Background/Aims: Intestinal Behçet disease is typically associated with ileocecal punched-out ulcers and significant morbidity and mortality. Intestinal ultrasound is a noninvasive imaging technique for disease monitoring. However, no previous reports have compared intestinal ultrasound with endoscopic ulcer activity or histopathological findings for intestinal Behçet disease. We evaluated the usefulness of intestinal ultrasound for assessing the activity of ileocecal ulcers in intestinal Behçet disease. Methods: We retrospectively compared intestinal ultrasound findings with 73 corresponding endoscopic images and 6 resected specimens. The intestinal ultrasound findings were assessed for 7 parameters (bowel wall thickness, vascularity [evaluated using the modified Limberg score with color Doppler], bowel wall stratification, white-plaque sign [strong hyperechogenic lines or spots], mesenteric lymphadenopathy, extramural phlegmons, and fistulas), and endoscopic ulcer activity was classified into active, healing, and scar stages. Histopathological findings were evaluated by consensus among experienced pathologists. Results: Bowel wall thickness (P< 0.001), vascularity (P< 0.001), loss of bowel wall stratification (P= 0.015), and white-plague sign (P= 0.013) were significantly exacerbated in the endoscopic active ulcer stage. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis revealed that a bowel wall thickness of > 5.5 mm (sensitivity 89.7%, specificity 85.3%) was potentially useful for detecting active lesions. When compared with histopathological findings, an increase in bowel wall thickness reflected the ulcer marginal ridge, and the white-plaque sign reflected the ulcer bottom. Conclusions Intestinal ultrasound is useful for monitoring intestinal ulcer activity in intestinal Behçet disease.

Objective: The wrong dose of high-risk drugs such as oral steroids is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. This study aims to determine the appropriate upper tolerable dose threshold and to develop a multi-variable logistic regression model to detect dose-errors in oral prednisolone tablets.Methods: Data on Prednisolone prescriptions were obtained from a single center. Out of the data collected, positive cases consisted of cases where dose-related modifications were made. A univariate logistic regression model was developed with the current daily dose. In the model, the Youden Index was used to determine the upper tolerable dose threshold. The investigation was done to determine whether the performance of the multivariate model was improved by adding clinical department and previous prescription information as variables.Results: Univariate models (AUC: 0.645) with only current daily doses and estimated optimal thresholds of 6 mg/day or 11 mg/day, respectively were determined to be appropriate. Including variables improved the performance of the predictive model; the best performing model (AUC: 0.840) was derived when the following variables were entered: “current daily dose,” “current prescription days,” “clinical department,” “daily dose of the previous prescription,” and “prescription days of the previous prescription”.Conclusion: A single upper tolerance limit is insufficient to determine dose adequacy for prednisolone tablets owing to their broad clinical dose range. Itmay be possible to develop a high-performance dose audit support model by adding information.

A fungal carotid aneurysm is an infrequently occurring infectious aneurysm that is usually treated by antifungal therapy plus surgical debridement of the infected vessel. We herein report an extremely rare case involving a patient with a medical history of bladder cancer treated by Bacillus Calmette– Guérin (BCG) who developed a fungal aneurysm of the internal carotid artery and thrombosis of the superior ophthalmic vein caused by maxillary Aspergillus sinusitis. The patient was successfully treated by antifungal, anticoagulant, and antiplatelet drugs combined with internal carotid artery ligation therapy. Internal carotid artery fungal aneurysm is associated with a high mortality rate, but the present case suggests that it can be successfully treated by antifungal therapy combined with a less invasive endovascular therapy.

Objective: Pharmacists need to know at what positioning a drug is recommended in clinical practice guidelines when they make prescription proposals.  However, the format of guidelines and the definition of recommendation grades differ between academic societies, making it difficult to comprehensively extract only the information one needs.  Therefore, we developed a guideline utilization system to support prescription proposals by pharmacists.
Methods: We built a database comprised of clinical practice guidelines on pharmacological therapy for breast cancer and breast cancer-related conditions.  FileMaker®was used in the development of the system.
Result: This system allows the comprehensive extraction of clinical questions and recommendations from multiple guidelines by means of standardized keywords.
Conclusion: This system supports prescription proposals by pharmacists when generating pharmacological therapy protocols or when in discussions with healthcare professionals as information on the positioning of therapeutic agents in different guidelines and recommended drugs is readily available.

