Objective The therapeutic effect of pemafibrate on metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) remains unknown. This retrospective, single-arm study investigated the efficacy and ...safety of pemafibrate in MAFLD patients with hypertriglyceridemia. Methods A total of 10 patients who received pemafibrate (oral, 0.1 mg, twice a day) at Gunma Saiseikai Maebashi Hospital between September 2018 and September 2019 were included. All patients underwent a liver biopsy, and the disease grade and stage were pathologically assessed based on the FLIP algorithm. Results The median age was 66.0 (53.8-74.8) years old, and 5 patients (50.0%) were men. All patients were diagnosed with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). The fasting and non-fasting triglyceride (TG) levels were 175 (149-247) mg/dL and 228 (169-335) mg/dL, respectively. The AST and ALT values at 6 months were significantly lower than at baseline AST: 28.0 (22.0-33.8) U/L vs. 43.5 (24.0-55.0) U/L, p=0.008, ALT: 23.0 (14.8-26.5) U/L vs. 51.5 (23.0-65.3) U/L, p=0.005, respectively, especially in NASH patients with significant activity and advanced fibrosis (p=0.040 and 0.014, respectively). Fasting TG levels were significantly lower and HDL-C levels significantly higher at 6 months than at baseline (p=0.005 and 0.032, respectively). At six months, FIB-4, the aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index, and the macrophage galactose-specific lectin-2 binding protein glycosylation isomer level were significantly improved compared with baseline (p=0.041, 0.005 and 0.005, respectively). Treatment-related adverse events were not observed. Conclusion Pemafibrate treatment may be safe and effective for MAFLD patients with hypertriglyceridemia.
Patients with extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (EHCC) have a poor prognosis; postoperative survival depends on cancer progression and therapeutic resistance. The mechanism of EHCC progression needs to ...be clarified to identify ways to improve disease prognosis. Stathmin1 (STMN1) is a major cytosolic phosphoprotein that regulates microtubule dynamics and is associated with malignant phenotypes and chemoresistance in various cancers. Recently, STMN1 was reported to interact with p27, an inhibitor of cyclin‐dependent kinase complexes. Eighty EHCC cases were studied using immunohistochemistry and clinical pathology to determine the correlation between STMN1 and p27 expression; RNA interference to analyze the function of STMN1 in an EHCC cell line was also used. Cytoplasmic STMN1 expression correlated with venous invasion (P = 0.0021) and nuclear p27 underexpression (P = 0.0011). Patients in the high‐STMN1‐expression group were associated with shorter recurrence‐free survival and overall survival than those in the low‐expression group. An in vitro protein‐binding assay revealed that cytoplasmic STMN1 bound to p27 in the cytoplasm, but not in the nucleus of EHCC cells. Moreover, p27 accumulated in EHCC cells after STMN1 suppression. STMN1 knockdown inhibited proliferation and increased the sensitivity of EHCC cells to paclitaxel. STMN1 contributes to a poor prognosis and cancer progression in EHCC patients. Understanding the regulation of p27 by STMN1 could provide new insights for overcoming therapeutic resistance in EHCC.
We revealed that stathmin1 contributes to poor prognosis and cancer progression in EHCC and interact with p27 on cytoplasm of cholangiocarcinoma cells, and consequently the regulation of p27 by STMN1 could provide new insight for overcoming therapeutic target in EHCC.
White conjectured that the toric ideal associated with the basis of a matroid is generated by quadrics corresponding to symmetric exchanges. We present a combinatorial proof of White's conjecture for ...matroids of rank 3 by using a lemma proposed by Blasiak.
