Cutoff Values of Serum IgG4 and Histopathological IgG4+ Plasma Cells for Diagnosis of Patients with IgG4-Related Disease

IgG4-related disease is a new disease classification established in Japan in the 21st century. Patients with IgG4-related disease display hyper-IgG4-gammaglobulinemia, massive infiltration of IgG4+ plasma cells into tissue, and good response to glucocorticoids. Since IgG4 overexpression is also observed in other disorders, it is necessary to diagnose IgG4-related disease carefully and correctly. We therefore sought to determine cutoff values for serum IgG4 and IgG4/IgG and for IgG4+/IgG+ plasma cells in tissue diagnostic of IgG4-related disease. Patients and Methods. We retrospectively analyzed serum IgG4 concentrations and IgG4/IgG ratio and IgG4+/IgG+ plasma cell ratio in tissues of 132 patients with IgG4-related disease and 48 patients with other disorders. Result. Serum IgG4 >135  mg/dl demonstrated a sensitivity of 97.0% and a specificity of 79.6% in diagnosing IgG4-related disease, and serum IgG4/IgG ratios >8% had a sensitivity and specificity of 95.5% and 87.5%, respectively. IgG4+cell/IgG+ cell ratio in tissues >40% had a sensitivity and specificity of 94.4% and 85.7%, respectively. However, the number of IgG4+ cells was reduced in severely fibrotic parts of tissues. Conclusion. Although a recent unanimous consensus of all relevant researchers in Japan recently established the diagnostic criteria for IgG4-related disease, findings such as ours indicate that further discussion is needed

Chondroitin sulfate N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase-1 is required for normal cartilage development

CS (chondroitin sulfate) is a glycosaminoglycan species that is widely distributed in the extracellular matrix. To understand the physiological roles of enzymes involved in CS synthesis, we produced CSGalNAcT1 (CS N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase 1)-null mice. CS production was reduced by approximately half in CSGalNAcT1-null mice, and the amount of short-chain CS was also reduced. Moreover, the cartilage of the null mice was significantly smaller than that of wild-type mice. Additionally, type-II collagen fibres in developing cartilage were abnormally aggregated and disarranged in the homozygous mutant mice. These results suggest that CSGalNAcT1 is required for normal CS production in developing cartilage

Impact and use of the asymmetric property in bi-directional cooperative relaying under asymmetric traffic conditions

Cooperative relaying (CR) is a promising technique to provide spatial diversity by combining multiple signals from source and relay stations. In the present paper, the impact and use of the asymmetric property in bi-directional CR under asymmetric traffic conditions are discussed assuming that CR involves one communication pair and one relay station in a time division duplex (TDD) system. The asymmetric property means that the average communication quality differs for each transmission direction because of the difference in signal power between the combined signals for each direction. First, numerical results show the asymmetric property of bi-directional CR. Next, in order to evaluate the impact of the asymmetric property, the optimal relay position and resource allocation are compared to those in simple multi-hop relaying, which does not have the asymmetric property. Numerical results show that, in order to maximize the overall quality of bi-directional communication, the optimal relay position in CR depends on the offered traffic ratio, which is defined as the traffic ratio of each transmission direction, while the offered traffic ratio does not affect the optimal relay position in multi-hop relaying. Finally, the asymmetric property is used to enhance the overall quality. Specifically, a high overall quality can be achieved by, for example, opportunistically switching to the transmission direction with higher quality. Under asymmetric traffic conditions, weighted proportionally fair scheduling (WPFS), which is proposed in the context of downlink scheduling in a cellular network, is applied to transmission direction switching. Numerical results reveal that WPFS provides a high overall quality and that the quality ratio is similar to the offered traffic ratio

Association of Transition of Laboratory Markers with Transition of Disease Activity in Psoriasis Patients Treated with Biologics

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Primary Diaphragmatic Dedifferentiated Liposarcoma in a Young Female Patient after Delivery

A 26-year-old woman was admitted with the chief complaint of chest pain. She had delivered her first child 9 months before admission. Computed tomography showed a bulky mass in her left chest, and histopathological analysis revealed it to be dedifferentiated liposarcoma. We initiated doxorubicin chemotherapy, and the tumor mass reduced. After that, we performed vascular embolization along with chemotherapy, but tumor size did not reduce. On the 160th day of illness, the patient died. This is the first report of a primary diaphragmatic dedifferentiated liposarcoma diagnosed after delivery. Establishment of a regimen of chemotherapy for bulky unresectable liposarcoma is necessary