Japan has abundant hot springs resources that have been empirically used for medical treatment and recreation for people with various diseases or injuries. In 1926, the University of Tokyo inaugurated the Department of Physical Medicine for the scientific study of the effects of hot springs on the human body and mind. Thereafter, balneological research institutes or spa hospitals were established that were affiliated with six national universities; Kyushu, Hokkaido, Okayama, Tohoku, Kagoshima and Gunma had been established by 1951. Although these balneological institutes, including the University of Tokyo, greatly advanced the basic and clinical research on the therapeutic effects of hot springs, they all were either closed or integrated into the main hospital of the university between 1994 and 2018, owing both to government reforms to national universities and decreased government financial support. A brief history of each institute and several titles of published research studies performed there are provided in this article.   The closing of these research institutes is regrettable; however, balneological research is today an important field that contributes to maintenance and promotion of health for the sharply rising number of aged people in Japan. It is expected that a member of the Japanese Society of Balneology, Climatology and Physical Medicine will further develop balneological research using advanced scientific technologies, based on the results achieved in the seven historical institutes mentioned above.

The patient was a 68-year-old man. In January 2017, he underwent aortic valve replacement (Carpentier-Edwards Perimount Magna, 25 mm, Edwards Lifescience Corporation, Irvine, USA) for aortic stenosis and coronary bypass surgery with two saphenous vein grafts (SVG-#7 and SVG-4PD) for asymptomatic myocardial ischemia. He was treated as an outpatient by a local physician for at least a week during November 2017, with a principal complaint of mild fever, but no other significant symptoms. Transthoracic echocardiography suggested prosthetic valve endocarditis, so he was referred to the author's hospital. The day after admission, he had symptoms of thoracic discomfort, and emergency cardiac catheter examination showed a lesion thought to be due to a thrombus in the left main coronary trunk ; so, thrombus aspiration was carried out. However, no improvement in blood flow was achieved, so balloon angioplasty was carried out, with the aim of improving blood flow in the left circumflex artery, where coronary artery bypass grafting had not been performed. Improvement in blood flow was achieved, and a culture was carried out using the aspirated thrombus. Streptococcus pasteurianus was detected in the culture.

A 2-month-old female Holstein calf and a 5-month-old female Japanese black calf presented with gingival vascular hamartoma located in the interdental space between the second and third mandibular incisors in the right and left mandibles, respectively. On radiographic or computed tomographic images, osteolytic changes appeared within the mandibular bones adjacent to the masses. The masses were removed along with affected mandibular bone by using unilateral rostral mandibulectomy. After surgery, both cases exhibited a normal appetite and grew normally, with no cosmetic changes or recurrences. Unilateral rostral mandibulectomy can be applied for invasive gingival vascular hamartomas associated with osteolytic changes.
Animals ; Appetite ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Cattle ; Female ; Hamartoma ; Humans ; Incisor ; Infant ; Mandible ; Mandibular Osteotomy ; Radiography ; Recurrence

Canine mammary gland tumors (CMGTs), which are the most common neoplasms in sexually intact female dogs, have been suggested as a model for studying human breast cancer because of several similarities, including relative age of onset, risk factors, incidence, histological and molecular features, biological behavior, metastatic pattern, and responses to therapy. In the present study, we established a new cell line, the SNP cell line, from a CMGT. A tumor formed in each NOD.CB17-Prkdc (scid)/J mouse at the site of subcutaneous SNP cell injection. SNP cells are characterized by proliferation in a tubulopapillary pattern and are vimentin positive. Moreover, we examined miRNA expression in the cultured cells and found that the expression values of miRNA-143 and miRNA-138a showed the greatest increase and decrease, respectively, of all miRNAs observed, indicating that these miRNAs might play a significant role in the malignancy of SNP cells. Overall, the results of this study indicate that SNP cells might serve as a model for future genetic analysis and clinical treatments of human breast tumors.
Age of Onset ; Animals ; Breast Neoplasms ; Cell Line ; Cell Line, Tumor* ; Cells, Cultured ; Dogs ; Female ; Humans ; Incidence ; Mammary Glands, Human* ; Mice ; MicroRNAs* ; Risk Factors ; Vimentin

  The Japanese Society of Balneology, Climatology and Physical Medicine (JSBCPM) was founded in 1935 with the aim of researching the scientific bases of balneotherapy. The Society was admitted as the 15th affiliated member of the Japanese Association of Medical Sciences, which consists of 123 medical societies today. The scientific meeting of the Society has been held annually and the 80th anniversary meeting was celebrated in 2015.   The number of members has gradually increased over the past 30 years due to rising interest in balneotherapy. The members counted 1914, including 976 balneotherapists who had completed a training course for balneotherapy of which 221 were Society-certified balneotherapy specialists in 2015. The Society has held a training course for balneotherapy and study meetings in 7 areas of Japan once a year to promote balneology. The official journal (J. Jpn. Soc. Balneol. Climatol. Phys. Med.) has been issued quarterly and several textbooks relating to spa treatment have been published by the committee of the Society.   In the annual scientific meeting, several special lectures and an average of 50 free papers have been presented. The main concerns of the members, assumed from the percentage of titles of papers appearing in J. Jpn. Soc. Balneol. Climatol. Phys. Med., had been spa bathing treatment followed by climatology and the chemistry of hot springs water up until volume 50; however, they have recently shifted to the physiology of heat stimuli, health promotion with spa bathing and mox and acupuncture instead of climatology and chemistry.   The Society reported “the indications and contra-indications of spa treatment” in 2010 after 5 years’ research into medical references on balneology by request of the Ministry of the Environment. Based on this report the official notification for indications and contra-indications of balneotherapy was changed in 2014 by the Chief of Natural Environment in the Ministry of the Environment. The organization of balneotherapists has performed several studies on the effect of balneotherapy and reported the results of them in J. Jpn. Soc. Balneol. Climatol. Phys. Med., volumes 65 and 74.   The 39th Congress of the International Society of Medical Hydrology and Climatology (ISMH) was successfully held in Kyoto under the sponsorship of JSBCPM in 2014.

