Gangliocytic paraganglioma (GP) has been regarded as a rare benign tumor that commonly arises from the second part of the duodenum. As GP does not exhibit either prominent mitotic activity or Ki-67 ...immunoreactivity, it is often misdiagnosed as neuroendocrine tumor (NET) G1. However, the prognosis might be better in patients with GP than in those with NET G1. Therefore, it is important to differentiate GP from NET G1. Moreover, our previous study indicated that GP accounts for a substantial, constant percentage of duodenal NETs. In the present article, we describe up-to-date data on the clinicopathological characteristics of GP and on the immunohistochemical findings that can help differentiate GP from NET G1, as largely revealed in our new and larger literature survey and recent multi-institutional retrospective study. Furthermore, we would like to refer to differential diagnosis and clinical management of this tumor and provide intriguing information about the risk factors for lymph node metastasis on GP.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract Objective We previously succeeded in inducing and isolating vascular endothelial cells (ECs) from both human embryonic stem (ES) and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Here, we compared ...the functionality of human adult ECs (HAECs), human ES-derived ECs (ESECs) and human iPS-derived ECs (iPSECs). Methods and results We compared the cell proliferative potential, potential for migration, and tolerance to oxidative stress. ESECs were significantly superior to HAECs in all of these cell functions. The cell functions of iPSECs were comparable to those of ESECSs and also superior to HAECs. We then analyzed the gene expressions of HAECs, ESECs and iPSECs, and observed that the expression level of Sirt1, a nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+)-dependent histone deacetylase, is higher in ESECs and iPSECs than in HAECs. The inhibition of Sirt1 with a Sirt1-specific inhibitor and siRNA antagonized these differences between the three types of cells. Conclusions Sirt1 plays a key role in the high cellular function of ESECs and iPSECs. Although further in vivo investigations are required, this study initially demonstrated the potential of ESECs and iPSECs as the cell source for regenerative medicine, and also showed the potential of ES cells as a useful tool for elucidating the molecular mechanism of cell aging.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPUK
We conducted a phase Ib study to examine the safety of a combination of carbon-ion RT (CIRT) with durvalumab (MEDI4736; AstraZeneca) in patients with locally advanced cervical cancer. This was an ...open-label, single-arm study with a modified 3 + 3 design. Patients with newly diagnosed histologically proven locally advanced cervical cancer were enrolled. All patients received 74.4 Gy of CIRT in 20 fractions and concurrent weekly cisplatin (chemo-CIRT) at a dose of 40 mg/msup.2. Durvalumab was administered (1500 mg/body) at weeks two and six. The primary endpoint was the incidence of adverse events (AEs) and serious AEs (SAEs), including dose-limiting toxicity (DLT). All three enrolled patients completed the treatment without interruption. One patient developed hypothyroidism after treatment and was determined to be an SAE. No other SAEs were observed. The patient recovered after levothyroxine sodium hydrate treatment. None of the AEs, including hypothyroidism, were associated with DLT in the present study. All three patients achieved complete responses within the CIRT region concerning treatment efficacy. This phase 1b trial demonstrates the safety of combining chemo-CIRT and durvalumab for locally advanced cervical cancer in the early phase. Further research is required as only three patients were included in this study.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
We report measurements of differential and integral cross sections for electron excitation of the Schumann-Runge continuum, longest band, and second band electronic states in molecular oxygen. The ...energy range of the present study is 15-200 eV, with the angular range of the differential cross section (DCS) measurements from 2 to 130°. A generalized oscillator strength analysis is then employed in order to derive integral cross sections (ICSs) from the corresponding DCSs, and these ICSs are compared with relevant energy and oscillator strength scaled Born cross section (BEf-scaling Y.-K. Kim, J. Chem. Phys. 126, 064305 (2007)) results determined as a part of this investigation. Interestingly, while the present Schumann-Runge continuum and second band ICSs were in reasonable agreement with the respective BEf-scaling results, agreement for the longest band was poor below 100 eV with a possible reason for this apparently anomalous behavior being canvassed here. Finally, where possible all present data are compared with the results from earlier measurements and calculations with the level of agreement found being very good in some cases and marginal in others.
Introduction: The Soloassist® system is a joystick-guided robotic scope holder. We evaluated the efficacy of Soloassist in laparoscopic surgery. Methods: We investigated operative time, blood loss, ...set-up time, length of hospital stay, and the number of participating surgeons in laparoscopic cholecystectomy cases before and after the introduction of Soloassist. Furthermore, we evaluated these factors in each group of 20 elective and emergency cholecystectomy cases by single surgeon after matching their background. To evaluate the performance level of operating Soloassist, we divided the operative field into three areas. Then we counted the frequency of energy device activation in initially 10 cases by a single surgical resident and observed its change. Results: The number of participating surgeons was significantly less and postoperative hospital days were fewer in the Soloassist group. There was no significant difference between set-up time and blood loss both in elective and emergency cases. The total number of energy device activations and that in the dangerous area decreased in accordance with the experience. Conclusion: Considering our results and previous reports, the combination use of an ideal active scope holder and a commercially available 3D scope is currently considered the best approach in laparoscopic surgery. In the near future, development of active scope holders might play an important role in laparoscopic surgery.
