Internal medicine
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Observational Study
Clinicoradiological Features of Pulmonary Tuberculosis with Interstitial Pneumonia.
Objective Although rare, pulmonary tuberculosis occasionally develops in patients with interstitial pneumonia (IP). In this study, we aimed to evaluate the clinicoradiological features of pulmonary tuberculosis associated with IP. Methods In this retrospective, observational, single-center study, the medical charts, high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) findings, and bacteriological test results of patients with IP who also tested positive for Mycobacterium tuberculosis were reviewed. ⋯ Tuberculosis lesions could not be identified in one patient. All patients were treated with anti-tuberculosis drugs according to WHO guidelines, and 13 patients achieved a WHO category of "Treatment success." No patient died of tuberculosis, and the median survival time for the 20 patients was 1,196 days. Conclusion Although the HRCT findings for pulmonary tuberculosis associated with IP are atypical, appropriate tuberculosis treatments can lead to favorable outcomes.
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Objective Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a highly prevalent disorder that negatively affects patients' quality of life and reduces their work productivity. The medical expenses associated with the treatment of GERD are the highest among all digestive diseases. Current guidelines recommend the administration of a standard dose of proton pump inhibitor (PPI) for eight weeks as an initial GERD treatment. ⋯ This remained true even when the healing rates in cases of mild esophagitis were applied. Conclusion The P-CAB strategy was consistently superior to the conventional PPI strategy using the original LPZ in terms of cost-effectiveness and the number of days for which medication was required. Thus, VPZ appears to be the drug of choice for the acute medical treatment of reflux esophagitis.
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Objective To assess the impact of the duration of diabetes mellitus (DM) on the outcomes of pancreatic cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Methods We reviewed the medical records of patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer who received gemcitabine monotherapy as the standard therapy before the introduction of combination regimens. The treatment outcomes of gemcitabine were compared among three groups classified according to the duration of DM: no DM, short DM (<4 years), and long DM (≥4 years). ⋯ In comparison to the no DM group, the univariate hazard ratios (HRs) for progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were 1.44 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.02-2.02; p=0.027] and 1.33 (95% CI, 0.93-1.89; p=0.081), respectively, in the long DM group, and 1.12 (95% CI, 0.85-1.46; p=0.426) and 1.06 (95% CI, 0.81-1.40; p=0.678), respectively, in the short DM group; the multivariate-adjusted HRs were 1.33 (95% CI, 0.94-1.89; p=0.103) and 1.37 (95% CI, 0.95-1.98; p=0.095) in the long DM group and 1.12 (95% CI, 0.85-1.47; p=0.410) and 1.10 (95% CI, 0.82-1.46; p=0.533) in the short DM group. The survival outcomes of the long DM group tended to remain poorer in analyses using different cutoffs of DM duration as, well as in hospital-specific analyses. Conclusion Long-standing DM may be associated with shorter PFS and OS in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer.
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We herein report the first case of immune-mediated drug-induced liver injury that may have been caused by laninamivir. A 15-year-old girl was diagnosed with influenza and prescribed 40 mg laninamivir. Six weeks later, she was admitted to our hospital because of jaundice and fatigue. ⋯ Steroid treatment was ineffective, and azathioprine was added to the treatment. Twenty-two months after the onset, a second biopsy revealed the absence of inflammatory infiltrations, and the drugs were withdrawn. Liver function tests remained normal nine months after withdrawal.
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Renal disease is a common complication of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and can occur secondary to RA or be induced by therapeutic agents. Recently, glomerular deposition of galactose-deficient IgA1 (Gd-IgA1) was identified as a feature of primary IgA vasculitis with nephritis (IgA-VN). ⋯ To distinguish between primary IgA-VN and secondary IgA-VN caused by RA or etanercept, we performed immunostaining of renal biopsy sections with the Gd-IgA1-specific antibody KM55. Positive KM55 staining confirmed the diagnosis of primary IgA-VN in a patient with RA.