Sixteen cases of malignant soft tissue sarcoma (STS; 10 canines and six felines) were treated with a novel triple therapy that combined photodynamic therapy, hyperthermia using indocyanine green with a broadband light source, and local chemotherapy after surgical tumor resection. This triple therapy was called photodynamic hyperthermal chemotherapy (PHCT). In all cases, the surgical margin was insufficient. In one feline case, PHCT was performed without surgical resection. PHCT was performed over an interval of 1 to 2 weeks and was repeated three to 21 times. No severe side effects, including severe skin burns, necrosis, or skin suture rupture, were observed in any of the animals. No disease recurrence was observed in seven out of 10 (70.0%) dogs and three out of six (50.0%) cats over the follow-up periods ranging from 238 to 1901 days. These results suggest that PHCT decreases the risk of STS recurrence. PHCT should therefore be considered an adjuvant therapy for treating companion animals with STS in veterinary medicine.
Animals ; Antineoplastic Agents/*therapeutic use ; Cat Diseases/drug therapy/surgery/*therapy ; Cats ; Combined Modality Therapy/veterinary ; Dog Diseases/drug therapy/surgery/*therapy ; Dogs ; Hyperthermia, Induced/veterinary ; Indocyanine Green/*therapeutic use ; Photochemotherapy/veterinary ; Photosensitizing Agents/*therapeutic use ; Sarcoma/drug therapy/surgery/therapy/*veterinary

Objective: In The Hospital of Hyogo College of Medicine, a oral rinse containing polaprezinc (PZ), a zinc-containing drug for gastric ulcers, was used as a hospital preparation to treat radiotherapy-related oral mucositis, and its efficacy was reported.  However, the dispersibility of PZ for carboxymethylcellulose sodium (CMC), which was used as the base of the oral rinse, was unfavorable, raising an issue.  In this study, we newly prepared a PZ oral rinse containing carboxyvinyl polymer (CP) as a base, and examined its usefulness.
Methods: A questionnaire survey regarding the usefulness involving 10 healthy volunteers and a pharmaceutical test were conducted.
Results: The results of the questionnaire survey showed that the optimal concentration of CP was 0.5%.  There were no serial changes in the pH, adhesiveness, or PZ content for 7 days after preparation.  Furthermore, there were no differences between CMC and CP.  The dispersibility of PZ in the oral rinse containing CP as a base was more favorable than that in the oral rinse containing CMC.
Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that the PZ oral rinse containing 0.5% CP as a base is useful, and that its stability is similar to that of the oral rinse containing CMC as a base.

Objective: Oral mucositis is one of the serious and frequent acute side effects due to chemoradiotherapy (CRT) for head and neck cancer.  In this study, we prepared an oral rinse as a hospital preparation for the treatment of oral mucositis, which was a suspension of polaprezinc (PZ), a zinc-containing therapeutic agent for gastric ulcer, in carboxyvinyl polymer (CP), a water-soluble large molecule.
Methods: We carried out stability tests of the PZ-CP oral rinse, and investigated its effects on the radiation-induced oral mucositis in patients who received CRT for head and neck cancer.
Results: In the stability test, the pH, viscosity, adhesion and PZ content in the preparations did not change throughout 28 days after preparation.  In the clinical evaluation on the basis of the distribution of the Grade of oral mucositis, the Grade of oral mucositis in the PZ group was significantly lower than in the control group at 6 and 7 weeks (p=0.016, p=0.018).  The incidence of severe oral mucositis of Grade 3 was 15.0% (3 cases) in the PZ group and 41.7% (10 cases) in the control group at 6 weeks, and was 15.0% (3 cases) in the PZ group and 33.3% (8 cases) in the control group at 7 weeks.
Conclusion: These results suggest that PZ-CP oral rinse inhibits the aggravation of oral mucositis induced by CRT or promotes its healing.

Endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) has enabled en bloc resection of early stage gastrointestinal tumors with negligible risk of lymph node metastasis, regardless of tumor size, location, and shape. However, ESD is a relatively difficult technique compared with conventional endoscopic mucosal resection, requiring a longer procedure time and potentially causing more complications. For safe and reproducible procedure of ESD, the appropriate dissection of the ramified vascular network in the level of middle submucosal layer is required to reach the avascular stratum just above the muscle layer. The horizontal approach to maintain the appropriate depth for dissection beneath the vascular network enables treatment of difficult cases with large vessels and severe fibrosis. The most important aspect of ESD is the precise evaluation of curability. This approach can also secure the quality of the resected specimen with enough depth of the submucosal layer.
Fibrosis ; Lymph Nodes ; Muscles ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Quality Control