A Limited Operation for Breast Cancer

A limited operation for breast cancer is now prevalent in accordance with advances in the adjuvant therapy. Seventy-five per cent of Stage I patients and 25.9% of Stage II were the candidates of the limited operation and the Surgical outcomes were satisfactory as compared with those of standard radical mastectomy. However, preoperative assessment of nodal involvement was not necessarily equivalent to postoperatively comfirmed one. Perioperative histologic examination is required for further preservation of surgical oncologic radicality including determination of the extent of node dissection

Association of Blood Pressure and Body Mass Index with Intraocular Pressure in Middle-aged and Older Japanese Residents:A Cross-sectional and Longitudinal Study

To clarify whether high blood pressure (BP) and high body mass index (BMI) are associated with elevated intraocular pressure (IOP), a cross-sectional and longitudinal study was conducted. This epidemiological study analyzed health examination data obtained between 2001 and 2005 from 896 Japanese individuals (aged 32-79 years) who had not undergone any ocular surgery or medical treatment for hypertension, ocular hypertension, or glaucoma. Multiple-regression analysis of our cross-sectional data showed that systolic and diastolic BP (SBP and DBP) and BMI had significant and near-significant positive associations with IOP in men (p＜0.05) and women (p＜0.1). Our longitudinal study from analyses of covariance found that the adjusted mean level of changes in IOP tended to increase with increased levels of SBP, DBP, and BMI in men (p＜0.1). In women also, changes in SBP and BMI tended to be positively related with that of IOP (p＜0.1). The results of this study suggested that BP and BMI were positively associated with IOP in middle-aged and older Japanese. Therefore, management of BP and improvement of obesity might be especially important to Japanese patients with open-angle glaucoma or ocular hypertension as they have a higher incidence of normal-tension glaucoma than Europeans and Americans

Implementation of a novel PCR based method for detecting malaria parasites from naturally infected mosquitoes in Papua New Guinea

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Detection of <it>Plasmodium species </it>in mosquitoes is important for designing vector control studies. However, most of the PCR-based detection methods show some potential limitations. The objective of this study was to introduce an effective PCR-based method for detecting <it>Plasmodium vivax </it>and <it>Plasmodium falciparum </it>from the field-caught mosquitoes of Papua New Guinea.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A method has been developed to concurrently detect mitochondrial cytochrome b (<it>Cyt b</it>) of four human <it>Plasmodium </it>species using PCR (<it>Cytb</it>-PCR). To particularly discriminate <it>P. falciparum </it>from <it>P. vivax</it>, <it>Plasmodium ovale </it>and <it>Plasmodium malariae</it>, a polymerase chain reaction-repeated fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) has further been developed to use with this method. However, due to limited samples number of <it>P. ovale </it>and <it>P. malariae</it>; this study was mainly confined to <it>P. vivax </it>and <it>P. falciparum</it>. The efficiency of <it>Cytb</it>-PCR was evaluated by comparing it with two 'gold standards' enzyme linked immunosorbent assay specific for circumsporozoite protein (CS-ELISA) using artificially infected mosquitoes; and nested PCR specific for small subunit ribosomal RNA (<it>SSUrRNA</it>) using field caught mosquitoes collected from three areas (Kaboibus, Wingei, and Jawia) of the East Sepic Province of Papua New Guinea.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 90 mosquitoes were artificially infected with three strains of <it>Plasmodium</it>: <it>P. vivax-</it>210 (<it>n </it>= 30), <it>P. vivax</it>-247 (<it>n </it>= 30) and <it>P. falciparum </it>(<it>n </it>= 30). These infected mosquitoes along with another 32 unfed mosquitoes were first checked for the presence of <it>Plasmodium </it>infection by CS-ELISA, and later the same samples were compared with the <it>Cytb</it>-PCR. CS-ELISA for <it>P. vivax</it>-210, <it>P. vivax</it>-247 and <it>P. falciparum </it>detected positive infection in 30, 19 and 18 mosquitoes respectively; whereas <it>Cytb</it>-PCR detected 27, 16 and 16 infections, respectively. The comparison revealed a close agreement between the two assays (κ = 0.862, 0.842 and 0.894, respectively for Pv-210, Pv-247 and <it>P. falciparum </it>groups). It was found that the eight CS-ELISA-positive mosquitoes detected negative by <it>Cytb</it>-PCR were false-positive results. The lowest detection limit of this <it>Cytb</it>-PCR was 10 sporozoites. A highly concordance result was also found between nested PCR and <it>Cytb</it>-PCR using 107 field caught mosquitoes, and both tests concordantly detected <it>P. falciparum </it>in an <it>Anopheles punctulatus </it>mosquito collected from Kaboibus. Both tests thus suggested an overall sporozoite rate of 0.9% (1/107) in the study areas. Subsequently, PCR-RFLP efficiently discriminated <it>P. falciparum </it>from <it>P. vivax </it>for all of the <it>Cytb</it>-PCR positive samples.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>A single step PCR based method has been introduced here that is highly sensitive, efficient and reliable for identifying <it>P. vivax </it>and <it>P. falciparum </it>from mosquitoes. The reliability of the technique was confirmed by its ability to detect <it>Plasmodium </it>as efficiently as those of CS-ELISA and nested PCR. Application of the assay offers the opportunity to detect vector species of Papua New Guinea and may contribute for designing further vector control programmes.</p

