Association Between Eosinophilia and Late-onset Circulatory Collapse in Preterm Infants: A case-Control Study

Late-onset circulatory collapse (LCC) in preterm infants is presumably caused by relative adrenal insufficiency. Because eosinophilia is known to be associated with adrenal insufficiency, we attempted to clarify the relation-ship between eosinophilia and LCC in preterm infants. We divided the cases of the infants (born at < 28 weeks’ gestation) admitted to our neonatal intensive care unit in 2008-2010 into 2 groups: those diagnosed with LCC that received glucocorticoids (LCC group), and those who did not receive glucocorticoids (control group). We compared eosinophil counts between the 2 groups and between before and after glucocorticoid treatment in the LCC group. A total of 28 infants were examined: LCC group (n = 12); control group (n = 16). The peak eosin-ophil counts of the LCC group were significantly higher than those of the control group (median: 1.392 × 109/L vs. 1.033 × 109/L, respectively; p = 0.02). Additionally, in the LCC group, the eosinophil counts declined significantly after glucocorticoid treatment (0.877 × 109/L vs. 0.271 × 109/L, p = 0.003). Eosinophil counts in the LCC group were significantly higher than in the control group and decreased rapidly after gluco-corticoid treatment. These results indicate that eosinophilia may be a factor associated with LCC caused by adrenal insufficiency

Postnatal longitudinal analysis of serum nitric oxide and eosinophil counts in extremely preterm infants

Background: Nitric oxide (NO) may be related to the pathogenesis of several morbidities in extremely preterm infants, including late-onset adrenal insufficiency. However, eosinophilia is observed under pathological conditions with adrenal insufficiency. Therefore, this study explored postnatal changes in NO levels and eosinophil counts in extremely preterm infants with and without morbidities. Methods: Nineteen extremely preterm infants with a median gestational age of 27.0 weeks and median birth weight of 888 g were enrolled in this study. Serum levels of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and peripheral blood eosinophil counts were measured at birth and every 2 weeks thereafter. Morbidities of the study group were diagnosed using a single criterion. Results: Serum NOx levels (mean ± standard deviation) were 22.5 ± 14.9 μmol/L, 51.2 ± 23.7 μmol/L, 42.4 ± 15.2 μmol/L, and 33.8 ± 9.4 μmol/L at birth and 2, 4, and 6 weeks of age, respectively. The serum NOx level at 2 weeks of age was significantly higher than that at birth and 6 weeks of age. Eosinophil counts, which increase with adrenal insufficiency, were measured simultaneously and were 145 ± 199/μL, 613 ± 625/μL, 466 ± 375/μL, and 292 ± 228/μL at birth and 2, 4, and 6 weeks of age, respectively. These values showed that the eosinophil count was significantly higher at 2 weeks of age than at birth and 6 weeks of age. The serum NOx level of infants without chorioamnionitis was significantly increased at 4 weeks of age, and the eosinophil count of infants with necrotizing enterocolitis was significantly increased at 2 weeks of age. No correlation with the NOx level or eosinophil count was observed in infants with late-onset circulatory collapse. Conclusion: The postnatal serum NOx level and eosinophil count were significantly correlated with each other and peaked at 2 weeks of age

転載:新生仔マウス高濃度酸素暴露肺障害モデルにおける肺胞微小血管障害の形態学的特徴

臨時増刊1号東京女子医科大学医学部解剖学・発生生物学講座 講座主任 江﨑太一教授退任記念特別

Adaptation of Journal Article Tag Suite XML for Japanese humanities papers

Out of East Asian languages which do not use the Latin alphabet, Japanese is a very complicated writing system that uses “kanji,” which are ideograms, and “kana,” which are phonetic characters. Most of the Japanese papers published so far using Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS) are science, technology, and medicine fields adapting horizontal writing systems, which are structurally consistent with English papers. Most of them only replace Latin letters with Japanese characters. In this presentation, we suggested method of presenting vertically oriented Japanese humanities articles in JATS XML. For vertical description of Chinese numeric, we would like to propose the introduction of an element which specifies description direction. Alternatively, could be used as a hidden command when creating a document. We propose the following notation in the part of the number that can be converted: 六五. Chinese numeric 六五 is a Arabic numeric 65. With this, it is shown that 六五 of Chinese numerals can be converted to 65 in Arabic numerals. For vertical text description with JATS, we would like to suggest adding @ writing-mode as an attribute to :. Furthermore, note and references should be differentiated for example, between a and a in the future. As Kanji are ideograms, there are variations that cannot be expressed with UTF-8. If these difficult Kanji are included in the JATS text, it will be necessary to decide on their description method. For the propagation of use of JATS XML for non-Latin characters articles, the structure of the document for example, vertical description, and special presentation should be considered more widely

Creating Journal Article Tag Suite extensible markup language from Japanese language articles and automatic typesetting using extensible stylesheet language transformations

A Japanese-language journal has been converted into the Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS) extensible markup language (XML) format, and typeset automatically via XSL formatting objects (XSL-FO) to produce both the printed issues and online journals which are published on the J-STAGE e-journal platform in full-text hypertext markup language. As there is no established XML workflow tools available for Japanese language journals, the Nakanishi Printing Company has developed its own workflow using Antenna House (AH) Formatter. AS scientific, technical, and medical journals are by-and-large in international standards even in Japanese-language, typesetting is fairly straightforward. Still, there are several challenges in processing agglutinative languages which are common in Asian counties such as Japanese, such as identifying family names/given names in a name string, or inserting “Zero Width Joiner” to avoid unfavorable line breaks. Also we had to develop individual extensible stylesheet language transformations (XSLT) for each article to position tables and figures rightly. As we go on and work with humanities journals we should face more challenges