The reductivity of a spherical curve is the minimal number of times a par- ticular local transformation called an inverse-half-twisted splice is required to obtain a reducible spherical curve from ...the initial spherical curve. It is unknown if there exists a spherical curve whose reductivity is four. In this paper, an unavoidable set of congura- tions for a spherical curve with reductivity four is given by focusing on 5-gons. It has also been unknown if there exists a reduced spherical curve which has no 2-gons and 3-gons of type A, B and C. This paper gives the answer to this question by constructing such a spherical curve. KCI Citation Count: 0
A 66-year-old man, who had undergone plasma exchange 30 years previously in Egypt for the treatment of falciparum malaria, was referred to our hospital for treatment of chronic hepatitis C (HCV). An ...analysis of the 655-nucleotide 5′-untranslated region-core region sequence revealed infection with HCV subtype 1g. A phylogenetic analysis of the full-length HCV genome confirmed that the patient's HCV was subtype 1g, which was the first case identified in Japan. Although his HCV possessed several naturally occurring resistance-associated substitutions in the nonstructural (NS) 3 and NS5A regions, he was successfully treated by combination therapy with glecaprevir/pibrentasvir.
Extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (EHCC) is a cancer with a poor prognosis, and the postoperative survival of patients depends on the existence of invasion and metastasis. The epithelial‐to‐mesenchymal ...transition (EMT) is an important step in EHCC invasion and metastasis. Forkhead box protein C2 (FOXC2) is a transcription factor that has been reported to induce the EMT. Therefore we examined the correlation between FOXC2 expression and clinical pathological factors, and analysed the function of FOXC2. The expression of FOXC2 in 77 EHCC cases was investigated by immunohistochemical staining, and the relationship between FOXC2 expression and clinicopathological factor was assessed. Knockdown by small interfering RNA (siRNA) was performed to determine the roles of FOXC2 in EHCC cell line. FOXC2 expression correlated with lymph node metastasis (P = 0.0205). Patients in the high FOXC2 expression group had a poorer prognosis than the patients in the low FOXC2 expression group. Moreover, FOXC2 knockdown inhibited cell motility and invasion, and decreased the expression of EMT markers (N‐cadherin, and matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) ‐2) and Angiopietin‐2 (Ang‐2). The EMT inducer FOXC2 contributes to a poor prognosis and cancer progression. FOXC2 may be a promising molecular target for regulating EHCC metastasis.
An 81‐year‐old man initially underwent right hepatic lobectomy for liver cancer and was pathologically diagnosed with combined hepatocellular and cholangiocarcinoma (CHC). At 13 months after ...resection, multiple lymph node metastases were observed. We started atezolizumab plus bevacizumab (Atez/Bev), achieving a 7.5‐month progression‐free survival. Atez/Bev might exhibit efficacy for CHC patients.
Although no standard systemic chemotherapy for combined hepatocellular and cholangiocarcinoma patients has yet been established, atezolizumab plus bevacizumab, which is a combination therapy of anti‐programmed death ligand‐1 and anti‐vascular endothelial growth factor, might exhibit good therapeutic outcome.
For a property
P
of simplicial complexes, a simplicial complex
Γ is an obstruction to
P
if
Γ itself does not satisfy
P
but all of its proper restrictions satisfy
P
. In this paper, we determine all ...obstructions to shellability of dimension ⩽2, refining the previous work by Wachs. As a consequence we obtain that the set of obstructions to shellability, that to partitionability and that to sequential Cohen–Macaulayness all coincide for dimensions ⩽2. We also show that these three sets of obstructions coincide in the class of flag complexes. These results show that the three properties, hereditary-shellability, hereditary-partitionability, and hereditary-sequential Cohen–Macaulayness are equivalent for these classes.
This article reports the case of a 34-year-old woman with xanthogranulomatous cholangitis who developed obstructive jaundice. Microscopically, the bile duct was surrounded and narrowed by a ...xanthogranulomatous lesion, but no xanthogranulomatous cholecystitis was seen. Although percutaneous cholangiograms done via the transhepatic biliary drainage showed smooth narrowing of the upper to middle bile duct, the cytology of bile was diagnosed as class V adenocarcinoma. Therefore, right extended hepatectomy and extrahepatic bile duct resection were performed. The differentiation of benign and malignant strictures at the hepatic hilum is often difficult. Xanthogranulomatous cholangitis is one possible diagnosis of a bile duct stricture. Precise review of all the preoperative information is required to make a correct diagnosis.
PDF
