarcinoma. Few studies have examined the molecular profile of GAS, but genetic alterations in TP53 and STK11 have been repeatedly reported. We analyzed the clinicopathological characteristics and molecular profile of GAS. Fresh-frozen tissue specimens and formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues from 13 patients with GAS treated between January 2000 and December 2020 were analyzed...

AIM: To investigate the natural history of fetal ovarian cysts and elucidate the risk factors for postnatal adverse outcomes in fetal ovarian cysts. METHODS: The study subjects were 18 cases with ovarian cysts prenatally diagnosed using ultrasonography at our hospital between 2007 and 2020. The subjects were classified by cyst characteristics according to echogenic patterns [simple cyst (S) and complex cyst (C)], changes in echogenic patterns (S-to-S, S-to-C, and C-to-C), and diameters (<40 and ≥ 40 mm)...

Airway stenting involves a stent being inserted into a stenotic site in the airway. In patients with airway stenosis, the airway is the surgical field; therefore, anesthetic management is challenging, and avoiding hypoxia is important. Limited information is available on the anesthetic management of airway stenting. Risk factors for oxygen desaturation during airway stenting remain unknown. The present study was conducted to retrospectively examine patients who underwent airway stenting during a specific period and identify risk factors associated with oxygen desaturation...

Adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) is a major histological type of salivary gland cancer but an uncommon form of vulvar cancer. Salivary gland ACC occasionally dedifferentiates into high-grade carcinoma, resulting in poor prognoses. The dedifferentiated component is usually a poorly differentiated cribriform or solid carcinoma, whereas squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is exceptional. Herein, we report the case of a 78-year-old woman with vulvar ACC, including an SCC component. She presented with a vulvar nodule that had been present for 30 years and increased in size over the past few years...

BACKGROUND: Although the therapeutic relationship (or 'alliance') is well known to be a key component of psychiatric treatment, there has been no simple way to objectively measure the patient-therapist relationship. Here, we measured the psychological distance between patients and their therapists by using the Pictorial Representation of Illness and Self Measure (PRISM). PATIENTS AND METHODS: We analyzed the patient-therapist relationship of 112 patients from two hospitals in Japan (54 males, 57 females, 1 unknown; age 46...

OBJECTIVE: Oxidative damage is observed in the ischemic limbs of patients with arteriosclerosis obliterans. We investigated whether pemafibrate, a selective peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha modulator, reduced oxidative stress in ischemic limbs and consequently rescued limb damage in model mice. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We surgically induced hind-limb ischemia in mice and orally administered pemafibrate solution (P-05 group, 0.5 mg/kg/day; P-10 group, 1...

In July 1992, my 24 years of studying abroad in the US as a researcher at Harvard Medical School started. During this period, I met many outstanding scholars who conducted some of the world's leading research projects. In particular, the opportunity to collaborate with Dr. Jack A. Elias, Professor and Dean Emeritus of the Faculty of Medicine at Brown University, on a project focusing on a molecule called Chitinase 3-like 1 was very helpful to my career, and eventually led to my current position as Professor in charge of international medical exchange at Kurume University School of Medicine...

BACKGROUND: Until recently, the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) was limited to symptomatic treatment with no cure. Three innovative drugs, nusinersen, onasemnogene abeparvovec (OA), and risdiplam have been developed to treat SMA. Although the clinical trials for these drugs have demonstrated their efficacy, there is limited information on real world treatment strategies. In this study, we present a case of a male infant with SMA type 1 who underwent OA treatment after nusinersen treatment...

Neurotoxicity associated with cephalosporins is an increasingly recognized complication, although among cephalosporins, ceftazidime is rarely reported for such an adverse reaction. Moreover, subacute, rather than acute, presentation of neurotoxicity associated with cephalosporins is rare. A 77-year-old female patient with stage 4 chronic renal disease was admitted due to cellulitis in her right lower limb, multiorgan dysfunction complicated by oliguric acute kidney injury, and a need for hemodialysis via a central venous catheter...

PURPOSE: Assessment of nutritional status and nutritional interventions is important in gastric cancer patients. We investigated the factors associated with perioperative edema in patients with stage I gastric cancer using a body composition analyzer. METHODS: The study included 106 patients with stage I gastric cancer who underwent distal gastrectomy. The body composition of each patient was evaluated by bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) using an InBody 720 body composition analyzer...