Synthesis and Magnetic Properties of Fergusonite Structured La(NbVMn)O4

The authors have synthesized fergusonite-structured La(Nb0·71V0·04Mn0·25)O4 samples. The samples, consisting of La3+, Nb5+, V5+, Mn4+ and oxygen ions, demonstrated temperature-dependent magnetization that increased with lowering the temperature below ≈200 K, and almost saturated below ≈100 K. At 75 K, the field-dependent magnetization demonstrated sigmoidal curve and reached 3 μB/Mn at 1 T. Such a magnetic behavior can be ascribed to exchange interaction between Mn4+Nb2O11 nanoclusters. The Mn4+ substitution for the V5+ sites of the crystal resulted also in the occupied state above the valence band maximum

JTP-109192, a novel G protein-coupled receptor 119 agonist, prevents atherosclerosis by improving hypercholesterolemia in congenic spontaneously hyperlipidaemic mice

G protein‐coupled receptor 119 (GPR119) expression in pancreatic β‐cells and intestinal L‐cells is a potential therapeutic target for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Previously, we have reported that the GPR119 agonist JTP‐109192 improves glucose metabolism with single and repeated administration. Conversely, overexpression of the Gpr119 gene reportedly regulates cholesterol transporter expression in animal models, and a natural GPR119 agonist, oleoylethanolamide (OEA), improves atherosclerosis. Therefore, improving dyslipidaemia is considered a possible feature of GPR119 agonists. In the present study, the lipid‐lowering effect of JTP‐109192 was examined in BALB/c background spontaneously hyperlipidaemic (SHL) mice with repeated administration, once daily for 12 weeks. On repeated administration, JTP‐109192 revealed a cholesterol‐lowering effect and improved atherosclerosis following histopathological examination. With further investigation, the cholesterol‐lowering effect and subsequent antiatherosclerotic effect of JTP‐109192 was attributed to changes in intestinal cholesterol metabolism gene expression. Based on these results, JTP‐109192 represents a new potential antihypercholesterolaemic agent for the treatment of dyslipidaemia

Gastric Cancer in younger patients of less than age 30

Twenty-five gastric cancer of less than 30 years of age were clinically evaluated in comparison with those of manhood. 1) Gastric cancers in younger patients were predominant in female, four times as frequent as in male and the most favorable location in the younger was the cardia of the stomach. 2) In terms of histologic findings, undifferentiated carcinoma of Borrmann IV type was common in younger patients. 3) Peritoneal dissemination and serosal invasion as an extension type of carcinoma were most common in younger patients although hepatic metastasis was very few. 4) Surgical outcome of curative operation was very favorable although that of noncurative one was very pessimistic

Prospective Study on the Incidence of Bone Metastasis (BM) and Skeletal-Related Events (SREs) in Patients (pts) with Stage IIIB and IV Lung Cancer—CSP-HOR 13

