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Biomedical subjects

M Fujioka

Publications and source records attributed to M Fujioka.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

Fully automated analysis of estrogens in environmental waters by in-tube solid-phase microextraction coupled with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

A simple, rapid and sensitive method for the determination of five estrogens, estrone, 17beta-estradiol, estriol, ethynyl estradiol, and diethylstilbestrol, was developed using a fully automated method consisting of in-tube solid-phase microextraction (SPME) coupled with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS). These estrogens were separated within 8 min by HPLC using an XDB-C8 column and 0.01% ammonia/acetonitrile (60/40, v/v) at a flow rate of 0.2 mL/min. Electrospray ionization conditions in the negative ion mode were optimized for MS/MS detection of the estrogens. The optimum in-tube SPME conditions were 20 draw/eject cycles of 40 microL of sample using a Supel-Q PLOT capillary column as an extraction device. The extracted compounds were easily desorbed from the capillary by passage of the mobile phase, and no carryover was observed. Using the in-tube SPME LC/MS/MS method, good linearity of the calibration curve (r > or = 0.9996) was obtained in the concentration range from 10 to 200 pg/mL for all compounds examined. The limits of detection (S/N= 3) of the five estrogens examined ranged from 2.7 to 11.7 pg/mL. The in-tube SPME method showed 34-90-fold higher sensitivity than the direct injection method (5 microL injection). This method was applied successfully to the analysis of environmental water samples without any other pretreatment and interference peaks. Several surface water and wastewater samples were collected from the area around Asahi River, and estriol was detected at 35.7 pg/mL in the effluent of a sewage treatment plant. The recoveries of estrogens spiked into river waters were above 86%, except for estriol, and the relative standard deviations were below 0.9-8.8%.

Automation↗
PubMed2005

Onset of steroid-induced osteonecrosis in rabbits and its relationship to hyperlipaemia and increased free fatty acids.

OBJECTIVES: To clarify the initial onset time of osteonecrosis after the start of steroid treatment and its relation to the onset of abnormal lipid metabolism. METHODS: Animal models were prepared by administering methylprednisolone to rabbits using five different steroid regimens. RESULTS: A single, acute ischaemic event suggested by the frequency, size or number of necrotic foci within the proximal femur was not different among the groups. Histological evidence of osteonecrosis first occurred 1-2 weeks after initial steroid administration. At the same time there were significantly abnormal elevations in serum lipids, which persisted for between 1 and 2 weeks after the initial corticoid treatment. Triglycerides, total cholesterol and free fatty acids were markedly elevated in all groups; these lipid abnormalities were significantly present in the rabbits with osteonecrosis but not in the rabbits without osteonecrosis. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that (i) osteonecrosis appears in rabbits shortly after corticoids are first administered, and (ii) osteonecrosis in rabbits is chronologically associated with the onset of hyperlipaemia and increased free fatty acids. This supports the occurrence of intraosseous fat embolism as a cause of osteonecrosis.

Animals↗
PubMed2001

Blood flow and blood volume in the femoral heads of healthy adults according to age: measurement with positron emission tomography (PET).

OBJECTIVE: To deepen understanding of hemodynamics in the femoral head, i.e., the essential factor in clarifying pathogenesis of hip disorders, this study examined blood flow and blood volume in the femoral heads of healthy adults, and their changes with age, by using positron emission tomography (PET). METHODS: In 16 healthy adult males (age: 20-78 years old, mean age: 42 years), blood flow was measured by means of the H2(15)O dynamic study method, and blood volume was measured by means of the (15)O-labeled carbon monoxide bolus inhalation method. RESULTS: Blood flow was 1.68-6.47 ml/min/100 g (mean +/- SD: 3.52 +/- 1.2), and blood volume was 1.67-6.03 ml/100 g (mean +/- SD: 3.00 +/- 1.27). Blood flow significantly decreased (p < 0.01) with age, and blood volume significantly increased (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: PET was useful in the measurement of blood flow and blood volume in the femoral heads. With age, physiological hemodynamic changes also increased in femoral heads.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

CT findings of descending necrotising mediastinitis via the carotid space ('Lincoln Highway').

A 3-year-old girl with fever and neck swelling showed widening of the superior mediastinum on chest radiographs. Contrast-enhanced CT of the neck revealed ill-defined low-attenuation areas with a thick, enhanced rim adjacent to the hypertrophied palatine tonsil. The abscess extended inferiorly within the carotid sheath between the carotid artery and the internal jugular vein into the anterior mediastinum. The carotid space is considered an important conduit of descending necrotising mediastinitis and is called the 'Lincoln Highway' as previously suggested.

