63 research outputs found
Gastrointestinal cancer occurs as extramuscular manifestation in FSHD1 patients
Facioscapulohumeral dystrophy type1 (FSHD1) patients with a shortened D4Z4 repeat containing the DUX4 gene have a broad spectrum of clinical manifestations. In addition, high expression of DUX4 protein with an aberrant C terminus is frequently identified in B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. We investigated clinical manifestations in 31 FSHD1 patients and 30 non-affected individuals. Gastrointestinal cancers (gastric and colorectal cancers) increased after the age of 40 years and were more frequently observed in FSHD1 patients (n = 10) than in non-affected individuals (n = 2, p = 0.0217), though the incidence of cancers occurring in non-gastrointestinal tissues of FSHD1 patients was the same as that of non-affected individuals (p > 0.999). These comorbidities of FSHD1 patients were not associated with D4Z4 repeat number. Our results suggest that gastrointestinal cancers are among the extramuscular manifestations of adult FSHD1 patients, and do not depend on D4Z4 repeat number
Photoacoustic mammography: initial clinical results.
[Purpose]Photoacoustic tomography can image the hemoglobin distribution and oxygenation state inside tissue with high spatial resolution. The purpose of this study is to investigate its clinical usefulness for diagnosis of breast cancer and evaluation of therapeutic response in relation to other diagnostic modalities. [Materials and methods]Using a prototype machine for photoacoustic mammography (PAM), 27 breast tumor lesions, including 21 invasive breast cancer (IBC), five ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), and one phyllodes tumor, were measured. Nine out of twenty-one IBC patients had received primary systemic therapy (PST). [Results]Eight out of twelve IBC without PST were visible. Notably, detection was possible in all five cases with DCIS, whereas it was not in one case with phyllodes tumor. Seven out of nine IBC with PST were assigned as visible in spite of decreased size of tumor after PST. The mean value of hemoglobin saturation in the visible lesions was 78.6 %, and hemoglobin concentration was 207 μM. The tumor images of PAM were comparable to those of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). [Conclusions]It is suggested that PAM can image tumor vascularity and oxygenation, which may be useful for diagnosis and characterization of breast cancer
Kinematic Structure of Molecular Gas around High-mass Star YSO, Papillon Nebula, in N159 East in the Large Magellanic Cloud
We present the ALMA Band 3 and Band 6 results of 12CO(2-1), 13$CO(2-1),
H30alpha recombination line, free-free emission around 98 GHz, and the dust
thermal emission around 230 GHz toward the N159 East Giant Molecular Cloud
(N159E) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). LMC is the nearest active
high-mass star forming face-on galaxy at a distance of 50 kpc and is the best
target for studing high-mass star formation. ALMA observations show that N159E
is the complex of filamentary clouds with the width and length of ~1 pc and 5
pc - 10 pc, respectively. The total molecular mass is 0.92 x 10^5 Msun from the
13CO(2-1) intensity. N159E harbors the well-known Papillon Nebula, a compact
high-excitation HII region. We found that a YSO associated with the Papillon
Nebula has the mass of 35 Msun and is located at the intersection of three
filamentary clouds. It indicates that the formation of the high-mass YSO was
induced by the collision of filamentary clouds. Fukui et al. 2015 reported a
similar kinematic structure toward a YSO in the N159 West region which is
another YSO that has the mass larger than 35 Msun in these two regions. This
suggests that the collision of filamentary clouds is a primary mechanism of
high-mass star formation. We found a small molecular hole around the YSO in
Papillon Nebula with sub-pc scale. It is filled by free-free and H30alpha
emission. Temperature of the molecular gas around the hole reaches ~ 80 K. It
indicates that this YSO has just started the distruction of parental molecular
cloud.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figures. Submitted to Ap
Distance determination of molecular clouds in the 1st quadrant of the Galactic plane using deep learning : I. Method and Results
Machine learning has been successfully applied in varied field but whether it
is a viable tool for determining the distance to molecular clouds in the Galaxy
is an open question. In the Galaxy, the kinematic distance is commonly employed
as the distance to a molecular cloud. However, there is a problem in that for
the inner Galaxy, two different solutions, the ``Near'' solution, and the
``Far'' solution, can be derived simultaneously. We attempted to construct a
two-class (``Near'' or ``Far'') inference model using a Convolutional Neural
Network (CNN), a form of deep learning that can capture spatial features
generally. In this study, we used the CO dataset toward the 1st quadrant of the
Galactic plane obtained with the Nobeyama 45-m radio telescope (l = 62-10
degree, |b| < 1 degree). In the model, we applied the three-dimensional
distribution (position-position-velocity) of the 12CO (J=1-0) emissions as the
main input. The dataset with ``Near'' or ``Far'' annotation was made from the
HII region catalog of the infrared astronomy satellite WISE to train the model.
