Binarization of enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomographic images of an eye with Wyburn-Mason syndrome : a case report

Background: To report a thicker choroid and larger choroidal luminal area in an eye with Wyburn-Mason syndrome. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report demonstrating an increase in the choroidal thickness and the luminal area in a case of Wyburn-Mason syndrome. In addition, we report the changing appearance of retinal arteriovenous malformations over a 16-year period. Case presentation: A 27-year-old woman, who was diagnosed with Wyburn-Mason syndrome at age 11 years, visited our clinic. Her best-corrected visual acuity was 20/12.5 in the right eye and light perception in the left eye. Severely dilated, tortuous vascular loops were distributed from the optic disc over all four quadrants of the left fundus. The vascular loops in some areas were more dilated and tortuous than 16 years earlier. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) showed retinal edema with cystic changes and enlarged choroidal vessel lumens in the left eye. The subfoveal choroidal thickness was manually measured by the caliper function in the enhanced depth imaging OCT (EDI-OCT) images. Binarization of the EDI-OCT images was performed with publicly accessible ImageJ software. The examined area of the subfoveal choroid was 1,500 μm wide, and the dark areas representing the luminal areas were traced by the Niblack method. After determining the distance of each pixel, the luminal area was automatically calculated. The subfoveal choroidal thickness was 250 μm in the right eye and 462 μm in the left eye. The luminal area of the 1,500-μm-wide subfoveal choroid was computed to be 307,165.6 μm2 in the right eye and 545,780.7 μm2 in the left eye. Conclusions: The EDI-OCT images showed a thicker choroid, and binarization of the EDI-OCT images showed that the luminal areas were significantly larger in the affected eye, suggesting a dilatation of the choroidal vessels. The results demonstrated that conversion of EDI-OCT images to binary images was a useful method to quantify the choroidal structure

肺外科手術における術後早期の高次脳機能および術中脳酸素需給バランスに対する麻酔薬の効果 : ランダム化比較試験

PURPOSE: One-lung ventilation (OLV) may impair cerebral oxygen balance and induce postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD). It is unclear whether the type of anesthetic influences the incidence of POCD in patients undergoing OLV. This prospective study compared the incidence of POCD and intraoperative cerebral oxygen desaturation in OLV patients anesthetized with propofol vs sevoflurane during lung surgery. METHODS: There were 148 participants enrolled in this study and randomized equally to either the propofol or the sevoflurane group. Anesthesia was maintained with either propofol or sevoflurane combined in both groups with fentanyl and epidural anesthesia. Regional cerebral oxygen saturation (rSO2), jugular bulb venous oxygen saturation (SjO2), and the incidence of cerebral oxygen desaturation (rSO2 or SjO2 < 50% or rSO2 < 80% of baseline) were measured during anesthesia. Cognitive function was assessed using seven neurocognitive tests two days preoperatively, five days postoperatively (primary outcome), and three months postoperatively. Bivariable and multivariable regression analyses were conducted to identify factors associated with POCD. RESULTS: Rates of POCD did not differ statistically between groups five days postoperatively (propofol, 16/72 patients; sevoflurane, 24/72 patients; RR, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.39 to 1.15; P = 0.14) or three months postoperatively (propofol, 9/60 patients; sevoflurane, 12/58 patients; RR, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.33 to 1.59; P = 0.42). Only three subjects per group showed intraoperative cerebral oxygen desaturation. Multivariable regression analysis revealed older age as an independent predictor of POCD. CONCLUSIONS: No statistically significant difference in the incidence of POCD could be detected between the sevoflurane and propofol anesthesia groups. Postoperative cognitive dysfunction was relatively frequent following OLV in both groups. (REGISTRATION NUMBER: UMIN 000002826).博士（医学）・乙第1397号・平成29年3月15日© Canadian Anesthesiologists' Society 2016This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Canadian journal of anaesthesia. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12630-016-0700-4

Case of adult-onset Coats’ disease with epiretinal membrane treated with 25-gauge pars plana vitrectomy

