Internal medicine
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Lung transplantation has been performed successfully outside Japan since 1983 in patients with end-stage lung disease. More than 9,000 lung transplants have been reported in The Registry of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation. In contrast, a transplant law became effective in Japan only recently, and four universities were designated as official lung transplant centers (Okayama, Osaka, Kyoto and Tohoku Universities). ⋯ Since then, seven lung transplants (four from living donors and three from cadaveric donors) have been successfully performed in Japan. Although lung transplantation offers acceptable prospects for 5-year survival, chronic rejection and donor shortage remain to be major problems. In an effort to address the donor shortage issue, living-donor lobar lung transplantations have been performed with satisfactory intermediate survival and functional results.
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Review Comparative Study
Symposium on the etiology of hypertension--summarizing studies in 20th century. 1. Hypertension and genes.
Under classical strategy, scientists have tried first to find a physiological phenomenon specific for essential hypertension, then to identify the protein underlying the physiological abnormality, and finally to clarify the causative gene which encoded the protein. On the other hand, under the reverse genetic approach, the correlation between hypertension and genetic abnormality is identified first, and then the pathogenesis is clarified-in reverse order. Therefore, it is not extraordinary for unexpected results to be obtained in the correlation between a gene and a disease, suggesting that this approach has a possibility to be a breakthrough in the chaos of hypertension research.
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Review Case Reports
Acute eosinophilic pneumonia following cigarette smoking.
Two cases of acute eosinophilic pneumonia following cigarette smoking are analyzed for characteristic features. The first patient noted dyspnea 14 days after initiation of smoking. ⋯ Both cases had characteristic features including occurrence at an age younger than 30 years; less than 1 month duration of cigarette smoking before onset of disease; and no identifiable cause of acute eosinophilic pneumonia apart from smoking. We believe that acute eosinophilic pneumonia following cigarette smoking, which has characteristic features as described above, should be considered as a distinct subtype of AEP.
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Editorial Comment Review
Pulmonary lymphangiomyomatosis--past, present, and future.