A 31-year old woman with pustulosis palmaris et plantaris was treated by Kampo-medicine. At our outpatient clinic, her skin lesions were especially prominent on her calcaneal and plantal regions of both feet, although noticed also on her palmar regions of both hands.
Decoctions of Keishi-ka-Ôgi-Tô was prescribed according to her Shô (signs and symptoms on whole body). Pustules apparently increased in 2 weeks after this therapy, but afterwards decreased. After 4 months, the skin regions almost disappeared. Although a slight, transient recurrence was noticed at the 10 months of this therapy, the disease was almost completely healed after 12 months.
The therapeutic mechanism of the skin lesions was briefly discussed from both the stand point of “Cell pathology” and that of “Whole body pathology”.

Four patients with DeBakey type 1 aortic dissection underwent primary repair operations: resection of intimal tear with complete aortic transection, circumferential suture line reinforced with Teflon felt strips, and end-to-end anastomosis. There was one hospital death due to pneumonia, and the other three survived. Postoperative CT revealed excellent thrombogenesis in the residual false lumen in three patients. In one case with Marfan's syndrome thrombus formation was not identified in the false lumen.

Periodontal tissue has a unique structure in that the human periodontal ligament (hPDL) lies between the hard tissues of cementum and alveolar bone. Although the role of cytokines in hPDL function is not clearly understood, we investigated the effect of mechanical stress as hydrostatic pressure (HP) on cytokine expression in hPDL cells.The hPDL cells were obtained from a healthy maxillary third molar. After the 3rd to 4th passage, the cells were exposed to HP ranging from 1 MPa to 6 MPa as previously described. The expression of cytokine mRNA was determined by RT-PCR and cytokines in the culture supernatants were assessed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).The exposure to 6 MPa of HP caused no morphological changes of hPDL cells, and did not affect cellular viability. No expression of IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, TNF-α, RANK, RANKL or OPG mRNA was observed in the control cells under atmospheric pressure, whereas in hPDL cells treated with HP, enhancement of IL-6, IL-8, RANKL and OPG mRNA expression was observed between 10 and 60 minutes after the exposure to HP. After the exposure to HP, the production of IL-6 and TNF-α were induced significantly in hPDL cells, but IL-1β and IL-8 were not produced.These results suggest that hPDL cells may play a role in the production of cytokines in response to mechanical stress in vivo.