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Biomedical subjects

I Sakai

Publications and source records attributed to I Sakai.

77 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
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Comparative therapeutic evaluation of intrathecal versus epidural methylprednisolone for long-term analgesia in patients with intractable postherpetic neuralgia.

UNLABELLED: BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The goal of this study was to evaluate the analgesic effects of intrathecal versus epidural methylprednisolone acetate (MPA) in patients with intractable postherpetic neuralgia (PHN). METHODS: We studied 25 patients with a duration of PHN of more than 1 year. The patients were randomly allocated to one of two groups: an intrathecal group (n = 13) and an epidural group (n = 12). Sixty milligrams of MPA was administered either into the intrathecal or the epidural space four times at 1-week intervals depending on the treatment group. Continuous and lancinating pain and allodynia were evaluated by a physician unaware of group assignment with a 10-cm visual analogue scale before treatment, at the end of treatment, and 1 and 24 weeks after treatment. In addition, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) was obtained for measurement of interleukin (IL)-1beta, -6, and -8 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha before and 1 week after treatment. RESULTS: We found marked alleviation of continuous and lancinating pain and allodynia in the intrathecal group (P < .001). The improvements were much greater in the intrathecal group than in the epidural group at all time points after the end of treatment (P < .005). IL-8 in the CSF decreased significantly in the intrathecal group as compared to the epidural group at the l-week time point (P < .01), whereas the other cytokines were undetectable. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest the effectiveness of intrathecal as compared to epidural MPA for relieving the pain and allodynia associated with PHN. Also, our findings, together with the decrease in IL-8, may indicate that intrathecal MPA improves analgesia by decreasing an ongoing inflammatory reaction in the CSF.

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Induction of apoptosis in various tumor cell lines by geranylgeraniol.

We have found that GGO is a potent inducer of apoptosis in various human tumor cell lines, including a myeloid multipotential leukemia K562 cell line which is resistant to the induction of apoptosis by various apoptosis-inducing agents and conditions. Polyprenylalcohols with isoprenyl units shorter than the geranylgeranyl group or longer than farnesyl group were less effective in inducing apoptosis in myeloid leukemia HL-60 cells and polyprenylketones had no apoptosis-inducing activity. The fragmentation of DNA in HL-60 cells by GGO was so rapid, no significant effect on the cell cycle was observed. [3H]GGO was taken up by HL-60 cells in 3 h and was incorporated into several proteins. The expression of c-myc and bcl-2 decreased significantly within 3 h of the start of the treatment of HL-60 cells with 50 microM GGO.

Apoptosis↗