Successful treatment of persistent bronchorrhea by gefitinib in a case with Recurrent Bronchioloalveolar Carcinoma: a case report

BACKGROUND: Bronchorrhea is one of late complaints in patients with bronchioloalveolar carcinoma (BAC) and hampers their quality of life. Although an effective treatment for bronchorrhea in these patients has not been established, recently we have treated effectively one case of persistent bronchorrhea associated with clinical recurrent BAC with gefitinib (ZD1839, 'Iressa™'; AstraZeneca Japan; Osaka, Japan). CASE PRESENTATION: A 63-year-old Japanese female had undergone left pneumonectomy with radical lymph node dissection (ND2a) for diffuse type bronchioloalveolar carcinoma originated in left lower lobe. Multiple pulmonary metastases in right lung were found one year after operation. Pulmonary metastatic lesion has grown and she complained of progressive symptoms of massive watery sputum and dyspnea, four years after operation. Although her symptom was getting worse in spite of routine treatment, it completely disappeared within 2 weeks of starting oral gefitinib. Thereafter, she has been symptom-free and shows good partial response on repeat scan after 9 months of oral gefitinib. CONCLUSIONS: The dramatic remission of persistent bronchorrhea by gefitinib in the presented case suggests that gefitinib might be a promising option for bronchioloalveolar carcinoma, particularly in cases with severe bronchorrhea. Although it is not possible to comment on whether the improvement came from tumor cell death itself or suppressive effect of mucin synthesis by the epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitory action

Relationship between postprandial glucose level and carotid artery stiffness in patients without diabetes or cardiovascular disease

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between postprandial glucose level and atherosclerosis in patients without diabetes and cardiovascular disease by determining carotid ultrasonographic variables and serum levels of 1,5-anhydroglucitol (1,5-AG). METHODS: The subjects were 72 patients without diabetes and cardiovascular disease being treated for hypertension or dyslipidemia. The clinical characteristics of all subjects, including the serum level of 1,5-AG, which appears to be well suited for monitoring postprandial hyperglycemia, were evaluated after an overnight fast. The average intima-media thickness (IMT) and the average pulsatility index (PI) of the right and left common carotid arteries were determined with high-resolution ultrasonography and used as ultrasonographic variables. The subjects were divided into a Lower 1,5-AG group (n = 36) and a Higher 1,5-AG group (n = 36). We evaluated the relationship between clinical characteristics and ultrasonographic variables of the carotid artery in both groups. RESULTS: The average PI in the Lower 1,5-AG group was significantly higher than that in the Higher 1,5-AG group, but the average IMT did not differ between the groups. Linear regression analysis, with the ultrasonographic variables as the dependent variables, with 1,5-AG as the independent variable, and adjusted for other clinical characteristics, showed significant correlation between 1,5-AG and the PI but not between 1,5-AG and IMT. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that postprandial hyperglycemia increases carotid artery stiffness, but not morphological change, in patients without diabetes or cardiovascular disease

Science Teaching to Develop Pupils' Scientific Viewpoints and Ways of Thinking : The Possibility for Instructing the 'Energy Conversion' in Elementary School Science

小学校中学年B区分の学習内容を相互に関連付けて考えるための視点として「エネルギー変換」を取り上げ、これをキーワードにした教材開発と授業設計を行った。岡山大学教育学部附属小学校の第4学年の児童を対象に研究授業を行い、児童の変容を学習の記録や授業前後のコンセプトマップの記述をもとに分析した。その結果、児童の中には、既習事項である「光」「熱」「電気」「力」とそれらがもたらす現象とを、相互に関連付けて考えようとする反応が見られるようになった。Attempts were made to correlate learning contents with each other in the physical science of elementary school science. The authors approached this subject from the energetic viewpoint. We developed some materials and disigned an instructon, based on the 'energy conversion.' One author conducted a science class to the fourth graders of elementary school attached to Okayama University. Then we made an analysis of the children's records of learning in class, and used a concept mapping. In this survey, it was found that some of the pupils tried to associate 'light', 'heat', 'electricity', and 'force' with some phenomena that were brought about from these concepts