Carotid Arteries↗
PubMed2001

Low-intensity fetal lungs on MRI may suggest the diagnosis of pulmonary hypoplasia.

BACKGROUND: Pulmonary hypoplasia is a common cause of neonatal death. Despite the recent advances in prenatal diagnosis with US, the diagnosis of pulmonary hypoplasia is difficult. The recent application of fast MR imaging may provide additional valuable information. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate pulmonary hypoplasia in the fetus with MRI. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The subjects comprised 23 fetuses (18-40 weeks' gestation), including major anomalies diagnosed on fetal ultrasonography (n = 20), maternal abnormality (n = 2) and one normal twin. MRI was performed with a 1.5-T magnet and half-Fourier acquisition single-shot turbo spin-echo (HASTE) sequences. MR images were interpreted by three radiologists with special attention to the intensity of the lungs. The lung-to-liver intensity ratio was calculated by means of region-of-interest (ROI) analysis. The diagnosis of pulmonary hypoplasia depended on clinical, surgical and autopsy findings. RESULTS: All fetuses with normal pulmonary development showed high intensity in the lung except for one fetus at 24 weeks' gestational age. All fetuses with pulmonary hypoplasia showed lung of low intensity. CONCLUSIONS: Low-intensity fetal lung on MRI imaging indicates pulmonary hypoplasia after 26 weeks' gestation.

Female↗
PubMed2001

Liver metastasis following pneumoperitoneum with different gases in a mouse model.

BACKGROUND: The validity of using CO2 in laparoscopic tumor surgery has not yet been established. To address this question, we investigated the growth of liver metastases following insufflation with different gases in a mouse laparoscopy model. METHODS: Male BALB/C mice inoculated intraportally with colon 26 cells were randomized to undergo pneumoperitoneum with CO2 (n = 16), helium (n = 16), argon (n = 16), or air (n = 17), or to act as controls without insufflation (n = 17). RESULTS: The growth of cancer nodules on the liver 14 days after surgery was greater in mice following insufflation with CO2 (p < 0.01), helium (p < 0.01), argon (p = 0.01), and air (p = 0.07) than in control mice. No significant differences were found between the four insufflation groups in the growth of liver metastases. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that insufflation plays an important role in the development of liver metastases but that the choice of gas may not affect their growth.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2001

Initial changes of non-traumatic osteonecrosis of femoral head in fat suppression images: bone marrow edema was not found before the appearance of band patterns.

The present study examined initial changes in non-traumatic osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONF) on T1- and T2-weighted MR images, and fat suppression images. The subjects were 57 renal transplant recipients (37 males and 20 females), whose median age at the time of transplantation was 31.5 years old (range, 10 to 58 years). Twelve patients developed band patterns (sign of established ONF) at an early postoperative period. Among them, 4 joints of 3 patients had a localized, faint signal abnormality in fat suppression images, where band pattern was confirmed later in T1- and T2-weighted images. In all the 57 patients, no bone marrow edema preceding to ONF was observed. Bone marrow edema would not be the cause of ONF in renal transplant patients. Early changes depicted in our fat suppression images would be useful information in the studies on pathogenesis of ONF.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Oral health care status of homebound elderly in Japan.

We examined the present conditions of oral health care in order to contribute towards an effective system to provide oral health care for homebound elderly in Japan. A questionnaire was mailed to homebound elderly subjects (n=908) and returned by mail. A 73.6% response was achieved. The questionnaire was designed to elicit information with respect to the general condition of the subjects and independence of oral health care. About 70% of the subjects were chair- or bed-bound. Among all subjects, 37.6% required partial or full assistance on toothbrushing, 55.6% on cleaning dentures and 46.7% on eating. The degree of oral health care tended to be poor for chair- or bed-bound elderly compared with independent or house-bound elderly. Homebound elderly with lower Activities of Daily Living Scale (ADL) required more support for oral health care compared with elderly with higher ADL.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed2001

Immunohistologic study on the expressions of alpha-fetoprotein and protein induced by vitamin K absence or antagonist II in surgically resected small hepatocellular carcinoma.