As a result, we could construct a CNN model with a 76% accuracy rate on the
training dataset. By using the model, we determined the distance to molecular
clouds identified by the CLUMPFIND algorithm. We found that the mass of the
molecular clouds with a distance of < 8.15 kpc identified in the 12CO data
follows a power-law distribution with an index of about -2.3 in the mass range
of M >10^3 Msun. Also, the detailed molecular gas distribution of the Galaxy as
seen from the Galactic North pole was determined.Comment: 29 pages, 12 figure
High-mass star formation triggered by collision between CO filaments in N159 West in the Large Magellanic Cloud
We have carried out 13CO(J=2-1) observations of the active star-forming
region N159 West in the LMC with ALMA. We have found that the CO distribution
at a sub-pc scale is highly elongated with a small width. These elongated
clouds called "filaments" show straight or curved distributions with a typical
width of 0.5-1.0pc and a length of 5-10pc. All the known infrared YSOs are
located toward the filaments. We have found broad CO wings of two molecular
outflows toward young high-mass stars in N159W-N and N159W-S, whose dynamical
timescale is ~10^4 yrs. This is the first discovery of protostellar outflow in
external galaxies. For N159W-S which is located toward an intersection of two
filaments we set up a hypothesis that the two filaments collided with each
other ~10^5 yrs ago and triggered formation of the high-mass star having ~37
Mo. The colliding clouds show significant enhancement in linewidth in the
intersection, suggesting excitation of turbulence in the shocked interface
layer between them as is consistent with the magneto-hydro-dynamical numerical
simulations (Inoue & Fukui 2013). This turbulence increases the mass accretion
rate to ~6x10^-4 Mo yr^-1, which is required to overcome the stellar feedback
to form the high-mass star.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ
Optimization of prediction methods for risk assessment of pathogenic germline variants in the Japanese population
Predicting pathogenic germline variants (PGVs) in breast cancer patients is important for selecting optimal therapeutics and implementing risk reduction strategies. However, PGV risk factors and the performance of prediction methods in the Japanese population remain unclear. We investigated clinicopathological risk factors using the Tyrer-Cuzick (TC) breast cancer risk evaluation tool to predict BRCA PGVs in unselected Japanese breast cancer patients (n = 1, 995). Eleven breast cancer susceptibility genes were analyzed using target-capture sequencing in a previous study; the PGV prevalence in BRCA1, BRCA2, and PALB2 was 0.75%, 3.1%, and 0.45%, respectively. Significant associations were found between the presence of BRCA PGVs and early disease onset, number of familial cancer cases (up to third-degree relatives), triple-negative breast cancer patients under the age of 60, and ovarian cancer history (all P < .0001). In total, 816 patients (40.9%) satisfied the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines for recommending multigene testing. The sensitivity and specificity of the NCCN criteria for discriminating PGV carriers from noncarriers were 71.3% and 60.7%, respectively. The TC model showed good discrimination for predicting BRCA PGVs (area under the curve, 0.75; 95% confidence interval, 0.69-0.81). Furthermore, use of the TC model with an optimized cutoff of TC score ≥0.16% in addition to the NCCN guidelines improved the predictive efficiency for high-risk groups (sensitivity, 77.2%; specificity, 54.8%; about 11 genes). Given the influence of ethnic differences on prediction, we consider that further studies are warranted to elucidate the role of environmental and genetic factors for realizing precise prediction
Waon therapy improves the prognosis of patients with chronic heart failure
Summary Background: We developed a Waon therapy (soothing warm therapy) and have previously reported that repeated Waon therapy improves hemodynamics, peripheral vascular function, arrhythmias, and clinical symptoms in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of Waon therapy on the prognosis of CHF patients. Patients and methods: We studied 129 patients with CHF in NYHA functional class III or IV who were admitted to our hospital between January 1999 and March 2001. In the Waon therapy group, 64 patients were treated with a far infrared-ray dry sauna at 60 • C for 15 min and then kept on bed rest with a blanket for 30 min. The patients were treated daily for 5 days during admission, and then at least twice a week after discharge. In the control group, 65 patients, matched for age, gender, and NYHA functional class, were treated with traditional CHF therapy. The follow-up time was scheduled for 5 years. Results: Recent, complete follow-up data on each patient were obtained. The overall survival rate was 84.5% (Kaplan-Meier estimate). Twelve patients died in the control group and 8 patients died in the Waon therapy group at 60 months of follow-up
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