Internal medicine
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Objective Snoring is a common physical condition in active workers. However, the link between snoring and health problems is poorly understood. Therefore, the prevalence of snoring in Japanese workers and the relationships between snoring and lifestyle-related diseases were investigated. ⋯ In women, snoring was not an independent comorbid factor for lifestyle-related diseases when adjusted for the age and body mass index. Conclusion Snoring was shown to be a frequent pathophysiology in active workers. It was a health indicator for active workers, and especially in men, intervention for snoring may reduce the risk of developing lifestyle-related diseases.
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Objective The pharmacodynamic effect of warfarin varies among individuals, and its maintenance dose is widely distributed. Although many formulae for predicting the maintenance dose of warfarin have been developed, most of them are complex and not in practical use. Methods and Materials Among 12,738 new patients visiting the Cardiovascular Institute between 2004 and 2009, we identified 127 patients (66.6±8.8 years, 89 men) with atrial fibrillation for whom warfarin was newly started with an initial dose of 2 mg/day and the international normalized ratio (INR) at 1 year after warfarin was started was within the therapeutic range. ⋯ The maintenance dose showed an exponential correlation to the initial INR: (predicted maintenance dose) =5.522× (initial INR) -1.556 (R2=0.795, p<0.001). Excluding the patients with a poor response to the initial dose (initial INR <1.1, n=32) permitted a simple correlation with a first-order approximation: (predicted maintenance dose) =-2.009× (initial INR) +6.172 (R2=0.706, p<0.001). Conclusion We developed a simple formula for predicting the maintenance dose of warfarin using the initial response of the INR to low-dose warfarin.
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Objective Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) is the most frequent autoinflammatory syndrome, and its frequency is reported to be increasing in Japan. We studied the clinical features and genetic background of patients with FMF in our hospital. Methods We analyzed the clinical features and genomic variants of MEFV, as well as 10 genes related to other autoinflammatory syndromes, in 22 Japanese patients with FMF. ⋯ All cases in which the onset occurred before 20 years of age were classified as typical FMF. Conclusion The clinical features of FMF recorded in our hospital coincided with those from the Japanese national epidemiological survey of FMF in Japan. More than 30% of the patients with FMF had non-MEFV genes, related to other autoinflammatory syndromes, thereby suggesting that variants of these genes may act as a disease-modifier in FMF.
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We herein report a case with the rare combination of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma (MALT lymphoma) of the stomach, autoimmune gastritis (AIG), autoimmune thyroiditis, autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA), and systemic lupus erythematosus. A 68-year-old woman was diagnosed with gastric MALT lymphoma associated with Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection and AIG. Complete remission of the MALT lymphoma was achieved by H. pylori eradication and radiotherapy. Three years after the diagnosis of MALT lymphoma, the patient developed AIHA and anti-nuclear and anti-Smith autoantibody-positive lupus serositis, which were successfully managed with prednisolone administration.
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Drug-induced immune thrombocytopenia (DITP) is an important cause of thrombocytopenia. A 73-year-old man with relapsed rectal carcinoma received S-1, oxaliplatin and bevacizumab combination therapy (SOX+Bev). Dexamethasone was administered as an antiemetic prophylaxis. ⋯ We sequentially omitted any drugs suspected to possibly induce thrombocytopenia and confirmed dexamethasone as the cause of thrombocytopenia. DITP induced by synthetic corticosteroids is very rare and this is the first case report of DITP induced by dexamethasone. Although rare, DITP due to synthetic corticosteroids including dexamethasone should be a differential diagnosis among patients receiving synthetic corticosteroids with thrombocytopenia.