シンタイ シッカン オ モツ カンジャ エノ シンリテキ ケア ニツイテ : ニュウインチュウ ノ ステロイド チリョウ カンジャ オ タイショウ トシテ

The purpose of this article was to understand the psychological condition of the adult patient had received the steroid therapy for some diseases in hospital.A psychological factor of six patients was investigated by "Anxiety Cognition related to Sickness Questionnaire" and "General Health Questionnaire GHQ-12"in study 1.In study 2, three patients who had high anxiety cognition and low mental health degree was interviewed by Narrative Approach(NA).As the results of these studies, we presumed that the patients needed some supports according to them,because the patients had high anxiety and stress in hospital.And,it was suggested that the NA interview was effective method for assess patient's psychological side.And the rewriting the patient's story by NA interview could improve patient's mental health

Observations on the occurrence of exacerbations in clinical course of systemic lupus erythematosus

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic disease that is characterized by an undulating course of exacerbations and remissions, and a major determinant of long-term prognosis is organ damage consequent to tissue injury that accompanies disease activity and toxicity of therapy. In this study, we evaluated which patients with SLE will develop an exacerbation and whether factors can be identified to predict the development of an exacerbation. Fifty-seven SLE patients (52 females) were included in this study. The exacerbation of SLE was found in 15 patients (26.3%). A relatively increased incidence of an exacerbation was found in younger SLE patients. An increased percentage of patients who had lupus nephritis at the time of diagnosis of SLE was found in patients with a subsequent exacerbation when compared with that in those without it. Increased incidence of an exacerbation was observed in patients who had decreased number of WBC and platelets, decreased level of C3 and CH50, and the presence positivity of anti-Sm antibodies at the time of the diagnosis. This study suggests that age, renal involvement, and the presence of decreased number of WBC and platelets, decreased level of complements anti-Sm antibodies are predictors of exacerbation

Maladjustment to Academic Life and Employment Anxiety in University Students with Irritable Bowel Syndrome

The present study tested our hypothesis that university students with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) may experience less satisfactory academic lives than those of students without IBS. We also verified the hypothesis that university students with IBS might have higher employment anxiety than students without IBS might.We conducted a cross-sectional study of 1, 686 university students. Presence or absence of IBS was assessed via the Rome III Questionnaire. Two original items were used to evaluate academic life. The prevalence rates of IBS with diarrhea, IBS with constipation, mixed IBS, and unsubtyped IBS in the study population were 5%, 2%, 10%, and 3%, respectively. Regarding academic life, the proportions of participants who experienced maladjustment and employment anxiety were 29% and 50%, respectively. After adjusting for age, sex, and faculty, the odds ratios for maladjustment and employment anxiety were significantly higher in students who screened positively, relative to those who screened negatively, for IBS (OR, 1.62; 95% CI, 1.24-2.21; OR, 2.16; 95% CI, 1.68-2.81, respectively). In conclusion, maladjustment and anxiety over future employment were higher in university students with IBS relative to those without

A fast spectral method for the Boltzmann equation for monatomic gas mixtures

Although the fast spectral method has been established for solving the Boltzmann equation for single-species monatomic gases, its extension to gas mixtures is not easy because of the non-unitary mass ratio between the di↵erent molecular species. The conventional spectral method can solve the Boltzmann collision operator for binary gas mixtures but with a computational cost of the order m3rN6, where mr is the mass ratio of the heavier to the lighter species, and N is the number of frequency nodes in each frequency direction. In this paper, we propose a fast spectral method for binary mixtures of monatomic gases that has a computational cost O(pmrM2N4 logN), where M2 is the number of discrete solid angles. The algorithm is validated by comparing numerical results with analytical Bobylev- Krook-Wu solutions for the spatially-homogeneous relaxation problem, for mr up to 36. In spatially-inhomogeneous problems, such as normal shock waves and planar Fourier/Couette flows, our results compare well with those of both the numerical kernel and the direct simulation Monte Carlo methods. As an application, a two-dimensional temperature-driven flow is investigated, for which other numerical methods find it difficult to resolve the flow field at large Knudsen numbers. The fast spectral method is accurate and elective in simulating highly rarefied gas flows, i.e. it captures the discontinuities and fine structures in the velocity distribution functions

Elevation of macrophage-derived chemokine in eosinophilic pneumonia : a role of alveolar macrophages

Macrophage-derived chemokine (MDC/CCL22) and thymus-and activation-regulated chemokine (TARC/CCL17) are ligands for CC chemokine receptor 4. Recently, TARC has been reported to play a role in the pathogenesis of idiopathic eosinophilic pneumonia (IEP). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of MDC in IEP and other interstitial lung diseases (ILDs). MDC and TARC in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were measured by enzymelinked immunosorbent assay in patients with ILDs and healthy volunteers (HV). We also examined the expression of MDC mRNA in alveolar macrophages (AM) by real-time quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. Both MDC and TARC were detected only in BALF obtained from IEP patients. The concentration of MDC was higher than that of TARC in all cases. The level of MDC in IEP correlated with that of TARC. AM from IEP patients expressed a significantly higher amount of MDC than that from HV at the levels of protein and mRNA. MDC in BALF from IEP dramatically decreased when patients achieved remission. These findings suggest that MDC, in addition to TARC, might be involved in the pathogenesis of IEP, and AM play a role in the elevation of MDC in IEP

Augmentation of Neovascularizaiton in Hindlimb Ischemia by Combined Transplantation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells-Derived Endothelial and Mural Cells

