The effect of Kampo therapy (Japanese traditional herbal medicine) on the second derivative of the photoplethysmogram (SDPTG) was investigated. The SDPTG is the second derivative of the fingertip photoplethysmogram (PTG), which expresses the characteristics of the vascular system, the properties of peripheral vessels, and the state of blood flow. The subjects comprised 13 normal volunteers, 101 patients (21 males and 80 females; mean age 53±11 years) with 1 month of Kampo therapy, and 19 patients (4 males and 15 females; mean age 60±9 years) with 3 months of medication. Control subjects showed no significant changes in their vascular age after 1 month. Patients with a higher vascular age than expected before therapy showed improvement of their vascular age, after treatment for 1 month and 3 months. The difference between the vascular age and calendar age decreased from about 10 to 7 years after 1 month of therapy (n=65. p<0.001), and from about 9 to 4 years, after 3 months (n=11, p<0.01). Vascular age not only reflects organic vessel wall sclerosis due to arteriosclerosis, but also a vascular wall tone that is closely related to the autonomic nervous system. The change of vascular age within a relatively short period suggested a functional change rather than an organic change of the vessels.

Patients often complaint about their health, even if nothing is wrong with them upon concise objective examination. The complaints often imply the symptoms reflect more than one organ. Kampo treatment has the advantage of curing several symptoms at the same time, with only one or a few medicines. Kampo medicines comprise Chinese herbal formulations individually tailored to the patient. Therefore, symptom reduction is one of the most essential outcome parameters in Kampo treatment. However, how these subjective symptoms should be quantified, is controversial. The purpose of the current paper is to introduce an evaluation system for subjective symptoms. The system is referred to as Tokyo Women's Medical University Oriental Medicine Research Active Support System (TOMRASS). Apart from subjective symptoms, this database contains physical examination, laboratory data, clinical diagnosis and prescribed medicines, etc. In this study, 2 cases are shown as examples of practical use with TOMRASS use. One is a case with many complaints, which is effective with one medicine, Toki-shigyaku-ka-goshuyu-shokyo-to. The other is a case, which reveals unexpected outcomes with Sho-seiryu-to.
The new approach enables us not only to give more consideration to the patient's perspective, but also to differentiate therapeutic implications. The investigation between the subjective quality of life and therapeutic relationship may contribute to further understanding of Kampo treatment.

We investigated factors related to the perception of achievement and to the degree of satisfaction of junior residents in initial clinical training. Questionnaires were given to second-year postgraduate students at 13 teaching hospitals in Japan. The response rate was 50%(n=89). The perception of achievement and the degree of satisfaction were converted to a 100-point scale. The mean±standard deviation of the two scores were 70±11 and 68±16, respectively. The average number of inpatients and whether the junior resident had taken care of patients were related to both scores. However, gender, the number of departments rotated through, and salary were not associated with either score.

The DCCT syudy report (in 1993) showed that long-term maintenance of near normoglycemia markedly delays the onset and/or progression of microangiopathic complications of type 1 diabetes. Now, intensive insulin therapy has been considered to be a standard treatment of type 1 diabetes. However, it brings about serious hypoglycemia three times as frequently as conventional therapy with split-dose insulin mixtures. If IDDM patients could predict their blood glucose levels, it would be beneficial to prevention of hypoglycemia and to strict glycemic control. We intended to research whether insulin-treated diabetic children in a diabetic summer camp could predict their blood glucose levels. The number of subjects was 28. They were elementary and junior high school children 9 to 16 years of age. They predicted their blood glucose levels before every meal and bedtime, and then monitored their blood glucose levels. Their HbA₁c was 7.6±0.3%, total daily insulin dosage 36.0±3.2U/day, and infection times 3.3±0.2/ day.
Measured blood glucose levels and predicted blood glucose levels were not distributed normally, but their natural logarithms (Ln (mBG), Ln (pBG)) were. Ln (pBG) (5.01±0.02) was significantly higher than Ln (mBG) (4.92±0.03) (p<0.01)
A positive correlation was found between Ln (mBG) (x) and Ln (pBG) (y) (y=0.359 x+3.239, r=0.495). Events of which Ln (pBG) was within±20% and±30% of Ln (mBG) were 124 (31.5%) and 175 (44.5%), respectively, of the total 393 events. As for the relationship between Ln (mBG) and Ln (pBG) at each time, a change of Ln (mBG) was significantly larger than that of Ln (pBG).
These results showed that prediction of blood glucose levels was difficult for type 1 iabetic children, especially when blood glucose levels were extremely high or low and when they fluctuated sharply.