Sixty-eight cases of single hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with less than 3 cm of diameter were immunohistochemically examined for the expressions of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and protein induced by vitamin K absence or antagonist II (PIVKA-II). In cancerous tissues, the expression rate was significantly higher for PIVKA-II (34 cases [50%]) than AFP (21 cases [31%]) (P <.05), suggesting a higher specificity of PIVKA-II to small HCC. Sixteen of the 68 cases (24%) were positive to both AFP and PIVKA-II, and in 8 of the 16 cases, AFP and PIVKA-II expressing areas within a nodule were clearly divided by a fibrous septum. According to histologic grades, PIVKA-II expression was confirmed in 2 of the 15 well-differentiated HCCs, and in the well-differentiated component of 6 of the 12 "nodule-in-nodule"-type well-differentiated HCCs. AFP expression was not found in well-differentiated HCCs, but found in 16 of the 40 moderately differentiated HCCs (40%) and in the moderately differentiated component of 3 of the 12 "nodule-in-nodule"-type well-differentiated HCCs. The positive rate in the tissues was correlated to the serum levels for both AFP and PIVKA-II. In addition, frequency of tissue-PIVKA-II expression was higher than tissue-AFP expression in the cases whose serum protein level was within the normal range. This indicates that AFP and PIVKA-II have different patterns of tissue expression and of secretion to the blood. In comparison with tissue-AFP-negative cases, tissue-AFP-positive HCCs had a larger tumor size, higher frequencies of portal vein invasion and intrahepatic metastasis, a high Ki-67 labeling index, and a lower rate of recurrence-free survival. Thus, tissue-AFP-positive HCCs are suggested to be biologically more malignant than those HCCs that are AFP-negative and PIVKA-II-positive.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Experimental model of invasion and metastasis by orthotopic transplantation of oral squamous and adenoid cystic carcinomas into the tongue of nude mice.

Three squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) cell lines established from oral cancer, seven specimens of SCC and three of adenoid cystic carcinomas taken from the oral cavity during operations were transplanted into the tongues of nude mice. Metastases to the regional lymph nodes and the lungs were examined histologically. We were able to transplant every cell line or specimen of tissue into the tongue of nude mice, and found that cancer transplanted in the tongue invaded diffusely to the surrounding tissues without forming a capsule, and that the mode of invasion of the transplanted SCC was similar to that of the biopsy specimen of the patient from whom the material had been obtained. We also found that all three of the SCC cell lines, 3 of the 7 SCC specimens and 2 of the 3 adenoid cystic carcinoma tissues metastasized to the regional lymph node. SCC did not metastasize to the lung, but in two of the three adenoid cystic carcinomas we did see micrometastases to the lung. The study indicates that this method can be used as a model of metastasis in oral squamous cell carcinoma and adenoid cystic carcinoma to show the stages of metastasis in cancer.

Animals↗
PubMed2001

Groucho augments the repression of multiple Even skipped target genes in establishing parasegment boundaries.

Groucho acts as a co-repressor for several Drosophila DNA binding transcriptional repressors. Several of these proteins have been found to contain both Groucho-dependent and -independent repression domains, but the extent to which this distinction has functional consequences for the regulation of different target genes is not known. The product of the pair-rule gene even skipped has previously been shown to contain a Groucho-independent repression activity. In the Even skipped protein, outside the Groucho-independent repression domain, we have identified a conserved C-terminal motif (LFKPY), similar to motifs that mediate Groucho interaction in Hairy, Runt and Hückebein. Even skipped interacts with Groucho in yeast and in vitro, and groucho and even skipped genetically interact in vivo. Even skipped with a mutated Groucho interaction motif, which abolished binding to Groucho, showed a significantly reduced ability to rescue the even skipped null phenotype when driven by the complete even skipped regulatory region. Replacing this motif with a heterologous Groucho interaction motif restored the rescuing function of Even skipped in segmentation. Further functional assays demonstrated that the Even skipped C terminus acts as a Groucho-dependent repression domain in early Drosophila embryos. This novel repression domain was active on two target genes that are normally repressed by Even skipped at different concentrations, paired and sloppy paired. When the Groucho interaction motif is mutated, repression of each target gene is reduced to a similar extent, with some activity remaining. Thus, the ability of Even skipped to repress different target genes at different concentrations does not appear to involve differential recruitment or function of Groucho. The accumulation of multiple domains of similar function within a single protein may be a common evolutionary mechanism that fine-tunes the level of activity for different regulatory functions.

Amino Acid Motifs↗
PubMed2001

even skipped is required to produce a trans-acting signal for larval neuroblast proliferation that can be mimicked by ecdysone.

