トクシマ ダイガク イガクブ ニオケル トウヨウ イガク キョウイク ニツイテ

The Oriental medicine is increasingly used in medical treatment in conjunction with the Western medical health care system in our country. As Oriental medicine and Western medicine are based on different scientific systems, there is no educational curriculum of Oriental medicine in Western medical school education. This is a report on pre- or post-graduation educational programs of traditional Oriental medicine in The University of Tokushima in the past and the present. In order to examine the attitudes of medical students toward Oriental medicine before and after lecture course, self-administered questionnaires were given the medical students of The University of Tokushima School of Medicine. A hundred percent of the students were interested in Oriental medicine ; 100% thought that Oriental medicine was worth learning ; 60% wanted to introduce Oriental medicine into their clinical practice in the future. These results suggest that it is necessary to properly learn Oriental medicine from the basics during medical school. More research on Oriental medicine in terms of clinical and basic science is necessary, and the opportunity to exchange information about Oriental medical treatment should be included in post-graduate curriculum

Prognostic significance of HIF-2 expression on tumor infiltrating macrophages in patients with uterine cervical cancer undergoing radiotherapy

Hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-2α, a basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH)-PAS protein, is the principal regulator of the hypoxic transcriptional response. An immunohistochemical study reported strong HIF-2α expression in the cytoplasm of tumor infiltrative macrophages (TIMs). Thus we assessed the expression of HIF-2α in human cervical cancer tissue before radiation therapy and its relationship to the clinical outcome. Seventy three patients with histologically proven primary advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the uterine cervix underwent radiotherapy in Tokushima University Hospital after biopsy specimens were taken. Among 73 specimens stained for HIF-2α, 53 (72.6%) exhibited HIF-2α immunoreactivity in the TIMs. In only 5 of 73 cases, HIF-2α immunoreactivity was observed in the nuclei of tumor cells. The HIF-2αpositive cell count ratio in TIMs was associated with disease-free survival (DFS) with the worst DFS (p=0.024) being in cases in the group with a high positive cell count ratio. A high HIF-2α positive cell count ratio in TIMs increased the risk of local recurrence (p=0.0142). These findings might suggest that the ratio of the HIF-2α positive cell in TIMs may be a new predictive indicator for prognosis before radiation therapy for uterine cervical cancer

Can Kampo therapy prolong the life of cancer patients?

Our policy regarding the performance of radiotherapy to squamous cell carcinoma of the uterine cervix has not changed since 1969. We have already reported the treatment results which were as good as those from other institutions. Since 1978, Kampo therapy was first introduced in the treatment of cancer patients in dealing with problems such as the side effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy and various types of general malaise. We analyzed our treatment results in order to re-evaluate the chemo-radiotherapy in combination with Kampo. Survival rates for 5, 10 and 15 years, respectively, were 90.9%, 71.6% and 71.6% for Stage IB, 78.9%, 61.8% and 41.8% for Stage II, 62.3%, 49.1% and 41.2% for Stage III and 53.1%, 36.5% and 16.7% for Stage IV. The Kampo significantly extended the survival of patients with uterine cervical cancer. We intend to perform further research with more patients to explore how this therapy contributes to the prolonging of patients survival