Generalized

In Japan, the number of dialysis patients as of the end of fiscal 2007 has hit the 275,000 mark. The nation is now ahead of the rest of the world in the number of patients per million population. The largest problem that confronts us is that the enormous cost of dialysis is putting a great strain on the nation's finances. In addition, it should be mentioned that the quality of life of dialysis patients is aggravating. It is very rare for renal disease patients to receive kidney transplants, because only 200 kidneys are offered per year in Japan. So most of the patients have no choice but to depend on dialysis for the rest of their life.In the treatment of chronic kidney disease (CKD), it is important to for physicians to delay initiating dialysis as much as they can in Japan. In 1987, I began the programmed treatment of patients in a predialysis state with two nephrologists. The treatment is based on the “Toride guidelines for CKD”. There is an annual meeting of patients. Laboratory data and the history of medication are preserved in sheets.In the CKD clinic of our hospital, there are many devices for time-consuming. Full laboratory data apear quickly on the computer panel, and a clerk enters main data in patients, CKD records.The principles of the clinic iuclude control of office blood pressure and home blood pressure, mild restriction of protein intake, salt intake restriction, monitoring the diet from the data of 24 hours urine collection, control of hemoglobin concentration, serum bicarbonate and phosphate concentration. Reduction in urine protein excretion to less than 0.5 gram per day is done by dietary protein restriction, control of blood pressure and administration of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker.The outcomes of the Toride Cohort Study in the past 21 years are as follows:1. Reduction in medical cost by slowing the progression of CKD;2. Reduction in the dialysis-to-non dialysis rate;3. Appearance of the “arrested” or “remission” cases; and;4. Detection of the new risk factors for progression of CKD such as hyperphosphatenia and metabolic acidosis by multivariate analysis.There is a bare possibility open for a CKD patient to receive the “right” treatment of CKD, because only four to five clinics adopting the Toride guidelines are available in Japan.Physicians in CKD clinics have to judge and adjust many variables. The clinics spend plenty of time and effort on the treatment of CKD.In Japan, the medical fee in clinics is dependent on the number of visiting patients and on the number and quality of laboratory examinations, so the physicians keep away from CKD clinics.For the reduction of cost of dialysis, spread of “right” treatment is needed. For spread of the treatment, additional medical fee per patient visit is necessary as incentive.
Dialysis procedure ; therapeutic aspects ; Japan ; Reduction - action ; control

Japanese language ; Medicine ; Mental association

We report on a right-handed 43-year-old policeman with atypical Marchiafava-Bignami disease (MBD). The typical clinical manifestations of MBD are reduced consciousness, confusion, seizures, psychotic and emotional symptoms, hemiparesis, dysarthria, ataxia, and coma and death. However, our patient had not developed any of the above symptoms except for slowly progressive cognitive impairment mimicking that of Alzheimer disease. The incidence of MBD may be higher and its prognosis less severe than generally believed. MBD has been underdiagnosed and underreported, and nonspecific general symptoms and encephalopathy in an alcoholic might indicate undiagnosed MBD.
Impaired health ; symptoms <1> ; Marchiafava-Bignami disease ; Problem drinker ; prognostic

Dialysis therapies are generally considered to be contraindications in cases with non-curative malignancies. Here we report two cases in which peritoneal dialysis was undertaken to reduce malignancy-related symptoms like abdominal full sensation and anorexia as well as to eliminate uremic toxins. The first case was a 61year-old male with peritonitis carcinomatosa and its related ascites disseminated from pancreas tail cancer. His renal function deteriorated after initiating chemotherapy using 1,000mg/m² of gemcitabine (GEM), and dialysis was required to improve his uremic symptoms. The second case was an 81year-old male who had been receiving maintenance HD therapy for 8years at another clinic. He had been complaining of abdominal distension derived from ascites and had multiple liver tumors of unknown origin. Since the main complaint in these two cases was unbearable abdominal full sensation, continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) was initiated to simultaneously control uremia and to relieve the abdominal distension. CAPD was successful in reducing ascites and in controlling the uremia as well as general symptoms. Consequently, we propose “PD terminal” as the rescue treatment for uremic patients with massively retained ascites related to malignancies.
Ascites ; Therapeutic procedure ; Malignant Neoplasms ; PUPILLARY DISTANCE ; symptoms <1>

