Leiomyosarcoma of the vulva: a case report

Sarcomas represent only 1% to 3% of vulvar malignancies. Leiomyosarcoma is a rare malignant tumor of the vulva; it can be mistaken for a benign tumor, which can lead to misdiagnosis and incorrect or delayed treatment. We report the case of a 51-year-old woman with leiomyosarcoma of the vulva. The patient presented to her primary gynecologist with a vulvar mass that she had first noticed 20 years prior. The tumor was suspected to be aggressive angiomyxoma, and biopsy of the mass and treatment with gonadotrophin-releasing hormone agonist (GnRHa) therapy were recommended. The patient declined treatment and opted instead for observation; however, the tumor grew rapidly in the following year and the patient was referred to our hospital. She underwent tumor resection, and pathology revealed leiomyosarcoma. The patient declined adjuvant chemo- and radiotherapy but has had no recurrence for 32 months

CHJ-WLSP : Annotation of \u27Word List by Semantic Principles\u27 Labels for the Corpus of Historical Japanese

National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics / Tokyo University of Foreign StudiesSaitama UniversityUniversity of TokyoKyoto Prefectural UniversityUniversity of TokyoMejiro UniversityNational Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsThis article presents a word-sense annotation for the Corpus of Historical Japanese: a mashed-up Japanese lexicon based on the \u27Word List by Semantic Principles\u27 (WLSP). The WLSP is a large-scale Japanese thesaurus that includes 98,241 entries with syntactic and hierarchical semantic categories. The historical WLSP is also compiled for the words in ancient Japanese. We utilized a morpheme-word sense alignment table to extract all possible word sense candidates for each word appearing in the target corpus. Then, we manually disambiguated the word senses for 647,751 words in the texts from the 10th century to 1910

Phospho-Smad3 signaling is predictive biomarker for hepatocellular carcinoma risk assessment in primary biliary cholangitis patients

Introduction: Patients with primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) are at increased risk for development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), particularly in the presence of comorbidities such as excessive alcohol consumption. Although liver fibrosis is an important risk factor for HCC development, earlier predictors of future HCC development in livers with little fibrosis are needed but not well defined. The transforming growth factor (TGF)-β/Smad signaling pathway participates importantly in hepatic carcinogenesis. Phosphorylated forms (phospho-isoforms) in Smad-related pathways can transmit opposing signals: cytostatic C-terminally-phosphorylated Smad3 (pSmad3C) and carcinogenic linker-phosphorylated Smad3 (pSmad3L) signals. Methods and results: To assess the balance between Smad signals as a biomarker of risk, we immunohistochemically compared Smad domain-specific Smad3 phosphorylation patterns among 52 PBC patients with various stages of fibrosis and 25 non-PBC patients with chronic hepatitis C virus infection. HCC developed in 7 of 11 PBC patients showing high pSmad3L immunoreactivity, but in only 2 of 41 PBC patients with low pSmad3L. In contrast, 9 of 20 PBC patients with minimal Smad3C phosphorylation developed HCC, while HCC did not occur during follow-up in 32 patients who retained hepatic tumor-suppressive pSmad3C. Further, PBC patients whose liver specimens showed high pSmad3L positivity were relatively likely to develop HCC even when little fibrosis was evident. Conclusion: In this study, Smad phospho-isoform status showed promise as a biomarker predicting likelihood of HCC occurrence in PBC. Eventually, therapies to shift favorably Smad phospho-isoforms might decrease likelihood of PBC-related HCC

Fusarium phytotoxin trichothecenes have an elicitor-like activity in Arabidopsis thaliana, but the activity differed significantly among their molecular species

金沢大学学際科学実験センター遺伝子研究施設Phytopathogenic fungi such as Fusarium spp. synthesize trichothecene family phytotoxins. Although the type B trichothecene, deoxynivalenol (DON), is thought to be a virulence factor allowing infection of plants by their trichothecene-producing Fusarium spp., little is known about effects of trichothecenes on the defense response in host plants. Therefore, in this article, we investigated these effects of various trichothecenes in Fusarium-susceptible Arabidopsis thaliana. Necrotic lesions were observed in Arabidopsis leaves infiltrated by 1 μM type A trichothecenes such as T-2 toxin. Trichothecene-induced lesions exhibited dead cells, callose deposition, generation of hydrogen peroxide, and accumulation of salicylic acids. Moreover, infiltration by trichothecenes caused rapid and prolonged activation of two mitogen-activated protein kinases and induced expression of both PR-1 and PDF1.2 genes. Thus, type A trichothecenes trigger the cell death by activation of an elicitor-like signaling pathway in Arabidopsis. Although DON did not have such an activity even at 10 μM, translational inhibition by DON was observed at concentrations above 5 μM. These results suggested that DON is capable of inhibiting translation in Arabidopsis cells without induction of the elicitor-like signaling pathway. © 2006 The American Phytopathological Society.

