•A novel accelerometry approach for evaluating behavior of animals was proposed.•Behavior of cattle under vitamin A (VA) restriction was assessed as a pilot study.•Dynamic body acceleration (DBA) was ...used as an index of physical activity.•Combining behavioral classification and DBA was useful for the behavior assessment.
Evaluation of animal behavior provides information on health and well-being in animals. In this preliminary study, we investigated the effectiveness of an accelerometry approach to evaluate changes in health status of cattle by combining physical activity quantified by dynamic body acceleration (DBA) and qualitative behavioral classification data. Although feeding low vitamin A (VA) diets to fattening cattle is a popular technique to enhance marbling of beef in Japan, the effects of VA restriction on behavior of fattening cattle have been unclear. Therefore, the effect of VA restriction on behavioral change in feedlot steers was assessed by the approach as an example of evaluation of the change in health status. Ten Japanese Black fattening steers were divided into VA restricted (RES) and supplemented (SUP) groups (five in each group). The RES steers were fed lower VA diets than SUP from 11 to 20 months of age. The measurements of blood VA concentrations, accelerations and classified behaviors of the steers were conducted at 18 and 24 months of age. An accelerometer was fitted dorsally to each steer and three axial accelerations were measured at 10 Hz. The raw acceleration data was processed to calculate vectorial DBA (VeDBA) per second. Behavior of the steers was recorded for 8.5 h on one day and visually classified per second as lying, standing, walking or feeding. As the results, the blood VA concentration at 18 months of age was lower in RES than SUP (P < 0.05) (53.2 and 95.6 IU/dL, respectively) but the concentration was similar between the groups at 24 months of age. All VA concentrations were over the recommended minimum value and none of the steers showed clinical manifestations of VA deficiency, indicating that VA restriction was controlled as expected. The durations of classified behaviors and the overall mean VeDBA were similar between the groups. However, the VeDBA for walking was higher in RES than SUP at both ages (P < 0.05). The results suggested that animals under VA restriction might slightly alter their gait as a stress response at 18 months of age and a residual of this might be detected even after the increase of blood VA concentration at 24 months of age; small changes in behavior that could not be detectable by visual classification were quantified via accelerometry. In the future, a combination of automatic behavioral classification and quantified physical activity such as DBA will be useful for feedback on animal health and well-being.
Heart rate variability (HRV), heart beat-to-beat variations, is a measure of cardiac autonomic functions, and HRV monitoring using sensor technology can be a non-invasive way to assess stress of ...animals. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of dietary vitamin A (VA) restriction to enhance beef quality on the physiological status of fattening steers by HRV analysis. Six Japanese Black steers were equally allocated into VA-restricted (RES) and VA-supplemented (SUP) groups. The RES steers were fed VA-restricted diets from 11 to 20 months of age. The inter-beat intervals and blood VA concentration were measured at 18 and 24 months of age. HRV parameters in time, frequency, and non-linear domains were calculated using the inter-beat intervals. Blood VA concentration was significantly lower in RES steers than in SUP steers at 18 months of age (
P
< 0.05) but did not differ between the groups at 24 months of age. The HRV analysis indicated greater sympathetic and lower parasympathetic activities in RES steers than in SUP steers (
P
< 0.05). However, there were significant interactions of the group and age on HRV parameters (
P
< 0.05), indicating that although RES steers at 18 months of age might suffer from slight stress, the response could recover to a level similar to SUP steers at 24 months of age by the increase in blood VA concentration.
The heartbeats of farm animals have been mainly measured by electrocardiography (ECG) for several purposes, such as the estimation of energy expenditure and the evaluation of autonomic nervous system ...balance in heart rate variability analysis. However, the measurement of ECG requires to maintain conductivity at which electrodes are fixed. In addition, the measurement of ECG is prone to noise signals due to animal movement. Alternatively, in human studies, microvibration on the body surface called ballistocardiography (BCG) has recently been studied as a proxy for heartbeat method. The objective of the present study was to develop a BCG measurement as a new method for measuring heartbeat of cattle. By using high sensitivity piezo film contact microphone sensors, we conducted two experiments. The experiment to search appropriate positions for BCG measurement indicated that the most appropriate position was around center of the right side just below the wither of test animals. The experiment for developing a noise cancellation method suggested that an effective method for removing noise signals may be to place microphone sub-sensors in addition to a main sensor at the appropriate position and derive the difference in signal magnitudes between the sensors.
Clinicopathologic features and postoperative outcomes were investigated for patients who underwent curative surgery for biliary marker (CK7 and CK19)‐positive hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Of 157 ...HCCs, 93 were CK7(‐)CK19(+), 49 were CK7(+)‐CK19(‐), 1 was CK7(‐)CK19(+), and 14 were CK7(+)‐CK19(+). Semiquantitative analysis of expression levels demonstrated a significant correlation between CK7 and CK19 expression. Of various clinicopathologic parameters, tumor differentiation exhibited a significant correlation with CK7 and CK19 expression. All 15 patients with CK19‐positive HCC also had anti‐HBc. Log‐rank test revealed that CK7 expression, CK19 expression, high aspartate aminotransferase (AST) activity, low albumin concentration, portal invasion, intrahepatic metastasis, and severe fibrosis (cirrhosis) reduced the tumor‐free survival rate. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that CK19 expression, intrahepatic metastasis, and severe fibrosis were independent predictors of postoperative recurrence, while CK7 expression was not. Twelve of 15 patients with CK19‐positive HCC had tumor recurrence within 2 years after surgery, a significantly higher incidence of early recurrence than for CK19‐negative HCC. The incidence of extrahepatic disease, especially lymph node metastasis, was significantly higher for patients with CK19‐positive HCC. These findings indicate that CK19 expression is a predictor of early postoperative recurrence due to increased invasiveness.
