The therapeutic effects of long-term treatment with Sho-saiko-to, a traditional Chinese medicine, was evaluated in patients with idiopathic interstitial pneumonia (IIP). Twenty-nine patients with IIP without steroid therapy were divided into two groups: one for administration of Sho-saiko-to (n=9) and another for control (n=20). Clinical symptoms and results of respiratory tests over periods of 11 to 43 months were recorded. No adverse effects of Sho-saiko-to were odserved.
One patient of the Sho-saiko-to administered group improved markedly, three improved slightly and five showed no changes, though no patients in the control group improved. The two patients of improving slightly had “Sho” of “Kyokyo-Kuman” (discomfort of the hypochondrium) which is applied for Sho-saiko-to. The results suggested that Sho-saiko-to might be a useful medicine to suppress the inflammatory procees in patients with IIP.

A 3-month-old girl of univentricular heart of left ventricular type with atresia of left atrioventricular valve (LAVV) and coarctation of the aorta (Co/AO) is presented. UCG and angiography revealed concordant AV connection with straddling RAVV with transposed great arteries [SDDT]. The following pressures (in mmHg) were noted on catheterization: RA mean 1 (a=3, v=1), LA mean 12 (a=17, v=14), LV 84/0/8, Ao 81/41, and PA 74/39. Patent foramen ovale (PFO) was restrictive and balloon atrioseptostomy was not feasible. Blalock-Hanlon atrial septectomy (8×6mm), subclavian flap aortoplasy (SFA) and pulmonary arterial banding were performed simultaneously under bilateral thoracotomy. Acute renal failure occurred after surgery and the girl required peritoneal dialysis for 5 days. At 6 months after surgery, girl is doing well. There will be a predictable fall in pulmonary vascular resistance after atrial septectomy and SFA with a ligation of PDA may result transient increase in systemic resistance. Therefore, atrial septectomy and SFA in conjunction with pulmonary arterial banding should be done simultaneously.

Fourteen cases (ranged 4 days to 5 months old, mean=40 days old) of coarctation of thoracic aorta underwent subclavian flap aortoplasty were between Jan. 1986 and Dec. 1990. Early postoperative course in these patients was reviewed retrospectively. In 9 cases of these patients, complex intracardiac anormalies co-existed (VSD in 7, ECD in one, single ventricle with MA in one). Preoperative pressure gradients between upper and lower extremities were 40±7mmHg and the gradients were significantly reduced after the repair of coarctation (8±4mmHg). Serum creatinine phosphokinase (CPK) increased postoperatively reaching peak levels by day 3 (12, 315 ±8, 462IU/l) and then gradually decreased. Gultamic oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT), glutamicpyruvic transanmiase (GPT), serum urea nitrogen (BUN) and serum creatinine (S-Cr) also increased postoperatively. When patients were divided into two group following the maximum CPK levels (group A: >4, 000; group B: <4, 000IU/l), the duration of mechanical ventilation (A: 117±21; B: 20±9hr), max. S-Cr levels (A: 2.16±0.64; B: 0.47±0.13mg/dl) and max. GPT (A: 323±127; B: 58±24IU/l) were significantly increased in group A. There was no significant correlation between these factors and postsurgical residual pressure gradients. An increase in these factors did not depend on the operation time, age, body weight and additional surgical procedures such as pulmonary arterial banding. These data suggest that the transient unbalanced blood distribution might exist even under no pressure gradients between upper and lower extremities. This might be important in the management of postoperative patients after repair of coarctation.

We investigated the content of NO₃-N in the well water of the eastern, middle and nothern districts of Nagano Prefecture. The NO₃-N content seasonally changes and takes on the pattern of a high in summer and a low in winter.
Rain is considered to dilute the contaminated well water, but it lets NO₃-N flow from the soil into the.well water, when the rain is poured by a typhoon. As a result, a high content of NO₃-N is measured in the well water.
The water sample of 25 out of 85 wells in Matsukawa Town exceeded the tolerance level of NO₃-N (10 ppm, but 44.3 ppm in terms of NO₃^-).
By crop area, the amount of NO₃-N was highest in the fruitgrowing area, which was followed in order of the vegetable-growing area, the flower-growing and the rice planting area.
We consider that the contamination of well water is caused both by chemical fertilizers and the less absorbility of the soil.