A randomized phase III study of short-course radiotherapy combined with Temozolomide in elderly patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma; Japan clinical oncology group study JCOG1910 (AgedGlio-PIII)

BACKGROUND: The current standard treatment for elderly patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma is surgery followed by short-course radiotherapy with temozolomide. In recent studies, 40 Gy in 15 fractions vs. 60 Gy in 30 fractions, 34 Gy in 10 fractions vs. 60 Gy in 30 fractions, and 40 Gy in 15 fractions vs. 25 Gy in 5 fractions have been reported as non-inferior. The addition of temozolomide increased the survival benefit of radiotherapy with 40 Gy in 15 fractions. However, the optimal regimen for radiotherapy plus concomitant temozolomide remains unresolved. METHODS: This multi-institutional randomized phase III trial was commenced to confirm the non-inferiority of radiotherapy comprising 25 Gy in 5 fractions with concomitant (150 mg/m2/day, 5 days) and adjuvant temozolomide over 40 Gy in 15 fractions with concomitant (75 mg/m2/day, every day from first to last day of radiation) and adjuvant temozolomide in terms of overall survival (OS) in elderly patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma. A total of 270 patients will be accrued from 51 Japanese institutions in 4 years and follow-up will last 2 years. Patients 71 years of age or older, or 71-75 years old with resection of less than 90% of the contrast-enhanced region, will be registered and randomly assigned to each group with 1:1 allocation. The primary endpoint is OS, and the secondary endpoints are progression-free survival, frequency of adverse events, proportion of Karnofsky performance status preservation, and proportion of health-related quality of life preservation. The Japan Clinical Oncology Group Protocol Review Committee approved this study protocol in April 2020. Ethics approval was granted by the National Cancer Center Hospital Certified Review Board. Patient enrollment began in August 2020. DISCUSSION: If the primary endpoint is met, short-course radiotherapy comprising 25 Gy in 5 fractions with concomitant and adjuvant temozolomide will be a standard of care for elderly patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Registry number: jRCTs031200099 . Date of Registration: 27/Aug/2020. Date of First Participant Enrollment: 4/Sep/2020

Comparison of population-based measles-rubella immunoglobulin G antibody prevalence between 2014 and 2019 in Lao People's Democratic Republic: Impacts of the national immunization program.

OBJECTIVES: We evaluated the effectiveness of the Lao People's Democratic Republic's measles-rubella immunization program using the seroprevalence from two cross-sectional surveys. METHODS: The nationwide surveys occurred in 2014 and 2019 using a multistage cluster sampling, both requiring samples from 2184 individuals from 52 randomly selected villages. Immunoglobulin G titers, measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, were considered positive at ≥120 mIU/ml (measles) and ≥10 IU/ml (rubella). We calculated the vaccination-related reduction in the force of rubella infection and the number of congenital rubella syndrome cases averted in 2019. RESULTS: We collected 2135 (women: 55.2%, mean age: 23.2 years) and 2001 (52.7%, 23.1 years) samples in 2014 and 2019, respectively. During 2014-2019, immunoglobulin G prevalence increased from 83.9% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 83.8-84.0) to 98.3% (97.7-98.8) for measles and from 75.4% (75.3-75.5) to 87.8% (86.4-89.2) for rubella. The most plausible reduction in the average force of rubella infection was 100% (95% CI: 28-100) since vaccination started, averting 78 (95% CI: 42-128) congenital rubella syndrome cases in 2019. CONCLUSION: This is the first population-based study for measles and rubella at two different time points in developing countries. Measles and rubella seroprevalence increased significantly during 2014-2019, greatly exceeding the immunity thresholds for their elimination

A Possible Contribution of Altered Cathepsin B Expression to the Development of Skin Sclerosis and Vasculopathy in Systemic Sclerosis

Cathepsin B (CTSB) is a proteolytic enzyme potentially modulating angiogenic processes and extracellular matrix remodeling. While matrix metalloproteinases are shown to be implicated in tissue fibrosis and vasculopathy associated with systemic sclerosis (SSc), the role of cathepsins in this disease has not been well studied. The aim of this study is to evaluate the roles of CTSB in SSc. Serum pro-CTSB levels were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in 55 SSc patients and 19 normal controls. Since the deficiency of transcription factor Fli1 in endothelial cells is potentially associated with the development of SSc vasculopathy, cutaneous CTSB expression was evaluated by immunostaining in Fli1+/− and wild type mice as well as in SSc and control subjects. The effects of Fli1 gene silencing and transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) on CTSB expression were determined by real-time PCR in human dermal microvascular endothelial cells (HDMECs) and dermal fibroblasts, respectively. Serum pro-CTSB levels were significantly higher in limited cutaneous SSc (lcSSc) and late-stage diffuse cutaneous SSc (dcSSc) patients than in healthy controls. In dcSSc, patients with increased serum pro-CTSB levels showed a significantly higher frequency of digital ulcers than those with normal levels. CTSB expression in dermal blood vessels was increased in Fli1+/− mice compared with wild type mice and in SSc patients compared with healthy controls. Consistently, Fli1 gene silencing increased CTSB expression in HDMECs. In cultured dermal fibroblasts from early dcSSc, CTSB expression was decreased compared with normal fibroblasts and significantly reversed by TGF-β1 antisense oligonucleotide. In conclusion, up-regulation of endothelial CTSB due to Fli1 deficiency may contribute to the development of SSc vasculopathy, especially digital ulcers, while reduced expression of CTSB in lesional dermal fibroblasts is likely to be associated with skin sclerosis in early dcSSc

High time resolved electron temperature measurements by using the multi-pass Thomson scattering system in GAMMA 10/PDX

High time resolved electron temperature measurements are useful for fluctuation study. A multi-pass Thomson scattering (MPTS) system is proposed for the improvement of both increasing the TS signal intensity and time resolution. The MPTS system in GAMMA 10/PDX has been constructed for enhancing the Thomson scattered signals for the improvement of measurement accuracy. The MPTS system has a polarization-based configuration with an image relaying system. We optimized the image relaying optics for improving the multi-pass laser confinement and obtaining the stable MPTS signals over ten passing TS signals. The integrated MPTS signals increased about five times larger than that in the single pass system. Finally, time dependent electron temperatures were obtained in MHz sampling