Outcomes of hepatic resection for hepatolithiasis Uenishi, Takahiro, M.D; Hamba, Hiroyuki, M.D; Takemura, Shigekazu, M.D ...
The American journal of surgery,
08/2009, Letnik:
198, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Abstract Background Hepatic resection is main approach to treatment of hepatolithiasis, but the long-term follow-up results of hepatic resection for hepatolithiasis are rarely reported. Methods A ...retrospective study was conducted of 87 patients with hepatolithiasis who underwent hepatic resection. Results The final stone clearance rates were 95%. There was a significant difference in the incidence of recurrent stones between patients with and without remaining biliary strictures. On multivariate analysis, the presence of residual or recurrent stones was an independent risk factor associated with recurrent cholangitis. The 10-year overall survival rate was 80.3%. On multivariate analysis, the development of cholangiocarcinoma was an independent predictor of survival in patients who underwent hepatic resection for hepatolithiasis. Conclusions The long-term outcomes after hepatic resection were satisfactory in patients whose intrahepatic stones and strictures were completely removed. Cholangiocarcinoma associated with hepatolithiasis was an independent prognostic factor in patients with hepatolithiasis who underwent hepatic resection.
Abstract Background Small bowel obstruction (SBO) after abdominal surgery is usually treated successfully with intestinal decompression using a long nasointestinal tube (LT), but some cases fail to ...respond. Methods Clinical background and laboratory data on admission were evaluated retrospectively for 53 patients with adhesive SBO to determine predictive factors for failure of LT decompression, and the appropriate timing of laparotomy was investigated. Results Complete SBO (no evidence of air within the large bowel) and increased serum creatine phosphokinase (≥130 IU/L) were independent predictive factors for LT decompression failure. Laparotomy was indicated in 14 patients (9 and 5 with complete and partial SBO, respectively), whereas successful LT decompression occurred in 39 patients (9 and 30, respectively). Resolution of SBO took significantly longer for complete SBO (6.3 days) than for partial SBO (2.6 days). Conclusions Patients with complete SBO or high serum creatine phosphokinase (CPK) may not respond to LT decompression. Laparotomy is appropriate after non-response for 7 and 3 days for complete and partial SBO, respectively.
Background
A high serum cytokeratin 19 fragment (CYFRA21-1) concentration in patients with various cancers is associated with poor prognosis. This study aimed to establish the clinical significance ...of preoperative serum CYFRA21-1 in patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma.
Methods
CYFRA21-1, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), and carbohydrate antigen (CA) 19-9 concentrations were measured in sera from 71 patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. The prognostic significance of serum CYFRA21-1 levels was assessed by univariate and multivariate analyses.
Results
Analysis of the areas under the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves clearly showed better discrimination between intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and benign liver diseases for CYFRA 21-1 than for CEA or CA 19-9. Based on the maximization of the Youden’s index, the optimal cut-off value was 2.7 ng ml
−1
for CYFRA 21-1 (sensitivity, 74.7%; specificity, 92.2%). The serum CYFRA21-1 concentration was related to tumor stage, since the CYFRA21-1 concentrations varied according to tumor size, vascular invasion, and number of tumors. The 3-year recurrence-free survival rates for patients with high and low concentrations of CYFRA21-1 were 25.0% and 76.2%, respectively (log-rank test,
p
< 0.01). The 3-year overall survival rates for patients with high and low concentrations of CYFRA21-1 were 39.4% and 63.6%, respectively (
p
= 0.01). On multivariate analysis, a high concentration of CYFRA21-1, nodal metastases, and a microscopic resection margin involvement were independent prognostic factors associated with both tumor recurrence and postoperative death.
Conclusions
A high serum CYFRA21-1 concentration is associated with tumor progression and poor postoperative outcomes in patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma.
Laparoscopic hepatectomy is difficult because surgeons must perform the transection using many (four and more) energy devices and without direct manual maneuvers. Here we introduce hepatic ...transection by the classical method with a few (two or three) energy devices.
We performed laparoscopic hepatectomy for 40 patients with hepatic tumor and liver dysfunction. For parenchymal transection, we used bipolar radiofrequency coagulation forceps connected to a voltage-controlled electrosurgical generator and ultrasonic dissector. The demarcation of the liver surface was made by an ultrasonic dissector. Along the demarcation line, the blades of a BiClamp were opened slightly and inserted into the hepatic parenchyma. We clamped slowly, softly, and gradually, and a small amount of hepatic parenchyma was consequently coagulated and fractured. After the crush, the small vessels and intrahepatic bile duct that were sealed were left as atrophic strings, and the strings were divided by an ultrasonic dissector. Large vessels and Glisson's sheaths were left because of the small clamp. Large Glisson's sheaths and hepatic veins were ligated with a titanium clip or autosutures, and cut without bile leakage or bleeding. The mean operation time of the procedure was 196.9 min, mean blood loss was 69.9 mL, and mean postoperative hospitalization was 9.5 days. No blood transfusions were needed. Two cases had perioperative complications-one involving right shoulder pain and the other involving ascites due to liver dysfunction-but there were no serious postoperative complications.
The present results appear to demonstrate that this simple and safe method helps decrease intraoperative bleeding and shorten hospital stay.
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