【Introduction】Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) has become a disease with five-year-survival rate of more than 90% according to appearance of Bcr-Abl inhibitor. Stopping treatment with Bcr-Abl ...inhibitors leads to relapse in many patients. This is due to the fact that Bcr-Abl inhibitors are not effective against cancer stem cells, and suggests that a different drug is necessary to eradicate cancer stem cells. ALDH is overexpressed in cancer stem cells and promotes their survival. We have shown in past studies that Bcr-Abl inhibitors do not inhibit ALDH expression. In this study, we examine the effect of ALDH inhibitors on CML.【Methods】We examined the effects of an ALDH inhibitor using K562 cells, which are CML cell line. We verified the effect of an ALDH inhibitor against CML using a WST-8 assay. We then measured ALDH protein expression using flow cytometry.【Results】ALDH inhibitors reduced cell survival in a concentration-dependent manner, and when combined with a Bcr-Abl inhibitor, cell viability was synergistically decreased. ALDH protein expression was decreased in cells treated with ALDH inhibitor alone or Bcr-Abl inhibitor alone according to flow cytometry. In cells treated with ALDH inhibitor and Bcr-Abl inhibitor, ALDH protein expression was more strongly repressed.【Conclusion】The results of this study suggest that ALDH inhibitor use might be effective in CML treatment.
The number of patients with diabetes continues to increase in Japan, which means that education in disease management is important. However, there have been few investigations into the importance of ...hospital pharmacists performing outpatient education for diabetes mellitus in Japan. In the diabetes outpatient department of Kitakyushu City Moji Hospital, a pharmacist commenced patient education using check sheets before patients saw the physicians from 2012. We divided the patients into groups with an increase or decrease of hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) level after 6 months from the start of patient education. To assess the factors related to a decrease of HbA1c level, we compared background factors, and laboratory values between these two groups. In the patients whose HbA1c level decreased, the level was high at the start of patient education and they had less knowledge about their medications. To evaluate the impact of this patient education, we compared HbA1c values before patient education and after 6 months to determine the effect of providing education in the diabetes outpatient department. In the HbA1c≥8% group, the HbA1c level decreased significantly during 6 months of patient education. These results suggest that patient education by hospital pharmacists can be effective if HbA1c level is high at the start of education. This is the first report about the usefulness of patient education by a hospital pharmacist for improvement of HbA1c level in diabetic outpatients in Japan.
Surveys of raptor habitat are conducted in environmental impact assessments and natural environment surveys associated with development projects. In general, raptors are surveyed visually in the ...field to determine their habitat and nesting sites. However, because raptors are often alarmed when researchers enter the forest and because a large number of workers are required for surveys, efficient survey techniques must be developed. This study aimed to develop a technique for discriminating between five species of raptors (osprey, oriental honey buzzard, goshawk, grey-faced buzzard, and eastern buzzard) and the Japanese night heron by call. A sound analysis was conducted using deep neural networks after the noise reduction processing of sound data recorded near nesting forests of each species. As a result, a discrimination accuracy of more than 90% was achieved for five of the six species; however, there were also cases of misidentification resulting from environmental noise, indicating technical issues for further improvements in accuracy.
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