Clinical effect of 3g/day administration of meropenem on severe pneumonia

We examined the clinical effect of Meropenem (MEPM) on severe pneumonia. We administered 3g of Meropenem daily to 20 patients with severe pneumonia: 8 communityacquired pneumonia patients, 9 nursing and healthcare-associated pneumonia patients, and 3 hospital-acquired pneumonia patients. It was effective in 15 of the 20 patients (75%): 8 of 8 community-acquired pneumonia patients (100%), 6 of 9 nursing and healthcare-associated pneumonia patients (66.6%), and 1 of 3 hospital-acquired pneumonia patients (33.3%). Bacteriologically, 9 of a total of 10 strains (90%) were eradicated: 4 of 4 Streptococcus pneumoniae strains, 2 of 2 methicillin-sensitive Staphlococcus aureus strains, 1 of 2 Enterococcus faecalis strains, 1 of 1 Klebsiella pneumoniae strain, and 1 of 1 Escherichia coli strain. Hepatic dysfunction was observed as a side effect in 8 patients (40%). Based on the above, administration of MEPM daily 3 g is extremely effective for community-acquired pneumonia, while it appears ineffective in many cases of nursing and healthcare-associated pneumonia or hospital-acquired pneumonia, and results in hepatic dysfunction at a high frequency

Association between ImmunoCard Mycoplasma test and particle agglutination (PA) method in Mycoplasma pneumonia diagnosis

We examined the association between ImmunoCard Mycoplasma test and particle agglutination (PA) method in Mycoplasma pneumonia diagnosis. Subjects were 105 pneumonia patients who were positive for ImmunoCard Mycoplasma test at initial consultation and followed up by PA method using paired sera. The coincidence rates of positive cases of ImmunoCard Mycoplasma test and positive cases of PA method were examined by generation. The results showed that the coincidence rate was 87.5% in aged less than 19 years, 48.8% in aged 20-39 years, 36.4% in aged 40-59 years, 21.1% in aged 60-79 years, and 25.0% in aged 80 or greater, for a total of 44.8% (47 of 105 patients). The results suggested that a positive result for ImmunoCard Mycoplasma test may be due to acute infection in patients aged 19 years or less; however, 50% or more of patients aged 20 years or greater were false positive, which may reflect the presence of past infection

Clinical effect of sulbactam/ampicillin on community-acquired pneumonia with positive Streptococcus pneumoniae urinary antigen test

We investigated the efficacy of intravenous penicillin (sulbactam/ampicillin: SBT/ABPC) in adult patients with positive Streptococcus pneumoniae urinary antigen test requiring hospitalization. We administered 3g of SBT/ABPC intravenously in the morning and evening for 7-14 days to 32 adult community-acquired pneumonia patients with positive Binax NOW(R) S. pneumoniae urinary antigen. Clinical efficacy, bacteriological efficacy, and side effects of these patients were prospectively examined. We observed clinical efficacy in a total of 28 of 32 patients (87.5%); 24 of 26 moderate patients (92.3%), and four of six severe patients (66.7%). Side effects were drug eruption, increased GOT, increased AMY, and decreased WBC, observed in one patient each; however, all were mild. SBT/ABPC is extremely useful in patients with positive S. pneumoniae urinary antigen test requiring hospitalizatio

Multi-layered flyer accelerated by laser induced shock waves

Copyright 2000 American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Physics of Plasmas, 7(2), 676-680, 2000 and may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.87385

Simplified and optimized multispectral imaging for 5-ALA-based fluorescence diagnosis of malignant lesions

5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA)-based fluorescence diagnosis is now clinically applied for accurate and ultrarapid diagnosis of malignant lesions such as lymph node metastasis during surgery. 5-ALA-based diagnosis evaluates fluorescence intensity of a fluorescent metabolite of 5-ALA, protoporphyrin IX (PPIX); however, the fluorescence of PPIX is often affected by autofluorescence of tissue chromophores, such as collagen and flavins. In this study, we demonstrated PPIX fluorescence estimation with autofluorescence elimination for 5-ALA-based fluorescence diagnosis of malignant lesions by simplified and optimized multispectral imaging. We computationally optimized observation wavelength regions for the estimation of PPIX fluorescence in terms of minimizing prediction error of PPIX fluorescence intensity in the presence of typical chromophores, collagen and flavins. By using the fluorescence intensities of the optimized wavelength regions, we verified quantitative detection of PPIX fluorescence by using chemical mixtures of PPIX, flavins, and collagen. Furthermore, we demonstrated detection capability by using metastatic and non-metastatic lymph nodes of colorectal cancer patients. These results suggest the potential and usefulness of the background-free estimation method of PPIX fluorescence for 5-ALA-based fluorescence diagnosis of malignant lesions, and we expect this method to be beneficial for intraoperative and rapid cancer diagnosis

