Acute Bowel Injury due to Cryoablation for Renal Cell Carcinoma: Correlated Radiologic and Pathologic Findings

An 87-year-old Japanese man underwent percutaneous cryoablation (PCA) therapy for his renal cell tumor. We displaced the colon from the tumor using hydrodissection. Computed tomography (CT) immediately after PCA was indicative of iceball extension to the colon wall, and a discontinuous enhancement of the colon wall was observed. We therefore performed an emergency surgery. On laparotomy, we observed a dark-purple area on the affected area of the colon, and the resected specimen showed focal, deep ulceration on the mucosal surface. Photomicrography revealed mucosal necrosis, submucosal hemorrhage, and necrotic foci in the muscularis propria, corresponding to the discontinuous colon wall enhancement on CT and the deep ulceration and dark-purple area on laparotomy. He recovered from surgery and was discharged without any complications

Does teaching the use aspect of grammar change learners’ beliefs and learning strategies?

departmental bulletin pape

Evaluation of irradiation hardening of ion-irradiated V–4Cr–4Ti and V–4Cr–4Ti–0.15Y alloys by nanoindentation techniques

Irradiation hardening behavior of V–4Cr–4Ti and V–4Cr–4Ti–0.15Y alloys after Cu-ion beam irradiation were investigated with a combination between nanoindentation techniques and finite element method (FEM) analysis. The ion-irradiation experiments were conducted at 473 K with 2.4 MeV Cu2+ ions up to 7.6 dpa. For the unirradiated materials, the increase in nanoindentation hardness with decreasing indentation depth, so-called indentation size effect (ISE), was clearly observed. After irradiation, irradiation hardening in the measured depth was identified. Hardening behavior of bulk-equivalent hardness for V–4Cr–4Ti–0.15Y alloy was similar to that for V–4Cr–4Ti alloy. Y addition has little effect on irradiation hardening at 473 K. Adding the concept of geometrically necessary dislocations (GNDs) to constitutive equation of V–4Cr–4Ti alloy, the ISE was simulated. A constant value of α = 0.5 was derived as an optimal value to simulate nanoindentation test for ion-irradiated V–4Cr–4Ti alloy. Adding the term of irradiation hardening Δσirrad. to constitutive equation with α = 0.5, FEM analyses for irradiated surface of V–4Cr–4Ti alloy were carried out. The analytic data of FEM analyses based on neutron-irradiation hardening equivalent to 3.0 dpa agreed with the experimental data to 0.76 dpa. The comparison indicates that irradiation hardening by heavy ion-irradiation is larger than that by neutron-irradiation at the same displacement damage level. Possible mechanisms for extra hardening by heavy ion-irradiation are the processes that the injected Cu ions could effectively produce irradiation defects such as interstitials compared with neutrons, and that higher damage rate of ion-irradiation enhanced nucleation of irradiation defects and hence increased the number density of the defects compared with neutron-irradiation

Single Center Prospective Phase II Trial of CT-guided Radiofrequency Ablation for Pulmonary Metastases from Colorectal Cancer (SCIRO-1401)

The present single center prospective phase II clinical trial is designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of percutaneous radiofrequency (RF) ablation for colorectal lung metastases. Patients who have colorectal lung metastases without extrapulmonary metastases are included in this study. The primary endpoint is 3-year overall survival (OS) after RF ablation. The secondary endpoints are the prevalence of adverse events within 4 weeks, local tumor progression rate, 1- and 5-year OS, cause-specific survival, and relapse-free survival. The recruitment of patients commenced in July 2014, and the enrolment of 45 patients is intended over the 3 years of study period

The whole blood transcriptional regulation landscape in 465 COVID-19 infected samples from Japan COVID-19 Task Force

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19患者由来の血液細胞における遺伝子発現の網羅的解析 --重症度に応じた遺伝子発現の変化には、ヒトゲノム配列の個人差が影響する--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-23.Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a recently-emerged infectious disease that has caused millions of deaths, where comprehensive understanding of disease mechanisms is still unestablished. In particular, studies of gene expression dynamics and regulation landscape in COVID-19 infected individuals are limited. Here, we report on a thorough analysis of whole blood RNA-seq data from 465 genotyped samples from the Japan COVID-19 Task Force, including 359 severe and 106 non-severe COVID-19 cases. We discover 1169 putative causal expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) including 34 possible colocalizations with biobank fine-mapping results of hematopoietic traits in a Japanese population, 1549 putative causal splice QTLs (sQTLs; e.g. two independent sQTLs at TOR1AIP1), as well as biologically interpretable trans-eQTL examples (e.g., REST and STING1), all fine-mapped at single variant resolution. We perform differential gene expression analysis to elucidate 198 genes with increased expression in severe COVID-19 cases and enriched for innate immune-related functions. Finally, we evaluate the limited but non-zero effect of COVID-19 phenotype on eQTL discovery, and highlight the presence of COVID-19 severity-interaction eQTLs (ieQTLs; e.g., CLEC4C and MYBL2). Our study provides a comprehensive catalog of whole blood regulatory variants in Japanese, as well as a reference for transcriptional landscapes in response to COVID-19 infection

DOCK2 is involved in the host genetics and biology of severe COVID-19

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19疾患感受性遺伝子DOCK2の重症化機序を解明 --アジア最大のバイオレポジトリーでCOVID-19の治療標的を発見--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-10.Identifying the host genetic factors underlying severe COVID-19 is an emerging challenge. Here we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) involving 2, 393 cases of COVID-19 in a cohort of Japanese individuals collected during the initial waves of the pandemic, with 3, 289 unaffected controls. We identified a variant on chromosome 5 at 5q35 (rs60200309-A), close to the dedicator of cytokinesis 2 gene (DOCK2), which was associated with severe COVID-19 in patients less than 65 years of age. This risk allele was prevalent in East Asian individuals but rare in Europeans, highlighting the value of genome-wide association studies in non-European populations. RNA-sequencing analysis of 473 bulk peripheral blood samples identified decreased expression of DOCK2 associated with the risk allele in these younger patients. DOCK2 expression was suppressed in patients with severe cases of COVID-19. Single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis (n = 61 individuals) identified cell-type-specific downregulation of DOCK2 and a COVID-19-specific decreasing effect of the risk allele on DOCK2 expression in non-classical monocytes. Immunohistochemistry of lung specimens from patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia showed suppressed DOCK2 expression. Moreover, inhibition of DOCK2 function with CPYPP increased the severity of pneumonia in a Syrian hamster model of SARS-CoV-2 infection, characterized by weight loss, lung oedema, enhanced viral loads, impaired macrophage recruitment and dysregulated type I interferon responses. We conclude that DOCK2 has an important role in the host immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and the development of severe COVID-19, and could be further explored as a potential biomarker and/or therapeutic target

Effects of Irradiation Environment on V-4Cr-4Ti Alloys

The effects of oxygen pick-up in an irradiation environment in a vacuum chamber during ion- and neutron-irradiation of V-4Cr-4Ti alloys were studied. The density and size of titanium oxides in the alloys were found to drastically increase because of the oxygen pick-up, especially for cases of higher irradiation dose and specimen temperature. Using Zr foil as a diffusion barrier and doping the V-4Cr-4Ti alloys with Y can be considered as effective techniques for reducing the reaction of Ti with C, O, and N to form Ti(C,O,N) because of oxygen-pick up from irradiation environment