Achromatopsia (ACHM) is an early-onset cone dysfunction caused by 5 genes with cone-specific functions (CNGA3, CNGB3, GNAT2, PDE6C, and PDE6H) and by ATF6, a transcription factor with ubiquitous ...expression. To improve the relatively low variant detection ratio in these genes in a cohort of exome-sequenced Japanese patients with inherited retinal diseases (IRD), we performed genome sequencing to detect structural variants and intronic variants in patients with ACHM.
Genome sequencing of 10 ACHM pedigrees was performed after exome sequencing. Structural, non-coding, and coding variants were filtered based on segregation between the affected and unaffected in each pedigree. Variant frequency and predicted damage scores were considered in identifying pathogenic variants.
A homozygous deletion involving exon 18 of RPGRIP1 was detected in 5 of 10 ACHM probands, and variant inheritance from each parent was confirmed. This deletion was relatively frequent (minor allele frequency = 0.0023) in the Japanese population but was only homozygous in patients with ACHM among the 199 Japanese IRD probands analyzed by the same genome sequencing pipeline.
The deletion involving exon 18 of RPGRIP1 is a prevalent cause of ACHM in Japanese patients and contributes to the wide spectrum of RPGRIP1-associated IRD phenotypes, from Leber congenital amaurosis to ACHM.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The crystal structure of
Bifidobacterium longum phosphoketolase, a thiamine diphosphate (TPP) dependent enzyme, has been determined at 2.2
Å resolution. The enzyme is a dimer with the active sites ...located at the interface between the two identical subunits with molecular mass of 92.5
kDa. The bound TPP is almost completely shielded from solvent except for the catalytically important C2-carbon of the thiazolium ring, which can be accessed by a substrate sugar through a narrow funnel-shaped channel. In silico docking studies of
B. longum phosphoketolase with its substrate enable us to propose a model for substrate binding.
MINT-
7985878:
PKT (uniprotkb:
Q6R2Q7) and
PKT (uniprotkb:
Q6R2Q7)
bind (MI:
0407) by
X-ray crystallography (MI:
0114)
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Computational scalability allows neural networks on embedded systems to provide desirable inference performance while satisfying severe power consumption and computational resource constraints. This ...paper presents a simple yet scalable inference method called ProgressiveNN, consisting of bitwise binary (BWB) quantization, accumulative bit-serial (ABS) inference, and batch normalization (BN) retraining. ProgressiveNN does not require any network structure modification and obtains the network parameters from a single training. BWB quantization decomposes and transforms each parameter into a bitwise format for ABS inference, which then utilizes the parameters in the most-significant-bit-first order, enabling progressive inference. The evaluation result shows that the proposed method provides computational scalability from 12.5% to 100% for ResNet18 on CIFAR-10/100 with a single set of network parameters. It also shows that BN retraining suppresses accuracy degradation of training performed with low computational cost and restores inference accuracy to 65% at 1-bit width inference. This paper also presents a method to dynamically adjust the bit-precision of the ProgressiveNN to achieve a better trade-off between computational resource use and accuracy for practical applications using sequential data with proximity resemblance. The evaluation result indicates that the accuracy increases by 1.3% with an average bit-length of 2 compared with only the 2-bit BWB network.
Introduction:
The ongoing outbreak of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a worldwide problem. Although diagnosing COVID-19 in fracture patients is important for selecting treatment, ...diagnosing early asymptomatic COVID-19 is difficult. We describe herein a rare case of femoral intertrochanteric fracture concomitant with early asymptomatic novel COVID-19.
Case presentation:
An 87-year-old Japanese woman was transferred to our emergency room with a right hip pain after she fell. She had no fever, fatigue, or respiratory symptoms on admission and within the 14 days before presenting to our hospital, and no specific shadow was detected in chest X-ray. However, chest computed tomography (CT) was performed considering COVID-19 pandemic, and showed ground-glass opacities with consolidation in the dorsal segment of the right lower lung field. Then, qualitative real-time reverse-transcriptase-polymerase-chain-reaction (RT-PCR) was carried out and turned out to be positive. She was diagnosed right femoral intertrochanteric fracture with concomitant COVID-19 infection. Conservative treatment was applied to the fracture due to infection. After admission, fever and oxygen demand occurred but she recovered from COVID-19. Throughout the treatment period, no cross-infection from the patient was identified in our hospital.
Conclusion:
This case highlights the importance of considering chest CT as an effective screening method for infection on hospital admission in COVID-19-affected areas, especially in trauma patients with early asymptomatic novel COVID-19.
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