Suppression of osteoclastogenesis via α2-adrenergic receptors

The sympathetic nervous system is known to regulate osteoclast development. However, the involvement of α2-adrenergic receptors (α2-ARs) in osteoclastogenesis is not well understood. In the present study, their potential role in osteoclastogenesis was investigated. Guanabenz, clonidine and xylazine were used as agonists of α2-ARs, while yohimbine and idazoxan were employed as antagonists. Using RAW264.7 pre-osteoclast and primary bone marrow cells, the mRNA expression of the osteoclast-related genes nuclear factor of activated T-cells, cytoplasmic 1 (NFATc1), tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) and cathepsin K was evaluated following induction with receptor activator of nuclear factor κB ligand (RANKL). TRAP staining was also conducted to assess effects on osteoclastogenesis in mouse bone marrow cells in vitro. Administration of 5-20 µM guanabenz (P<0.01, for RANKL-only treatment), 20 µM clonidine (P<0.05, for RANKL-only treatment) and 20 µM xylazine (P<0.05, for RANKL-only treatment) attenuated RANKL-induced upregulation of NFATc1, TRAP and cathepsin K mRNA. Furthermore, the reductions in these mRNAs by 10 µM guanabenz and 20 µM clonidine in the presence of RANKL were attenuated by 20 µM yohimbine or idazoxan (P<0.05). The administration of 5-20 µM guanabenz (P<0.01, for RANKL-only treatment) and 10-20 µM clonidine (P<0.05, for RANKL-only treatment) also decreased the number of TRAP-positive multi-nucleated osteoclasts. Collectively, the present study demonstrates that α2-ARs may be involved in the regulation of osteoclastogenesis

C57BL/KsJ-db/db-ApcMin/+ Mice Exhibit an Increased Incidence of Intestinal Neoplasms

The numbers of obese people and diabetic patients are ever increasing. Obesity and diabetes are high-risk conditions for chronic diseases, including certain types of cancer, such as colorectal cancer (CRC). The aim of this study was to develop a novel animal model in order to clarify the pathobiology of CRC development in obese and diabetic patients. We developed an animal model of obesity and colorectal cancer by breeding the C57BL/KsJ-db/db (db/db) mouse, an animal model of obesity and type II diabetes, and the C57BL/6J-ApcMin/+ (Min/+) mouse, a model of familial adenomatous polyposis. At 15 weeks of age, the N9 backcross generation of C57BL/KsJ-db/db-ApcMin/+ (db/db-Min/+) mice developed an increased incidence and multiplicity of adenomas in the intestinal tract when compared to the db/m-Min/+ and m/m-Min/+ mice. Blood biochemical profile showed significant increases in insulin (8.3-fold to 11.7-fold), cholesterol (1.2-fold to 1.7-fold), and triglyceride (1.2-fold to 1.3-fold) in the db/db-Min/+ mice, when compared to those of the db/m-Min/+ and m/m-Min/+ mice. Increases (1.4-fold to 2.6-fold) in RNA levels of insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1, IRF-1R, and IGF-2 were also observed in the db/db- Min/+ mice. These results suggested that the IGFs, as well as hyperlipidemia and hyperinsulinemia, promoted adenoma formation in the db/db-Min/+ mice. Our results thus suggested that the db/db-Min/+ mice should be invaluable for studies on the pathogenesis of CRC in obese and diabetes patients and the therapy and prevention of CRC in these patients

TriAnnot: A Versatile and High Performance Pipeline for the Automated Annotation of Plant Genomes

In support of the international effort to obtain a reference sequence of the bread wheat genome and to provide plant communities dealing with large and complex genomes with a versatile, easy-to-use online automated tool for annotation, we have developed the TriAnnot pipeline. Its modular architecture allows for the annotation and masking of transposable elements, the structural, and functional annotation of protein-coding genes with an evidence-based quality indexing, and the identification of conserved non-coding sequences and molecular markers. The TriAnnot pipeline is parallelized on a 712 CPU computing cluster that can run a 1-Gb sequence annotation in less than 5 days. It is accessible through a web interface for small scale analyses or through a server for large scale annotations. The performance of TriAnnot was evaluated in terms of sensitivity, specificity, and general fitness using curated reference sequence sets from rice and wheat. In less than 8 h, TriAnnot was able to predict more than 83% of the 3,748 CDS from rice chromosome 1 with a fitness of 67.4%. On a set of 12 reference Mb-sized contigs from wheat chromosome 3B, TriAnnot predicted and annotated 93.3% of the genes among which 54% were perfectly identified in accordance with the reference annotation. It also allowed the curation of 12 genes based on new biological evidences, increasing the percentage of perfect gene prediction to 63%. TriAnnot systematically showed a higher fitness than other annotation pipelines that are not improved for wheat. As it is easily adaptable to the annotation of other plant genomes, TriAnnot should become a useful resource for the annotation of large and complex genomes in the future