In a 54-year-old woman with liver cirrhosis who underwent orthotopic liver transplantation, the postoperative course was complicated by aneurysm formation in the hepatic artery. Abdominal ...ultrasonography showed a daily increase in size of the aneurysm in spite of careful management including strict rest and continuous intravenous infusion of antihypertensive agents. Since the patient's poor systemic status was a major obstruction to operative resection, transcatheter therapy was though more preferable. We evaluated the lesion with intravascular ultrasonography as an adjunct to angiography and dissection with a flap was well visualized. The aneurysm was covered with a commercially available stent-graft, designed for treatment of the coronary artery. This is a rare case in which a Jostent was implanted into the hepatic artery after liver transplantation.
To investigate the relative frequency of individual human rotavirus serotypes prevailing in Japan, 562 stool specimens collected from patients with rotavirus gastroenteritis between November 1986 and ...March 1988 in seven districts were examined by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) with serotype 1-,2-,3-, and 4-specific monoclonal antibodies. Serotype 1 was the predominant serotype in the winter of 1986–1987; however, both serotypes 1 and 2 were detected frequently in the winter of 1987–1988. The results showed the relative frequency of individual serotypes by locale and the yearly change in the prevalence of each serotype in the same area. The result of subgroup specificity of rotavirus obtained by using ELISA with subgroup I- and II-specific monoclonal antibodies confirmed the general finding that rotavirus strains having subgroup I specificity are serotype 2 and those having subgroup II specificity are either serotype 1, 3, or 4. Unusual strains having both subgroup I and II specificity or neither specificity and strains presumed to represent new serotypes were also found.
A 72-year-old woman was admitted to our institution because of sudden chest pain. Emergency coronary angiography revealed thrombotic occlusion of the distal right coronary artery. A large cylindrical ...thrombus was retrieved from her distal right coronary artery using a thrombus aspiration catheter. IVUS showed minimal atherosclerosis and moderate ectatic change at the proximal right coronary artery. A reconstructed IVUS image also showed that a mural thrombus with abrupt ending was still retained at the ectatic segment. Based on this evidence, coronary ectasia was thought to be the primary cause for the thrombus formation and acute myocardial infarction in this case.
Coherent effects in synchrotron radiation (SR) have been observed for the first time from 180-MeV short electron bunches of 2.5 mm using the Tohoku 300-MeV Linac. The intensity of the coherent SR was ...about 100,000 times as strong as that of incoherent SR in the wavelengths of 0.4-2.2 mm. This enhancement factor corresponds to the number of electrons in a bunch. The SR intensity showed a quadratic dependence on the electron-beam current. The radiation was mainly polarized in the orbital plane. The possibility of induced RF in a vacuum chamber was excluded experimentally. (Author)
MecA, a structural gene located on the chromosome of Staphylococcus aureus, characterizes methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), and femA and femB(fem) genes encode proteins which influence the ...level of methicillin resistance of S. aureus. In order to examine effectiveness of detecting mecA and fem genes in identification of MRSA, the presence of these genes in 237 clinically isolated strains of staphylococci was investigated by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). An amplified mecA DNA fragment of 533 base pairs (bp) was detected in 100% of oxacillin-resistant S. aureus, in 16·7 % of oxacillin-sensitive S. aureus, in 81·5% of S. epidermidis, and in 58·3% of other coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS). While the PCR product of femA (509 bp) or femB (651 bp) was obtained from almost all the S. aureus strains except for five oxacillin-resistant strains (2·5%), neither of these genes were detected in CNS. Therefore, the detection of femA and femB together with mecA by PCR was considered to be a more reliable indicator to identify MRSA by differentiating it from mecA-positive CNS than single detection of mecA.
Flow propagation velocity (FPV) of left ventricular (LV) filling flow has been shown to be a useful index for the evaluation of LV diastolic function, which is relatively independent of preload in ...myocardial infarction and dilated cardiomyopathy, but the usefulness of FPV for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) has not yet been determined. In 23 HCM patients and 26 control subjects, peak transmitral flow velocities in early diastole (E) and during atrial contraction (A), E/A ratio, deceleration time of E velocity, and isovolumic relaxation time were measured with the conventional Doppler technique, and FPV was measured from color M-mode Doppler images of LV filling flow. The time constant of LV isovolumic pressure decay (tau) was measured by a micro-manometer-tipped catheter in all HCM patients and 13 control subjects. Flow propagation velocity was significantly lower and deceleration time was significantly greater in HCM patients than in the control subjects, though no significant differences were observed in the other noninvasive indexes. Tau was significantly prolonged in HCM patients compared with that of control subjects (54+/-12 cm/s and 32 +/-7 cm/s, respectively; P<.0001). While the conventional indexes did not correlate with tau among the 36 patients in whom invasive studies were performed, FPV correlated well with tau (r = -0.76, P<.0001). Flow propagation velocity is a useful noninvasive index for the assessment of LV diastolic function in patients with HCM.
Distribution of insertion sequence IS431 in clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, and Staphylococcus haemolyticus was investigated. Except for methicillin ...susceptible-S. aureus (MSSA), IS431 was detected in all isolates of the three staphylococcal species. In MSSA, only 20% of isolates with distinct coagulase types and genetic types possessed IS431. In a few MSSA isolates, an IS431 variant with internal deletion was found.
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