We describe a case of untreated adult-onset Coats’ disease with a proliferative epiretinal membrane (ERM) treated successfully with 25-gauge pars plana vitrectomy (25GPPV). A 26-year-old man presented with a 3-week history of decreased vision in his left eye. At the initial examination, the decimal best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) was 0.7 in the left eye. Ophthalmoscopy revealed the typical appearance of Stage 2A Coats’ disease but with a proliferative ERM in the posterior pole. The patient received 2 monthly intravitreal injections of 2.5 mg bevacizumab, 5 laser photocoagulations to the area of telangiectasia, and 1 session of cryoretinopexy. Nine months after the initial visit, a traction by the ERM on the parafoveal area developed causing macular edema which reduced the BCVA to 0.3. He underwent 25GPPV with the removal of the ERM. In addition, the peripheral telangiectasia was treated intraoperatively with both laser photocoagulation and cryoretinopexy. Postoperatively, the traction to the parafoveal area was released and the BCVA improved to 0.6 which remained stable during the follow-up period of 13 months.We conclude that 25GPPV combined with ERM peeling, laser photocoagulation, and cryoretinopexy can be effective for adult-onset Coats’ disease associated with an ERM

SNP- and haplotype-based genome-wide association studies for growth, carcass, and meat quality traits in a Duroc multigenerational population

Average linkage disequilibrium coefficient (r2) values plotted against intermarker distance for all autosomal chromosomes. (PDF 407 kb

A Phenotypic Analysis of Involucrin-Membrane-Bound Ovalbumin Mice after Adoptive Transfer of Ovalbumin-Specific CD8⁺ T Cells

To investigate the mechanism of autoimmunity and peripheral tolerance in the skin, several transgenic mouse strains expressing membrane-bound ovalbumin (mOVA) as an epidermal self-antigen under the control of keratinocyte-specific promotors, such as keratin 5 and keratin 14, were employed in combination with adoptive transfer of CD8⁺ T cells from OT-I mice (OT-I T cells) that recognize an ovalbumin-derived peptide. However, these strains showed bodyweight loss and required additional inflammatory stimuli, such as γ-irradiation and tape-stripping, to induce skin inflammation. In this study, we generated a mouse strain expressing mOVA under the control of human involucrin promoter (involucrin-mOVA mice). In contrast to previous strains, involucrin-mOVA mice spontaneously developed skin inflammation after the transfer of OT-I T cells in the absence of external stimuli without significant bodyweight loss. We focused on the skin infiltration process of OT-I T cells and found that transferred OT-I T cells accumulated around the hair follicles in the early phase of skin inflammation, and in the later phase, the skin inflammation spontaneously resolved despite the remaining OT-I T cells in the skin. Our involucrin-mOVA mice will provide a promising tool to investigate the pathogenesis and the tolerance mechanisms of cytotoxic skin autoimmunity

Modeling and Prediction of Driving Behaviors Using a Nonparametric Bayesian Method with AR Models

To develop a new generation advanced driver assistance system that avoids a dangerous condition in advance, we need to predict driving behaviors. Since a nonparametric Bayesian method with a two-level structure successfully predicted the symbolized behaviors only, we applied a nonparametric Bayesian method with linear dynamical systems to predicting the driving behavior. The method called the beta process autoregressive hidden Markov model (BP-AR-HMM) segments driving behaviors into states each of which corresponds to an AR model and it predicts future behaviors using the estimated future state sequence and the dynamical systems therein. Here, the segmentation as well as the parameters of the dynamical systems are determined using given training data in an unsupervised way. We carried out experiments with real driving data and found that the BP-AR-HMM predicted driving behaviors better than other methods

TDP-43 stabilises the processing intermediates of mitochondrial transcripts

The 43-kDa trans-activating response region DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) is a product of a causative gene for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Despite of accumulating evidence that mitochondrial dysfunction underlies the pathogenesis of TDP-43–related ALS, the roles of wild-type TDP-43 in mitochondria are unknown. Here, we show that the small TDP-43 population present in mitochondria binds directly to a subset of mitochondrial tRNAs and precursor RNA encoded in L-strand mtDNA. Upregulated expression of TDP-43 stabilised the processing intermediates of mitochondrial polycistronic transcripts and their products including the components of electron transport and 16S mt-rRNA, similar to the phenotype observed in cells deficient for mitochondrial RNase P. Conversely, TDP-43 deficiency reduced the population of processing intermediates and impaired mitochondrial function. We propose that TDP-43 has a novel role in maintaining mitochondrial homeostasis by regulating the processing of mitochondrial transcripts