Risk factors related to the reduction of subjective taste ability in middle-to old-aged nursing home residents in Sri Lanka : a cross-sectional study

The purpose of this study is to verify the factors significantly related to the reduction of subjective taste ability of 1,015 middle-aged and elderly (50 - 96 years old) at 25 randomized selected nursing homes in Sri Lanka. Binary logistic regression analyses by gender were performed using IBM SPSS on following variables. A dependent variable is taste ability, and 27 independent variables are age, daily lifestyle, nutritional problems, general status, dental status and physiological thresholds of taste abilities (sweet, salt, sour, bitter, and umami). Smell ability (p < 0.001 - 0.05) and the Self-Report Questionnaire, 20-item version :SRQ 20 (p < 0.01 - 0.05) were significant risk factors of reducing taste ability in both genders. Especially, smell ability was closely linked to taste ability. Existence of comprehensive perception of “flavor” composed of taste and smell ability was illustrated. Significant gender differences factors were observed in long term care needs (p < 0.05), sleeping (p < 0.01 - 0.001), bowel condition (p < 0.05) in males; and height (p < 0.05), weight (p < 0.05), BMI 3 categories (p < 0.05), and brushing (p < 0.05) in females. Other variables such as age and five types of physiological taste ability were not significant in both genders. The results of this investigation also strongly indicated that the perception of subjective sense of taste was different from the objective sense of taste. Epidemiological studies such as cohort or intervention studies focusing on a relationship between subjective taste ability and sense of smell are necessary to identify more accurate and changeable risk factors for dysgeusia in order to improve elderly’s nutritional intake in Sri Lanka

Antitumor Activity of Activated Lymphocytes and Macrophages by Liposome-borne Tumor-specific Transplantation Antigens on Postsurgical Tumor Recurrence in Murine

Liposome-borne tumor-specific transplantation antigens (TSTA) potentiated the antitumor activity of cytotoxic lymphocytes and macrophages (Mφ) much more efficiently than empty liposomes in murine. Mφ obtained from peritoneum and lung as well as cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTL) such as lymphokine-activat-ed killer (LAIC) cells and tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) showed higher inhibitory activity on metastatic tumor cell growth in lung. Among the effector lymphocytes in vivo, TIL showed desiable antitumor activity by way of intra-venous injection, while peritoneal Mφ showed high cytotoxicity by intraper-itoneal injection and intraveneously alveolar Mφ also showed high cytotoxic activity. These results suggest that the suitable administrations of liposome-borne TSTA may be useful in potentiating the tumoricidal effect of effector cells in vivo, especially TIL, CTL, and Mφ, and possibly may aid in overcoming tumor metastases

Enhancement of Murine Tumor Cell Lysability by Interleukin-2 Activated Killer Cells After Treatment with Mitomycin C

The cytotoxicity of interleukin-2 activated killer cells with antitumor drug, mitomycin C (MMC) against murine tumor cell lines with acquired drug resis-tance was evaluated in vitro by a 51Cr release cytotoxicity assay. Tumor cell lines, a mouse fibrosarcoma cells (MCA-F) and its individual metastatic lung clones (MCA-F-M1, 2, 3, and 4) have been established in vitro. Furthermore, using a soft agar cloning technique, MMC resistant clones (MCA-F-M2-1, 2, 4, 8, and 10) and sensitive clones (MCA-F-M1-3, MCA-F-M3-8, 9, MCA-F-M4-9, and 10) were established and their lysability was examined with or without MMC against lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cells, demonstrating that LAK cells showed high % cytotoxicity against 2 resistant clones (MCA-F-M2-1 and 8) by the 7 day-exposure of 1.0 pg/ml MMC concentration in culture but with a low % cytotoxicity in the case of only 3 day-MMC exposure. The other resis-tant clones showed high % cytotoxicity at 3 day-MMC exposure. On the other hand, all the sensitive clones showed high % cytotoxicity against LAK cells with the only 1 day-exposure of MMC. Thus, the combination of LAK cells and MMC treatment had a synergistic effect on MMC resistant clones as well as sensitive clones and these results suggested that the lysability of MMC resistant clones might be due to the altered susceptibility to LAK cells by use of MMC time-dependently

Genetic polymorphisms related to muscular strength and flexibility are associated with artistic gymnastic performance in the Japanese population

departmental bulletin pape

Phase I clinical study of anti-apoptosis protein, survivin-derived peptide vaccine therapy for patients with advanced or recurrent colorectal cancer

Survivin is a member of the inhibitor of apoptosis protein (IAP) family containing a single baculovirus IAP repeat domain. It is expressed during fetal development but becomes undetectable in terminally differentiated normal adult tissues. We previously reported that survivin and its splicing variant survivin-2B was expressed abundantly in various types of tumor tissues as well as tumor cell lines and was suitable as a target antigen for active-specific anti-cancer immunization. Subsequently, we identified an HLA-A24-restricted antigenic peptide, survivin-2B80-88 (AYACNTSTL) recognized by CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs). We, therefore, started a phase I clinical study assessing the efficacy of survivin-2B peptide vaccination in patients with advanced or recurrent colorectal cancer expressing survivin. Vaccinations with survivin-2B peptide were given subcutaneously six times at 14-day intervals. Of 15 patients who finished receiving the vaccination schedule, three suffered slight toxicities, including anemia (grade 2), general malaise (grade 1), and fever (grade 1). No severe adverse events were observed in any patient. In 6 patients, tumor marker levels (CEA and CA19-9) decreased transiently during the period of vaccination. Slight reduction of the tumor volume was observed in one patient, which was considered a minor responder. No changes were noted in three patients while the remaining eleven patients experienced tumor progression. Analysis of peripheral blood lymphocytes of one patient using HLA-A24/peptide tetramers revealed an increase in peptide-specific CTL frequency from 0.09% to 0.35% of CD8+ T cells after 4 vaccinations. This phase I clinical study indicates that survivin-2B peptide-based vaccination is safe and should be further considered for potential immune and clinical efficacy in HLA-A24-expression patients with colorectal cancer