Two hundred and thirty adipose tissues were collected from inpatients, who had undergone an operation and an autopsy in the Saku Central Hospital from 1980 to 1982. Organochlorine pesticides were extracted from the adipose tissues and determined by gas-liquid chromatography with an electron-capture detector.
The mean value was 1, 429 ppm for total BHC among males, and 1.665 ppm among females, 4.893 ppm and 3.791 ppm for total DDT, 1.082 ppm and 0.782 ppm for PCB, respectively. Regression analysis between the total BHC residue and the ages of patients indicated a positive correlation for both sexs. As for the relation between the rate of obesity and the residues, low rates of obesity (-10%--19%) were most significantly correlated with high values of total BHC, total DDT and PCB.
We also discussed relations between cancerous diseases and the residues.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The administration of liquid nutrients to patients is often accompanied by complications such as gastroesophageal reflux. To prevent gastroesophageal reflux, high-viscosity liquid meals are used widely, however, it still remains controversial whether high-viscosity liquid meals have any effect on the rate of gastric emptying. The present study was conducted with the aim of determining whether high-viscosity liquid meals had any effect on the rate of gastric emptying and mosapride might accelerate the rate of gastric emptying of high-viscosity liquid meals. METHODS: Six healthy male volunteers underwent 3 tests at intervals of > 1 week. After fasting for > 8 hours, each subject received one of three test meals (liquid meal only, high-viscosity liquid meal [liquid meal plus pectin] only, or high-viscosity liquid meal 30 minutes after intake of mosapride). A 13C-acetic acid breath test was performed, which monitored the rate of gastric emptying for 4 hours. Using the Oridion Research Software (beta version), breath test parameters were calculated. The study parameters were examined for all the 3 test conditions and compared using the Freidman test. RESULTS: Gastric emptying was significantly delayed following intake of a high-viscosity liquid meal alone as compared with a liquid meal alone; however, intake of mosapride prior to a high-viscosity liquid meal was associated with a significantly accelerated rate of gastric emptying as compared with a high-viscosity liquid meal alone. CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that high-viscosity liquid meals delayed gastric emptying: however, mosapride recovered the delayed rate of gastric emptying by high-viscosity liquid meals.
Benzamides ; Breath Tests ; Cross-Over Studies ; Fasting ; Gastric Emptying ; Gastroesophageal Reflux ; Humans ; Male ; Meals ; Morpholines ; Pectins

BACKGROUND/AIMS: There are few reports on the correlation between chewing gum and the gastrointestinal functions. But previous report showed use of chewing gum to be an effective method for controlling gastrointestinal symptoms. The aim of this study was to determine the correlation between chewing gum and gastric emptying using the continuous real time 13C breath test (BreathID system). METHODS: Ten healthy male volunteers participated in this randomized, 2-way crossover study. The subjects fasted overnight and were randomly assigned to chewing gum (Xylish, 2-3/1 tablet) for an hour following intake of a test meal (200 kcal/200 mL) or intake of the test meal alone. Gastric emptying was monitored for 4 hours after administration of the test meal by the 13C-acetic acid breath test performed continually using the BreathID system. RESULTS: No significant differences in the calculated parameters, namely, T1/2 (median, 111.82 vs 109.26 minutes; P = 0.575), Tlag (median, 53.28 vs 56.53 minutes; P = 0.333), gastric emptying coefficient (median, 3.58 vs 3.65; P = 0.285), regression-estimated constant beta (median, 1.85 vs 1.80; P = 0.575) and regression-estimated constant kappa (median, 0.61 vs 0.62; P = 0.959) were observed between the test meal alone group and the test meal and chewing gum group. CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that chewing gum had no effect on the rate of gastric emptying. Therefore, since chewing gum did not enhance the speed of gastric emptying, it may ameliorate gastrointestinal symptoms through other mechanisms, such as saliva and autonomic nervous system.
Autonomic Nervous System ; Breath Tests ; Chewing Gum ; Cross-Over Studies ; Gastric Emptying ; Humans ; Male ; Mastication ; Meals ; Saliva