Intravitreal Aflibercept vs Laser Therapy for Retinopathy of Prematurity: Two-Year Efficacy and Safety Outcomes in the Nonrandomized Controlled Trial FIREFLEYE next

Intravitreal aflibercept; Laser; RetinopathyAflibercept intravitreal; Làser; RetinopatiaAflibercept intravitreal; Láser; RetinopatíaImportance Prospective long-term data after retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) treatment with anti–vascular endothelial growth factor injections vs laser therapy are scarce. The FIREFLEYE (Aflibercept for ROP IVT Injection vs Laser Therapy) next trial is prospectively evaluating the long-term efficacy and safety outcomes following ROP treatment with intravitreal aflibercept vs laser therapy. Objective To evaluate 2-year ophthalmic and safety outcomes after 0.4-mg aflibercept injection or laser therapy in the 24-week randomized (2:1) FIREFLEYE trial (FIREFLEYE outcomes previously reported). Design, Setting, and Participants This prospective nonrandomized controlled trial performed in 24 countries in Asia, Europe, and South America (2020-2025) follows up participants treated in the FIREFLEYE randomized clinical trial (2019-2021) through 5 years of age. Participants included children born very or extremely preterm (gestational age ≤32 weeks) or with very or extremely low birth weight (≤1500 g) who were previously treated with a 0.4-mg injection of aflibercept compared with laser therapy for severe acute-phase ROP. Data for the present interim analysis were acquired from March 18, 2020, to July 25, 2022. Interventions Complications of ROP treated at investigator discretion (no study treatment). Main Outcomes and Measures Efficacy end points included ROP status, unfavorable structural outcomes, ROP recurrence, treatment for ROP complications, completion of vascularization, and visual function. Safety end points included adverse events and growth and neurodevelopmental outcomes. Results Overall, 100 children were enrolled (median gestational age, 26 [range, 23-31] weeks; 53 boys and 47 girls). Of these, 21 were Asian, 2 were Black, 75 were White, and 2 were of more than 1 race. At 2 years of age, 61 of 63 children (96.8%) in the aflibercept group vs 30 of 32 (93.8%) in the laser group had no ROP. Through 2 years of age, 62 of 66 (93.9%) in the aflibercept group and 32 of 34 (94.1%) in the laser group had no unfavorable structural outcomes. No new retinal detachment occurred during the study. Four children in the aflibercept group (6.1%) were treated for ROP complications before 1 year of age (2 had preexisting end-stage disease and total retinal detachment; 1 had reactivated plus disease; and 1 had recurrent retinal neovascularization not further specified). Most children were able to fix and follow a 5-cm toy (aflibercept group, 118 of 122 eyes [96.7%] among 63 children; laser group, 62 of 63 eyes [98.4%] among 33 children). High myopia was present in 9 of 115 eyes (7.8%) among 5 children in the aflibercept group and 13 of 60 eyes (21.7%) among 9 children in the laser group. No relevant differences in growth and neurodevelopmental outcomes by Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Third Edition and Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Second Edition were identified. Conclusions and Relevance In this nonrandomized follow-up of a randomized clinical trial comparing treatment of severe acute-phase ROP with 0.4-mg injection of aflibercept and laser, disease control was stable and visual function was appropriate in children through 2 years of age. No adverse effects on safety, including growth and neurodevelopment, were identified. These findings provide clinically relevant long-term information on intravitreal aflibercept injection therapy for ROP.The FIREFLEYE next study was sponsored by Bayer AG and cofunded by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc

Respiratory Management for Extremely Premature Infants born at 22 to 23 weeks of Gestation in Proactive Centers in Sweden, Japan, and USA

Survival of preterm newborn infants have increased steadily since the introduction of surfactanttreatment and antenatal steroids. In the absence of randomized controlled trials onventilatory strategies in extremely preterm infants, we present ventilatory strategiesapplied during the initial phase and the continued ventilatory care as applied in three centerswith proactive prenatal and postnatal management and well documented good outcomesin terms of mortality and morbidity in this cohort of infants

Nanoplasmonic modification of the local morphology, shape, and wetting properties of nanoflake microparticles

Inducing a phase transition of a self-organized object may trigger its structural transformation. Here, we demonstrate local control of the morphology and shape of selforganized microparticles with a nanoflake outer surface by nanoplasmonic heating. To increase the photothermal efficiency of the microparticles, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) or single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) were incorporated. AuNPs and SWCNTs, which have excellent photothermal activity, acts as photoresponsive heat converters. Because they have distinct absorption characteristics, visible or nearinfrared lasers can be used to induce local heating. The photothermal effect was used to spatially confine the melting to the space within the particle and the aggregate; as a result, microparticles with various shapes and morphologies have been fabricated. Such morphological changes lead to a uperhydrophobic−hydrophobic wetting transition, which was confirmed by the films constituting the microparticles. The work presented is seen useful for anisotropic particle synthesis, local wetting control, lithography, and morphological control of functional materials