Three surgical cases of postinfarction left ventricular free wall rupture (LVFWR) are described. Patient 1, a 76-year-old woman, developed LVFWR of the posterior wall after acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Coronary arteriography (CAG) revealed total occlusion of left circumflex artery (Cx) (#11). Direct closure of the myocardial tear was performed using cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) and cardiac arrest. Patient 2, a 67-year-old man, developed LVFWR of the anterior wall after AMI. CAG revealed total occlusion of left anterior descending artery (LAD) (#7). He was placed on a percutaneous cardiopulmonary support system (POPS) prior to the operation and direct closure of the myocardial tear was performed with the heart beating. Patient 3, a 57-year-old man, developed LVFWR of the posterior wall after AMI. CAG revealed total occlusion of Cx (#13). He was placed on PCPS prior to the operation and direct closure of the myocardial tear was performed using CPB and cardiac arrest. Patients 2 and 3 who were placed on PCPS prior to the operation successfully underwent emergency operations. In all cases, 2-0 Prolene horizontal mattress sutures with Teflon felt strips were used through the infarcted area in order to close the myocardial tear.

Sixteen consecutively seen patients underwent surgical repair for complications following acute myocardial infarction. There were two cases with acute mitral regurgitation due to posterior papillary muscle rupture, who underwent mitral valve replacement with a prosthetic valve. There were three cases of postinfarction left ventricular free wall rupture. In all cases, horizontal mattress suture with Teflon felt strip was used in order to close the myocardial tear. The two out of three who survived had been placed on percutaneous cardiopulmonary support prior to the operation. There were 11 cases of postinfarction ventricular septal perforation. The surgical procedures consisted of simple patch closure (Daggett's method) in 7 cases, direct closure in one case, apical amputation in one case and endocardial patch repair with infarct exclusion (Komeda-David method) in the most recent two cases. Six out of eleven survived. Early diagnosis and surgical treatment are mandatory to save these patients. Intraaortic balloon pumping and percutaneous cardiopulmonary support prior to the operation have been used to advantage in some patients.

Background: Group practices with multiple physicians are preferred for promoting home medical care, but the explanations to patients and families given by the visiting doctors may differ. That could sometimes lead to confusion in patients and families.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional mail survey of families of Japanese patients who had previously received home medical care. Multivariable adjusted logistic regression for families’ sense of discrepancy between the explanations by doctors in a group practice was performed using eleven explanatory variables including: (1) number of doctors; (2) interval between the doctors’ visits; (3) duration of the doctor’s stay; (4) doctors’ frequent use of technical terminology; (5) doctors’ interruption of family’s talking, etc.
Results: Among 271 families who were mailed surveys, 227 responded (83.8%). The final sample for the analyses was 139. Responses were divided into two groups: families who had experienced a sense of discrepancy about explanations by different doctors (“Experienced”, 30 families, 21.6%) and those who had not (“Non-experienced”, 109 families, 78.4%). Families’ sense of discrepancy between the explanations by doctors in group practice was significantly associated with a longer time interval between doctors’ visits (OR: 1.103, 95% CI: 1.008–1.208, p = 0.03) and doctors interrupting families while they were talking (OR: 2.559, 95% CI: 1.166–5.615, p = 0.02).
Conclusions: Visiting doctors need to understand that families may have a sense of discrepancy about explanations given by different doctors. This sense of discrepancy was associated with less frequent doctors’ visits and doctors’ interrupting families while they are talking.

Aim: As an attempt to clarify the molecular basis of castration-induced apoptosis, this study was undertaken to demonstrate the expression of caspase-1 in male accessory sex organs of rats. Methods and results: cDNA of rat caspase-1 was cloned by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction from the ventral prostates. The open reading frame predicts 402 amino acids, which shows more than 91% and 63 % identity to those of mouse and human, respec tively. Northern analyses demonstrated the presence of castration-induced up-regulation of the 1.6 kb transcript in the ventral prostate and the seminal vesicles. Finally, the authors demonstrated the caspase-1 transcripts in the epithelia of these tissues by in situ hybridization analyses. Conclusion: Castration induces the expression of caspase-1 tran scripts in the epithelia of ventral prostate and seminal vesicle. These observations suggest a possible role of caspase-1 in apoptosis in male accessory sex organs.

  During the period of two years from 2001 to 2003, we treated nine cases of takotsubo-type myocardiopathy. In this paper, the clinical characteristics and patients' conditions are described, and the mechanisms leading to dyskinesia of the muscular walls of the heart are discussed. All the cases were female. The mean age was 73 years. Physiological as well as psychological stress was implicated as a major cause of the disease, with onset occurring when some members of their family were suddenly taken ill or when they started quarreling with others. Echocardiograms revealed sigmoid septa in almost half of the nine patients. The prognosis was good. Only one patient had cardiac insufficiency as a sequela, but her condition improved. No one died.Eight patients got over dyskinesia of the left ventricular walls in two weeks. From our experience and studies of literature, we ruled out the possibility of the involvement of circulatory disorder and myocarditis in the onset of the disease. Women of advanced age are apt to have sigmoid septa and left ventricular walls thinning. When the old patient in this condition suffer psychosomatic stress, catecholamines will be released, causing the hypercontraction of the left ventricle, the pressure difference in the chamber, and the collapse of the apical of the heart. We concluded that these physiopathological states may be responsible for the abnormal movements of the muscular walls of the heart peculiar to the disease taken up in this study.