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Atsuro Fukuhara,1 Junpei Saito,1 Suguru Sato,1 Kazue Saito,1 Naoko Fukuhara,1 Yoshinori Tanino,1 Xintao Wang,1 Katsuaki Rinno,2 Hitoshi Suzuki,2 Mitsuru Munakata1 1Department of Pulmonary Medicine, School of Medicine, Fukushima Medical University, 2General Examination Center, Fukushima Preservation Service Association of Health, Fukushima, Japan Abstract: The prevalence of COPD and asthma is increasing all over the world; however, their morbidities are thought to be greatly underestimated because of unawareness of patients’ conditions and respiratory symptoms. Spirometry is useful for the early detection of COPD and asthma with airflow limitation (AL), although it is not yet widely used for screening in epidemiological and primary care settings. A simple predictive marker used in combination with spirometry for AL is expected to be established. In medical health check-ups, serum uric acid (s-UA) is measured when screening for gout and has recently been suggested to have an association with several respiratory disorders, including asthma and COPD. However, whether s-UA influences the development of AL remains unclear. Therefore, the aims of this study were to examine the relationship between AL and s-UA and to investigate s-UA as a potential auxiliary marker for predicting AL risk in medical health check-ups. A total of 8,662 subjects aged >40 years were included. They were administered a simple questionnaire and assessed using pulmonary function tests, blood pressure (BP) measurements, and blood samplings. One hundred and fifty-six subjects (1.8%) had AL, just 29% of whom had experienced respiratory symptoms. The subjects with AL had significantly higher s-UA levels compared with never-smoking subjects without AL. Forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) %predicted showed significant correlations with age, smoking index, body mass index (BMI), mean BP, white blood cells, hemoglobin A1c, s-UA, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. In multiple logistic regression analysis, s-UA, in addition to age, smoking index, respiratory symptoms, and BMI, was independently associated with AL. In conclusion, elevated s-UA levels, together with respiratory symptoms, high smoking index, and weight loss, may epidemiologically predict the development of AL risk. Keywords: uric acid, airflow limitation, COPD, asthma, health check-up

Although the advent of non-anthracycline-based and L-asparaginase containing chemotherapy has contributed to enhancing the prognosis of ENKL patients, recent clinical results of ENKL patients have not been well assessed. The proportion of patients who underwent subsequent hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) was also significantly higher in patients treated with SMILE than the other regimens (65% vs. 18%, I P i < 0.001). B Background: b Extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma (ENKL) is a particular subtype of lymphoma that is characterized by the expression of multi-drug resistance-associated P-glycoprotein. [Extracted from the article]

B Introduction: b Intravascular large B-cell lymphoma (IVLBCL) is a rare disease entity of extranodal large B-cell lymphoma characterized by selective growth of lymphoma cells in the lumina of small vessels. B Conclusions: b In this 5-year, long-term follow-up analysis of the PRIMEUR-IVL study, frontline treatment of CNS-oriented therapy with standard R-CHOP for untreated IVLBCL patients without apparent CNS involvement provided durable response and clinically meaningful results for PFS, OS, and low incidence of secondary CNS involvement with manageable toxicity. FIVE-YEAR RESULTS OF A PHASE 2 STUDY OF CNS-ORIENTED THERAPY WITH R-CHOP FOR UNTREATED INTRAVASCULAR LARGE B-CELL LYMPHOMA: FINAL ANALYSIS OF THE PRIMEUR-IVL STUDY. [Extracted from the article]

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a fatal degenerative neurological disease. Progressive dementia is its chief clinical sign, and its characteristic pathological feature is the formation of vacuoles within the degenerating brain. These vacuoles give the brain a 'spongy' appearance, and hence CJD and some similar diseases have been termed spongiform encephalopathies. Similar diseases include Kuru in man and scrapie in sheep. These diseases are often included among the so-called slow virus diseases, but the nomenclature is misleading, since the pathogenic agents responsible for the spongiform encephalopathies are unlike any known virus. In addition, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is unique among the spongiform encephalopathies. Unlike Kuru and scrapie, which have clearly infectious causes in nature, CJD occurs sporadically, and the majority of cases cannot be traced to any infectious transmission. Nevertheless, brain tissue from patients with CJD can be used to transmit a similar neurological disease to experimental animals. In most parts of the world, CJD affects primarily gray matter, that part of the brain where nerve cells and their interconnections predominate. In Japan, however, roughly 38 percent of cases affect the white matter of the brain as well; white matter consists of regions of the brain where long fibers insulated by their white myelin sheaths predominate. Since this form of CJD affects most areas of the brain, it has been termed 'panencephalopathic'. Japanese researchers have now shown that it is possible to isolate a pathogenic agent from panencephalopathic CJD and use it to transmit disease to laboratory animals. However, the disease caused in guinea pigs and hamsters affects specific areas of gray matter, and is not of the panencephalopathic type. There may be an interaction between the genetic characteristics of the pathogenic agent and its human host, and the panencephalopathic disease seen so commonly in Japan is likely to result from the influence of an unknown human gene or genes that occur more frequently in Japanese populations. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)