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The effects of Histamine-2 receptor antagonists and proton pump inhibitors on the gastrointestinal motility have not yet been sufficiently investigated. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of intravenous bolus administration of famotidine and omeprazole on the rate of gastric emptying using the continuous 13C breath test (BreathID system, Exalenz Bioscience Ltd, Israel). METHODS: Twelve healthy male volunteers participated in this randomized, 3-way crossover study. After fasting overnight, the subjects were randomly assigned to receive 20 mg of famotidine, 20 mg of omeprazole or 20 mL of saline alone by intravenous bolus injection before a test meal (200 kcal per 200 mL, containing 100 mg of 13C-acetate). Gastric emptying was monitored for 4 hours after the ingestion of test meal by the 13C-acetic acid breath test performed using the BreathID system. RESULTS: No significant differences in the calculated parameters, namely, the T1/2, Tlag, GEC, beta and kappa, were observed among the 3 test conditions. CONCLUSIONS: The study revealed that intravenous administration of gastric acid suppressant drugs had no significant influence on the rate of gastric emptying in comparison with that of saline alone as a placebo. Our results indicating the absence of any effect of either famotidine or omeprazole on accelerating the rate of gastric emptying suggest that both medications can be administered safely to patients suffering from hemorrhagic peptic ulcers who need to be kept nil by mouth from the viewpoint of possible acceleration of gastrointestinal motility in the clinical setting.
Acceleration ; Administration, Intravenous ; Breath Tests ; Cross-Over Studies ; Eating ; Famotidine ; Fasting ; Gastric Acid ; Gastric Emptying ; Gastrointestinal Motility ; Humans ; Male ; Meals ; Mouth ; Omeprazole ; Peptic Ulcer ; Proton Pump Inhibitors ; Proton Pumps ; Protons ; Stress, Psychological

From the start, World Health Organization has proposed that palliative medicine is applicable early in the course of illness. However, regrettably, palliative care has been usually provided to patients in the advanced cancer stage, as a terminal care. Recently, palliative medicine begins at the time-point when patients are diagnosed with cancer. In response to change in clinical settings of palliative medicine, cancer pain management has also changed. Considering long-term cancer treatment periods and increasing numbers of cancer survivors, cancer pain management should be recommended based on not only non-opioid pharmacotherapy but also the exercise/rehabilitation medicine and the cognitive-behavioral therapy. Especially, the exercise/rehabilitation medicine can provide beneficial effects on both pain management and cancer treatment itself: Sarcopenia is closely associated with poor prognosis of cancer and debilitating complications of chemotherapy. Further, non-sarcopenia patients can maintain their quality of life higher and show less fatigue during cancer treatment periods. To accomplish such favorable effects for cancer patients and cancer survivors, cancer pain should be managed adequately.

Objective: Pharmaceutical documents such as the common technical document, package inserts (PIs), and interview forms (IFs) are available at the website of the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency. However, because these documents were created with an emphasis on human readability in paper form, it is difficult to use the information included and interoperate these documents with computers. Using IFs, we will investigate how to structure pharmaceutical documents in the AI era to achieve both human and machine readability.Design/Methods: The IFs of arbitrary selected ten drugs were structured into Resource Description Framework (RDF) according to the Drug Interview Form Description Guidelines 2018 (updated version in 2019). The data were manually extracted from the IFs and entered into a spreadsheet before being converted to RDF by a written script. The PIs were converted to RDF in addition to the IFs. To examine the linkage with external databases, IDs in ChEMBL, which is a manually curated database of bioactive molecules with drug-like properties, were embedded in the RDF.Results: We demonstrated that the conversion of IFs and PIs into RDF makes it possible to easily retrieve the corresponding part of the PIs cited in the IFs. Furthermore, we quickly obtained the relevant data from ChEMBL, demonstrating the feasibility of linking IFs with an external database. Our attempt to RDFization of IFs is expected to encourage the development of web applications for healthcare professionals and the development of datasets for AI development.Conclusion: We could easily interoperate IFs with other pharmaceutical documents and an external database by converting IFs into RDF following the description guidelines. However, problems such as how to deal with items that were not described in the description guidelines were indicated. We hope that discussions will grow based on this effort and that related industries will move toward accomplishing effective use of these documents.