Current ; Kidney Diseases ; Japan

From July 1989 to May 1992. 16 cases of newly diagnosed non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL) were treated with the following protocols. Patients of 69 years and under were treated with combined (1) CHVP, (2) CHOP, and (3) C-MOPP therapy. Patients of 70years and over were treated with the CHOP therapy.
The remission rate was 87.5%. Two patients relapsed. They were both elderly patients (70>). The relapse rate was 14.3%. The relapse free survival rate was 71.3%. Now 75.2% of the patients of this study survive.
Compared with other protocols, our strategy has been proved to be effective in terms of the remission rate.

Safety management in routine medical practice is one of the important issues that must be addressed by medical staffs, even it is hard to deal with various happenings and problems encountered in medical facilities.Here we present some arrangements in a reporting system of incidents and accidents to motivate each staffer to notice the significance of safely, and quantify the urgency and severity of reports using the originally developed management score at the Toride Kyodo General Hospital.The reports from all sections of the hospital were previously evaluated by five risk managers. This practice was effective in analyzing reports rapidly and appropriately, but was insufficient to motivate all of staffs to give much more heed to safety in routine medical practice. Instead, these reports are now discussed and analyzed by a group of people consiting of representatives of all sections and the departments in the hospital. This innovation evoked more interest and concerns about the safety management among the whole medical staff.We also utilized the management level, which was stratified into three grades from the point of urgency and severity of cases. The first level means the occurrence without urgency or need to change any systems, procedures and organizations. The second level requires some change in systems, but no urgent action. The accident at the third level should be dealt with as soon as possible by any of feasible ways. The total score, obtained by summing up a lisk level multiplied by a management level in each report, decreased between May and August in 2004, despite increases in the total numbers of monthly reports.In conclusion, the incident/accident reporting system became more familiar to medical staffs through the use of group-working. The management score and the derived total score may be available for comparing outcomes of safety management activities among different observation periods or facilities.
Reporting ; Safety ; Accidents ; Analysis ; Management

We report on three elderly patients with stroke-like onset of atypical Miller Fisher syndrome (MFS). The serum titer of anti-GQ1b IgG was markedly elevated in these patients. Their prognoses were sufficiently good with immunoadsorption therapy with or without intravenous immune globulin (IVIg) therapy. However, some neurological findings were not characteristic of typical MFS. Patient 1 suffered from prolonged dysesthesia in her left extremities, and Patients 2 and 3 showed no ataxia. Moreover, complete bilateral gaze limitation is rare in MFS. The sudden stroke-like onset along with the gaze limitation of these patients suggests that the unexpected elevation in the serum titer of anti-GQ1b IgG due to unknown immune dysregulation might have severely affected the third, fourth, and sixth nerves and this potent antibody rapidly attacked these nerves and induced stroke-like clinical features and complete ophthalmoplegia.
Cerebrovascular accident ; Miller Fisher Syndrome ; Right and left ; Serum ; Atypical

Using RIBA NS5 antibody was measured in 31 HCV RNA positive serotype 1 patients, and the serum levels of ALT were monitored for an average of three years. As a result, 22 asymptomatic HCV carriers (group A) were found to be NS5 antibody negative (-) and nine to be NS5 antibody positive (4+). By contrast, in 25 patients with chronic inactive hepatitis C (group B), three patients were NS5 antibody negative (-), and 22 patients were NS5 antibody positive (4+), indicating a significant difference between the two groups (p<0.01 chi square test).Furthermore, in group A, 22 NS5 antibody (-) patients (group I) maintained normal serum levels of ALT significantly longer than the 9 NS5 antibody (4+) patients (group II) (p<0.01, Kaplan-Meier Method). Therefore, the measurement of NS5 antibody of RIBA was clinically useful in identifing asymptomatic (HCVRNA positive, serotype 1) HCV carriers.
Antibodies ; Hepatitis C virus ; Absence of symptoms ; Measurement ; Confirmation of