This paper describes the results of clinical and epidemiological studies of pathogen-carrying madani tick bites and the vector-borne diseases. The studies were conducted by a group of researchers specially organized by the Japanese Association of Rural Medicine.Questionnaires were sent out to JARM-affiliated 108 medical institutions to collect information about cases of ixodiasis, Lyme disease and Japanese spotted fever. It was found that during 2002, there were 151 cases of Ixodes tick bites (67 males and 84 females) and 17 cases of Lyme disease (13 males and 4 females). The incidence of Japanese spotted fever was zero.The survey also found that before that year, 24 out of the 108 medical institutions had treated tick bite cases and 13 handn’t. No reply came from the rest. As to Lyme disease, six hospitals had experienced in treating this vector-borne disease, 31 hadn’t and the rest did not reply. Japanese spotted fever was confirmed by one hospital. Thirty-three hospitals said they had not encountered this disease. The remaining 74 facilities did not respond. It was regrettable that more than a half of the 108 institutions did not respond to the survey. Considering that new types of infectious diseases caused by new forms of pathogens are raging nowadays, we, professionals affiliated with the Japanese Association of Rural Medicine, must keep careful watch on these diseases.
Japanese language ; Ticks ; Genus: Ixodes ; Clinical ; Lyme Disease

Infected aortic aneurysm is very difficult to treat and is associated with a high mortality rate. A 78-year-old man had been scheduled to undergo selective endovascular repair for distal aortic arch aneurysm. While standby, however, he was admitted to our emergency room because of hemoptysis. Rapid dilatation of the aneurysm shown on serial CT and elevated of inflammatory reactions yielded a diagnosis of infected aortic aneurysm. Because the aneurysm had ruptured into the left lung, emergency surgery was performed. Six days after the first operation, critical bleeding due to anastomotic disruption of the distal aorta caused by infection and subsequent cardiac arrest occurred. We immediately started open chest massage and controlled the bleeding manually in the ICU, while an operating room was prepared. In the redo operation, anastomotic disruption was repaired using the visceral pleura under deep hypothermic circulatory arrest. Anastomotic bleeding is a potentially life-threatening condition, therefore extremely prompt measures are vital. Appropriate management based on the assumption of anastomotic bleeding was very important in the postoperative course of this case of infectious aortic aneurysm.