The Tohoku journal of experimental medicine
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Tohoku J. Exp. Med. · Apr 2020
Case ReportsEffectiveness of Profiling Serum IL-18 and Neopterin in Diagnosis of Adult-Onset Still's Disease Complicated by Pulmonary Tuberculosis: A Case Report.
Adult-onset Still's Disease (AOSD) is a systemic inflammatory disorder characterized by high fever, skin rashes, and joint pains, and is extremely rare in patients over 80 years of age. An 88-year-old woman was admitted with high fever lasting for > 2 weeks and arthritis of the right knee and bilateral wrists. Further examination revealed that the patient fulfilled the Yamaguchi criteria, the most sensitive and extensively used classification criteria for AOSD. ⋯ She was placed on a 9-month course of anti-tuberculosis therapy and continued prednisolone tapering. She showed steady improvement and her cytokine profile showed a decrease in the IL-18 and neopterin levels. In conclusion, cytokine profiling is useful in making the diagnosis of AOSD and subsequent pulmonary tuberculosis developed during steroid therapy.
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Tohoku J. Exp. Med. · Apr 2020
Membrane Location of Syntaxin-Binding Protein 1 Is Correlated with Poor Prognosis of Lung Adenocarcinoma.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death, and adenocarcinoma is the most common histological type of lung cancer. Syntaxin-binding protein 1 (STXBP1) is essential for exocytosis of secretory vesicles. Since exocytosis is the basic cellular process of cells, we investigated STXBP1 expression and clinical significance in lung adenocarcinoma. ⋯ Consequently, the whole STXBP1 expression or membranal STXBP1 expression were correlated with poor prognosis and were independent prognostic factors of lung adenocarcinoma. The whole and membranal STXBP1 expression are independent prognostic factors of lung adenocarcinoma. STXBP1 detection is capable to help screen patients who may have poor prognosis and strengthen the adjuvant therapy more precisely.
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Tohoku J. Exp. Med. · Apr 2020
Public Relations and Communication Strategies in Construction of Large-Scale Cohorts and Biobank: Practice in the Tohoku Medical Megabank Project.
The Tohoku Medical Megabank Project was designed as part of the national reconstruction project for addressing the damage from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. It is an integrated project involving the genome cohort study of 150,000 participants, integrated biobank construction, and multi-omics analyses. Public relations and communication activities emerged to be extremely important in the successful development of this project. ⋯ By paying attention to these phases that have been changing according to the project's progress, we were able to adapt the strategies and methods of public relations and communication. The success of these activities has enabled the overall project to progress smoothly. We hope that the process of designing our project's public relations and communication activities will be useful for other similar initiatives.
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Tohoku J. Exp. Med. · Apr 2020
Cardiac Remodeling Biomarkers as Potential Circulating Markers of Left Ventricular Hypertrophy in Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction.
Soluble suppressor of tumorigenicity 2 (sST2), galectin-3, growth differentiation factor (GDF)-15 and syndecan-1 represent biomarkers of cardiac remodeling, involved in heart failure (HF) progression. We hypothesize that their plasma concentrations, together with brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), are different in HF stratified by ejection fraction (EF), demonstrating correlations with echocardiographic parameters that indicate left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy; LV mass index (LVMI) and posterior wall and septum diameters. HF patients (n = 77) were classified according to EF: reduced EF < 40% (HFrEF), mid-range EF = 40-49% (HFmrEF), preserved EF > 50% (HFpEF). ⋯ In HFrEF, only sST2, adjusted, correlated with LVMI (p = 0.010), whereas BNP correlated with LVMI (p = 0.002) and EF (p = 0.001). GDF-15 correlated with diastolic dysfunction in HFpEF (p = 0.046) and HFrEF (p = 0.024). Cardiac remodeling biomarkers are potential circulating indicators of LV hypertrophy in HFpEF, which may ensure timely recognition of disease progression among high-risk patients.
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Tohoku J. Exp. Med. · Apr 2020
School Ijime (Bullying) Experience Is a Possible Risk Factor for Current Psychological Distress among Science City Workers: A Cross-Sectional Study in Tsukuba, Japan.
Early-life adversities are considered to have long-term impact on health. There have been many studies regarding the experience of being bullied and its harmful psychological influence, but such influence on workers remains to be investigated in Japan. We therefore aimed to examine the prevalence of workers with experiences of being bullied or bullying others during childhood and adolescence and to clarify the relation between those experiences and current psychological distress. ⋯ Logistic regression analyses with psychological distress as an objective variable and experiences of bulling as explanatory variables were performed using those who had no bulling experiences as control. In both men and women, experiences of being bullied were significantly associated with psychological distress after adjustment socioeconomic factors (the odds ratios were 1.26 for men (95% CI = 1.05-1.52) and 1.72 for women (95% CI = 1.39-2.13)). Consideration of past social experiences, such as being bullied, is useful for mental health management among workers reporting psychological distress.