BACKGROUND: We demonstrated that mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells-derived vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2 (VEGF-R2) positive cells could differentiate into both endothelial cells (EC) and mural cells (MC), and termed them as vascular progenitor cells (VPC). Recently, we have established a method to expand monkey and human ES cells-derived VPC with the proper differentiation stage in a large quantity. Here we investigated the therapeutic potential of human VPC-derived EC and MC for vascular regeneration. METHODS AND RESULTS: After the expansion of human VPC-derived vascular cells, we transplanted these cells to nude mice with hindlimb ischemia. The blood flow recovery and capillary density in ischemic hindlimbs were significantly improved in human VPC-derived EC-transplanted mice, compared to human peripheral and umbilical cord blood-derived endothelial progenitor cells (pEPC and uEPC) transplanted mice. The combined transplantation of human VPC-derived EC and MC synergistically improved blood flow of ischemic hindlimbs remarkably, compared to the single cell transplantations. Transplanted VPC-derived vascular cells were effectively incorporated into host circulating vessels as EC and MC to maintain long-term vascular integrity. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that the combined transplantation of human ES cells-derived EC and MC can be used as a new promising strategy for therapeutic vascular regeneration in patients with tissue ischemia

CCN6 as a profibrotic mediator that stimulates the proliferation of lung fibroblasts via the integrin 1/focal adhesion kinase pathway

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a progressive and lethal disease of the lung that is characterized by the proliferation of fibroblasts and increased deposition of the extracellular matrix. The CCN6/WISP-3 is a member of the CCN family of matricellular proteins, which consists of six members that are involved in many vital biological functions. However, the regulation of lung fibroblasts mediated by CCN6 protein has not been fully elucidated. Here, we demonstrated that CCN6 induced the proliferation of lung fibroblasts by binding to integrin β1, leading to the phosphorylation of FAKY397. Furthermore, CCN6 showed a weak, but significant, ability to stimulate the expression of fibronectin. CCN6 was highly expressed in the lung tissues of mice treated with bleomycin. Our results suggest that CCN6 plays a role in the fibrogenesis of the lungs mainly by stimulating the growth of lung fibroblasts and is a potential target for the treatment of pulmonary fibrosis

Comparison of clinical course of polymyositis and dermatomyositis : a follow-up study in Tokushima University Hospital

Polymyositis (PM) and dermatomyositis (DM) are systemic inflammatory disorders affecting skeletal muscles and other organs, and are associated with high morbidity and mortality rates. In this study, we studied the prevalence, clinical features and its comparative outcome of PM/DM, comparing PM and DM. Twenty-three PM/DM patients (9 PM and 14 DM) were included in this study. The complication of interstitial pneumonia (IP) was found in 17 patients (74%). HRCT showed that non-specific interstitial pneumonia pattern was the most common in patterns of lung involvement. Twenty-one patients (91%) with PM/DM received high dose of prednisolone therapy. The percentage of patients who received methylprednisolone (mPSL) pulse and cyclosporin A was higher in DM patients than in PM patients. The percentage of patients who received mPSL pulse and cyclosporin A was higher in later (after Apr 2004) patients than in former (before Mar 2004) patients. Malignant diseases appeared in 3 patients with DM which consisted of breast cancer, epipharyngeal cancer and gastric cancer. We observed 2 deaths in DM patients during the course of therapy ; one was due to IP, and the other due to miliary tuberculosis. This study showed that a poorer prognosis was observed in patients with DM when compared with those with PM, and immunosuppressive medications may be implicated at least partially in increased risk of infections and malignancies in PM/DM patients especially DM patients, indicating that patients with PM/DM may require careful monitoring during the clinical course

Perfusion abnormality in neuronal intranuclear inclusion disease with stroke-like episode: A case report

Neuronal intranuclear inclusion disease (NIID) is a slowly progressive neurodegenerative disease. Some patients with NIID occasionally present with acute symptoms. However, its mechanism remains unclear. We report a patient with NIID who presented with a stroke-like episode. Arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging revealed hypoperfusion in the focal cerebral region at the onset while no apparent arterial occlusion was observed. The abnormal perfusion area was normalized 6 days after admission. Therefore, the perfusion abnormality was likely the main cause of acute neurologic deficits in NIID. NIID should be considered in the differential diagnosis of stroke mimics

Epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitor (gefitinib) augments pneumonitis, but attenuates lung fibrosis in response to radiation injury in rats

Background : Gefitinib, an inhibitor of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase, has been reported to be associated with interstitial lung disorders, and their high incidence and mortality have become a matter of great concern, especially in Japan. In this study, we investigated the effect of gefitinib on different phases of radiationinduced lung disorders in an experimental model. Methods : The thoraxes of Wistar rats were irradiated on day 1 with a single X-ray dose of 20 Gy, and gefitinib (50 mg/kg/day) was orally administered from day 1 to 14. The rat lungs were harvested on days 15 and 57 and the bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) was performed. Results : Gefitinib treatment increased the infiltration of inflammatory cells, which produced more pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, IL-1β), in the lungs of the irradiated rats on days 15 and 57, while gefitinib treatment reduced collagen content of the lungs in irradiated rats and decreased proliferation and EGFR expression in the lung fibroblasts from irradiated rats on day 57. Conclusions : In irradiated rats, gefitinib treatment augmented lung inflammation, including inflammatory cell infiltration and pro-inflammatory cytokine expression, while gefitinib treatment attenuated fibrotic lung remodeling due to the inhibition of lung fibroblast proliferation