Second nationwide surveillance of bacterial pathogens in patients with acute uncomplicated cystitis conducted by Japanese Surveillance Committee from 2015 to 2016: antimicrobial susceptibility of Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Staphylococcus saprophyticus

The Japanese Surveillance Committee conducted a second nationwide surveillance of antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of uropathogens responsible for acute uncomplicated cystitis (AUC) in premenopausal patients aged 16–40 years old at 31 hospitals throughout Japan from March 2015 to February 2016. In this study, the susceptibility of causative bacteria (Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus saprophyticus) for various antimicrobial agents was investigated by isolation and culturing of organisms obtained from urine samples. In total, 324 strains were isolated from 361 patients, including E. coli (n = 220, 67.9%), S. saprophyticus (n = 36, 11.1%), and K. pneumoniae (n = 7, 2.2%). The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of 20 antibacterial agents for these strains were determined according to the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) manual. At least 93% of the E. coli isolates showed susceptibility to fluoroquinolones and cephalosporins, whereas 100% of the S. saprophyticus isolates showed susceptibility to fluoroquinolones and aminoglycosides. The proportions of fluoroquinolone-resistant and extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing E. coli strains were 6.4% (13/220) and 4.1% (9/220), respectively. The antimicrobial susceptibility of K. pneumoniae was retained during the surveillance period, while no multidrug-resistant strains were identified. In summary, antimicrobial susceptibility results of our second nationwide surveillance did not differ significantly from those of the first surveillance. Especially the numbers of fluoroquinolone-resistant and ESBL-producing E. coli strains were not increased in premenopausal patients with AUC in Japan

Recent Results from LHD Experiment with Emphasis on Relation to Theory from Experimentalist’s View

he Large Helical Device (LHD) has been extending an operational regime of net-current free plasmas towardsthe fusion relevant condition with taking advantage of a net current-free heliotron concept and employing a superconducting coil system. Heating capability has exceeded 10 MW and the central ion and electron temperatureshave reached 7 and 10 keV, respectively. The maximum value of β and pulse length have been extended to 3.2% and 150 s, respectively. Many encouraging physical findings have been obtained. Topics from recent experiments, which should be emphasized from the aspect of theoretical approaches, are reviewed. Those are (1) Prominent features in the inward shifted configuration, i.e., mitigation of an ideal interchange mode in the configuration with magnetic hill, and confinement improvement due to suppression of both anomalous and neoclassical transport, (2) Demonstration ofbifurcation of radial electric field and associated formation of an internal transport barrier, and (3) Dynamics of magnetic islands and clarification of the role of separatrix

Impurity emission characteristics of long pulse discharges in Large Helical Device

Line spectra from intrinsic impurity ions have been monitored during the three kinds of long-pulse discharges (ICH, ECH, NBI). Constant emission from the iron impurity shows no preferential accumulation of iron ion during the long-pulse operations. Stable Doppler ion temperature has been also measured from Fe XX, C V and C III spectra

Extension of the operational regime of the LHD towards a deuterium experiment

As the finalization of a hydrogen experiment towards the deuterium phase, the exploration of the best performance of hydrogen plasma was intensively performed in the large helical device. High ion and electron temperatures, Ti and Te, of more than 6 keV were simultaneously achieved by superimposing high-power electron cyclotron resonance heating onneutral beam injection (NBI) heated plasma. Although flattening of the ion temperature profile in the core region was observed during the discharges, one could avoid degradation by increasing the electron density. Another key parameter to present plasma performance is an averaged beta value $\left\langle \beta \right\rangle$ . The high $\left\langle \beta \right\rangle$ regime around 4% was extended to an order of magnitude lower than the earlier collisional regime. Impurity behaviour in hydrogen discharges with NBI heating was also classified with a wide range of edge plasma parameters. The existence of a no impurity accumulation regime, where the high performance plasma is maintained with high power heating  >10 MW, was identified. Wide parameter scan experiments suggest that the toroidal rotation and the turbulence are the candidates for expelling impurities from the core region