眼球毒性の観察された農薬についての文献的考察

Pesticides evaluated previously by the Food Safety Commission of the Cabinet Office, Japan were in vestigated retrospectively for induction of ocular toxicity. A total of 339 assessment reports representing 345 compounds were investigated. Ocular toxicity was observed in 56 compounds. Target sites were pupils for 21 compounds, retinas for 21 compounds, lenses for 16 compounds, corneas for 15 compounds, conjunctiva for 3 compounds and whole eyeballs for 2 compounds. These ocular toxicities were not related to local irritation, but were due to systemic exposure after oral absorption. For many of these compounds, the mechanism (s) of ocular toxicities are unknown. Ocular toxicities were only induced at considerably higher doses of exposure compared to the acceptable daily intake (ADI) with sufficient safety margins for ocular toxicity. Although it is unlikely that ocular toxicities induced by these chemicals will occur in humans, it is though that future studies anticipating actual human exposure conditions and associated pharmacokinetic information will be important

Development and evaluation of an English learning system using smartphones in Japanese dental hygiene education

Purpose: To develop and evaluate the effects of an English learning system using smartphones in Japanese dental hygiene education.Methods: Forty-three third-year undergraduate university dental hygiene students took a preliminary examination and then were randomly divided into two groups, Group I or II, according to their results to make the English level of each group approximately equal. Group I took examination A as a pre-examination and examination B as a post-examination. Group II took examination B as a pre-examination and examination A as a post-examination. Each examination was composed of dental terminology and speaking sections. All participants studied English learning materials via a learning management system, which included a series of four subtopics related to dental caries prevention, as re- and self-learning.Results: In the terminology section, both groups showed significantly higher post-examination scores than pre-examination scores, regardless of which examination (A or B) was taken as the pre-examination (Group I: p < 0.0001, Group II: p =0.0025).Conclusions: The English learning system using smartphones developed in this study effectively increased participants’ dental English vocabulary. English speaking skills showed no improvement and another learning style should be evaluated in a future study

Urinary 8-iso PGF2α and 2,3-dinor-8-iso PGF2α can be indexes of colitis-associated colorectal cancer in mice.

Early diagnosis of colorectal cancer is needed to reduce the mortal consequence by cancer. Lipid mediators play critical role in progression of colitis and colitis-associated colon cancer (CAC) and some of their metabolites are excreted in urine. Here, we attempted to find novel biomarkers in urinary lipid metabolite of a murine model of CAC. Mice were received single administration of azoxymethane (AOM) and repeated administration of dextran sulfate sodium (DSS). Lipid metabolites in their urine was measured by liquid chromatography mass spectrometry and their colon was collected to perform morphological study. AOM and DSS caused inflammation and tumor formation in mouse colon. Liquid chromatography mass spectrometry-based comprehensive analysis of lipid metabolites showed that cyclooxygenase-mediated arachidonic acid (AA) metabolites, prostaglandins, and reactive oxygen species (ROS)-mediated AA metabolites, isoprostanes, were predominantly increased in the urine of tumor-bearing mice. Among that, urinary prostaglandin (PG)E2 metabolite tetranor-PGEM and PGD2 metabolite tetranor-PGDM were significantly increased in both of urine collected at the acute phase of colitis and the carcinogenesis phase. On the other hand, two F2 isoprostanes (F2-IsoPs), 8-iso PGF2α and 2,3-dinor-8-iso PGF2α, were significantly increased only in the carcinogenesis phase. Morphological study showed that infiltrated monocytes into tumor mass strongly expressed ROS generator NADPH (p22phox). These observations suggest that urinary 8-iso PGF2α and 2,3-dinor-8-iso PGF2α can be indexes of CAC

Long-Term Mastication Changed Salivary Metabolomic Profiles

Saliva is an ideal biofluid for monitoring oral and systemic health. Repeated mastication is a typical physical stimulus that improves salivary flow and oral hygiene. Recent metabolomic studies have shown the potential of salivary metabolomic components for various disease monitoring systems. Here, we evaluated the effect of long-term mastication on salivary metabolomic profiles. Young women with good oral hygiene (20.8 &plusmn; 0.3 years, n = 17) participated. They were prohibited from chewing gum during control periods (4 weeks each) and were instructed to chew a piece of gum base seven times a day for 10 min each time during the intervention period. Paired samples of unstimulated whole saliva collected on the last day of the control and intervention period were compared. Liquid chromatography&ndash;time-of-flight mass spectrometry successfully quantified 85 metabolites, of which 41 showed significant differences (p &lt; 0.05, Wilcoxon paired test corrected by false discovery rate). Except for a few metabolites, such as citrate, most metabolites showed lower concentrations after the intervention. The pathways related to glycogenic amino acids, such as alanine, arginine, and glutamine, altered considerably. This study suggests that long-term mastication induces unstimulated salivary component-level changes

Clinical and histopathological characteristics and survival analysis of 4594 Japanese patients with melanoma

Abstract Background The incidence of melanoma among those of an Asian ethnicity is lower than in Caucasians; few large‐scale Asian studies that include follow‐up data have been reported. Objectives To investigate the clinical characteristics of Japanese patients with melanoma and to evaluate the prognostic factors. Methods Detailed patient information was collected from the database of Japanese Melanoma Study Group of the Japanese Skin Cancer Society. The American Joint Committee on Cancer seventh Edition system was used for TNM classification. The Kaplan‐Meier method and Cox proportional hazards model were used to estimate the impact of clinical and histological parameters on disease‐specific survival in patients with invasive melanoma. Results In total, 4594 patients were included in this analysis. The most common clinical type was acral lentiginous melanoma (40.4%) followed by superficial spreading melanoma (20.5%), nodular melanoma (10.0%), mucosal melanoma (9.5%), and lentigo maligna melanoma (8.1%). The 5‐year disease‐specific survival for each stage was as follows: IA = 98.0%, IB = 93.9%, IIA = 94.8%, IIB = 82.4%, IIC = 71.8%, IIIA = 75.0%, IIIB = 61.3%, IIIC = 41.7%, and IV = 17.7%. Although multivariate analysis showed that clinical classifications were not associated with survival across all stages, acral type was an independent poor prognostic factor in stage IIIA. Conclusions Our study revealed the characteristics of melanoma in the Japanese population. The 5‐year disease‐specific survival of each stage showed a similar trend to that of Caucasians. While clinical classification was not associated with survival in any stages, acral type was associated with poor survival in stage IIIA. Our result might indicate the aggressiveness of acral type in certain populations