OBJECTIVE: This open-label study examined the effects of ramelteon on cognitive functions in 10 outpatients with schizophrenia. METHODS: Ramelteon (8 mg/day) was administered to 10 patients with schizophrenia for six months. The verbal fluency test, Trail-Making Test, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, the Stroop Test, the Digit Span Distraction Test, Iowa Gambling Task, the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test were evaluated at baseline and 6 months after treatment with ramelteon. RESULTS: Ramelteon improved significantly the scores of Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test. Additionally, ramelteon exerted improvements in the verbal fluency and Iowa Gambling Task in 4 patients. CONCLUSION: Ramelteon could be a potential therapeutic drug, in adjunctive treatment of learning and memory deficits seen in patients with schizophrenia.
Gambling ; Humans ; Iowa ; Learning ; Memory Disorders ; Outpatients ; Schizophrenia* ; Stroop Test ; Verbal Learning ; Wisconsin

We report on two cases of diamniotic dichorionic pregnancy with delayed delivery of the second twin. Case 1 was a 29-year-old woman with a twin pregnancy at 19 weeks and 0 day presenting with a preterm rupture of the membranes (PROM) of the first twin. The patient was treated with ritodrine and systemic broad-spectrum antibiotics. Six hours after admission, the first twin was delivered stillborn without complication. At 23 weeks and 5 days, preterm labor resulted in and the second twin being delivered stillborn at a weight of 564 g. The interval between the first and second delivery was 33 days. Case 2 was a 30-year-old woman with a twin pregnancy at 15 weeks and 4 days presenting with amniotic fluid leakage. PROM was found, and she was treated with ritodrine and systemic broad-spectrum antibiotics. The next day, the first twin was delivered stillborn. At 26 weeks, due to adverse effects, ritodrine was changed to isoxsuprine and magnesium sulfate to control uterine contractions. At 33 weeks and 5 days, onset of labor was observed, and 11 hours after the cessation of treatment with isoxsuprine and magnesium sulfate, a viable female fetus was delivered by spontaneous vaginal delivery, weighing 1,806 g. The mother developed atonic bleeding of the uterus immediately after delivery.;The interval between the first and second twin deliveries was 33 days in case 1 and 127 days in case 2. The longer interval resulted in better fetal outcome, but it also may have increased the risk to the mother.
Twin Multiple Birth ; Delivery ; week ; Ritodrine ; Pregnancy

We reported nine cases of metastatic skin carcinoma experienced at the Department of Dermatology, Obihiro Kosei Hospital during the period from April 1991 to March 1993. Lung was the most common primary lesion (four out of nine cases), followed by uterus (two) and stomach, breast, and kidney (one each). The clinical features of the metastases were classified into nodular (five cases), inflammatory (one case) and sclerotic (three cases) types. Peculiar zoster-like inflammation was seen in metastatic gastric cancer. Pathologically, adenocarcinoma was more common than squamous cell carcinoma. The average interval between the diagnosis of the primary cancers and the development of the skin metastases was about 30±25 months. The average life span after the detection of the skin metastases was 6.8±5.6 months. Poor prognosis of skin metastasis was thus reconfirmed.

A study was conducted to investigate the changes in human urinary proteins caused by physical exercise. Nine subjects (male middle-distance runners, 19-21 years) were loaded physical exercise with a 10km-run, and quantitative and qualitative changes in urinary proteins were examined using various techniques including polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, immunoelectrophoresis and two-dimensional electrophoresis. Total protein concentrations in urine from all subjects before exercise were very low (0.68-2.56mg/dl), but those were increased remarkably after exercise. Few proteins except for albumin were detected in urine before run by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and immunoelectrophoresis, however, a few proteins were observed after exercise in addition to a marked increase of albumin. Several proteins which were not observed in serum could also be detected in urine after exercise by two-dimensional electrophoresis under non-denaturing condition. It is considered that two-dimensional electrophoresis is a very powerful technique for analyzing dilute and complicated protein mixture in biological fluids such as urine.