Background:Bone metastasis (BM) is a frequent complication in patients with advanced lung cancer and it causes skeletal-related events (SREs). Our study aim is to prospectively investigate the incidence of BM, incidence and types of SRE, and predictive factors of BM and SREs.Methods:Newly diagnosed, advanced non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) or small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) patients were enrolled into the study. Patients were followed up every 4 weeks to monitor the development of SREs. Treatment for lung cancer was performed at the discretion of the investigator.Results:Two hundred seventy-four patients were enrolled in this study between April 2007 and December 2009 from 12 institutions. Patients included 77 cases of SCLC and 197 of NSCLC (stage IIIB/IV = 73/124). Median follow-up time was 13.8 months. The incidence of BM at initial diagnosis was 48% in stage IV NSCLC and 40% in extensive stage (ED)-SCLC. Forty-five percent of patients who developed BM had SREs consisting of pathologic fracture (4.7%), radiation to bone (15.3%), spinal cord compression (1.1%), and hypercalcemia (2.2%). Multivariate analysis revealed that factors predicting BM are stage IV, performance status 1 or greater and higher bone alkaline phosphatase in NSCLC patients, higher lactate dehydrogenase, and lower parathyroid hormone–related peptide in SCLC patients. Factors predicting SREs were stage IV, age 64 or younger, and lower albumin in NSCLC patients. Multivariate analysis of SRE was not performed for SCLC because of the small number of events.Conclusion:Predictive factors should be taken into consideration in future randomized studies evaluating BM and SREs

Clinical benefit of readministration of gefitinib for initial gefitinib-responders with non-small cell lung cancer

BACKGROUND: Gefitinib, an oral agent of epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor, has a certain efficacy against non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Several predictive factors of gefitinib sensitivity have been well described. However, few studies have investigated the clinical features of gefitinib-responders. In the present study, we analyzed the response and disease progression of primary and metastatic lesions to gefitinib in responders and the results of gefitinib readministration following temporary cessation of gefitinib upon progression of initial gefitinib treatment and other treatments. METHOD: We retrospectively evaluated the clinical courses of 27 NSCLC patients who received gefitinib and achieved either a complete or partial response. RESULTS: The best-response rate and disease-control rate against the initial chemotherapy for the gefitinib-responders were 27.3% and 77.3%, respectively. Favorable efficacy was observed in the primary lesion and metastases to the lung, liver and brain, while there was no obvious effect on bone metastasis. The primary lesion and intrapulmonary metastasis were the sites of major recurrence. Median progression-free survival was 13.8 months, median duration of gefitinib treatment was 17.0 months and median overall survival was 29.2 months. Some of the patients who experienced disease progression after responding to gefitinib were again sensitive to readministration of gefitinib following temporary cessation of gefitinib and other treatments. CONCLUSION: Patients may still be expected to have prolonged survival if they once responded to gefitinib and then underwent various subsequent treatments followed by readministration of gefitinib. These findings might provide valuable information for the management of gefitinib-responders

Clinical benefit of readministration of gefitinib for initial gefitinib-responders with non-small cell lung cancer

BACKGROUND: Gefitinib, an oral agent of epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor, has a certain efficacy against non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Several predictive factors of gefitinib sensitivity have been well described. However, few studies have investigated the clinical features of gefitinib-responders. In the present study, we analyzed the response and disease progression of primary and metastatic lesions to gefitinib in responders and the results of gefitinib readministration following temporary cessation of gefitinib upon progression of initial gefitinib treatment and other treatments. METHOD: We retrospectively evaluated the clinical courses of 27 NSCLC patients who received gefitinib and achieved either a complete or partial response. RESULTS: The best-response rate and disease-control rate against the initial chemotherapy for the gefitinib-responders were 27.3% and 77.3%, respectively. Favorable efficacy was observed in the primary lesion and metastases to the lung, liver and brain, while there was no obvious effect on bone metastasis. The primary lesion and intrapulmonary metastasis were the sites of major recurrence. Median progression-free survival was 13.8 months, median duration of gefitinib treatment was 17.0 months and median overall survival was 29.2 months. Some of the patients who experienced disease progression after responding to gefitinib were again sensitive to readministration of gefitinib following temporary cessation of gefitinib and other treatments. CONCLUSION: Patients may still be expected to have prolonged survival if they once responded to gefitinib and then underwent various subsequent treatments followed by readministration of gefitinib. These findings might provide valuable information for the management of gefitinib-responders