Development of a multicellular organism requires precise coordination of cell division and cell type determination. The selector homeoprotein Even skipped (Eve) plays a very specific role in determining cell identity in the Drosophila embryo, both during segmentation and in neuronal development. However, studies of gene expression in eve mutant embryos suggest that eve regulates the embryonic expression of the vast majority of genes. We present here genetic interaction and phenotypic analysis showing that eve functions in the trol pathway to regulate the onset of neuroblast division in the larval CNS. Surprisingly, Eve is not detected in the regulated neuroblasts, and culture experiments reveal that Eve is required in the body, not the CNS. Furthermore, the effect of an eve mutation can be rescued both in vivo and in culture by the hormone ecdysone. These results suggest that eve is required to produce a trans-acting factor that stimulates cell division in the larval brain.

Alleles↗
PubMed2001

[Tumoral levels of thymidine phosphorylase and dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase in elderly colorectal cancer patients].

Fluoropyrimidine therapy for elderly colorectal cancer patients remains controversial. Tumoral levels of thymidine phosphorylase (TP), dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD), and the ratio of TP to DPD determined by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay were compared between colorectal cancer patients aged 75 or over (elderly group, n = 25) and those 74 years or less (control group, n = 87), in order to examine the characteristics of colorectal cancers in the elderly from the viewpoint of metabolic and anabolic pathways of fluoropyrimidines. The level of TP was 78.4 +/- 47.0 unit/mg protein in the elderly group and 82.4 +/- 70.9 unit/mg protein in the control group (p = 0.86). The level of DPD was 53.7 +/- 43.1 unit/mg protein in the elderly group and 52.6 +/- 37.7 unit/mg protein in the control group (p = 0.73). The ratio of TP to DPD was 2.0 +/- 1.2 in the elderly group and 1.8 +/- 0.9 in the control group (p = 0.44). These three parameters did not differ between the groups when divided according to Dukes' stage (Dukes' A.B versus Dukes' C.D). These results suggest that there are no age-specific characteristics in relation to conversion of fluoropyrimidines such as capecitabine and doxifluridine to 5-fluorouracil (FU) and degradation of 5-FU in colorectal cancers.

Age Factors↗
PubMed2001

[Fetal MRI: value and limitations--a review of 55 lesions].

OBJECTIVE: This study was undertaken to evaluate the usefulness and limitations of fetal MR imaging. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fifty-five prenatal MRI examinations were performed, and the results were confirmed by postnatal follow-up or from pathological examination and clinical findings. All examinations were performed between 18 and 40 weeks of gestation without any premedication. A 1.5-Tesla superconductive MR imaging unit was used to obtain half-Fourier acquisition single-shot turbo spin-echo (HASTE) images. RESULTS: There were two false-positive cases on US. MRI allowed the diagnosis of serious unsuspected lesions such as hypoplastic lung and anorectal malformation. MRI was also useful for the precise diagnosis of ventriculomegaly. However, MRI missed two cases of spinal dysraphism and one case of laryngotracheoesophageal cleft. CONCLUSION: Fetal MRI is a valuable complementary tool when prenatal US is inadequate or doubtful. MRI is useful for the evaluation of pulmonary hypoplasia or hydrocephalus and may modify obstetric management. MRI may be able to diagnose spinal dysraphism by detecting mild widening of the CSF space. However, MRI currently is not useful for making a differential diagnosis between laryngotracheoesophageal cleft and esophageal atresia.

Congenital Abnormalities↗
PubMed2001

[Effect of peroral doxifluridine plus hepatic arterial infusion for synchronous liver metastasis of colorectal cancer--correlation with the expression of thymidine phosphorylase and dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase in primary colorectal cancer lesions].

We investigated whether the efficacy of peroral doxifluridine and hepatic arterial 5-FU infusion on synchronous liver metastasis of colorectal cancer could be predicted based on the expression of thymidine phosphorylase (TP) and dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) in the primary colorectal lesions. Ten patients with synchronous liver metastasis of colorectal cancer were given doxifluridine (600-800 mg/body/day) orally and 5-FU (500 mg/body, once or twice a week) through the hepatic artery following resection of the primary lesions between June 1996 and July 2001. The levels of TP and DPD in the primary lesions were determined by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The level of TP, DPD, and the ratio of TP/DPD in patients with partial response (n = 4) were 89.8 +/- 30.0 U/mg protein, 23.5 +/- 25.7 U/mg protein, and 3.8 +/- 1.4, respectively, while those in patients with no response or progressive disease (n = 6) were 41.8 +/- 9.7 U/mg protein, 25.8 +/- 15.8 U/mg protein, and 2.2 +/- 1.6, showing significant difference (p < 0.01) in the level of TP between the groups. These results indicate that determining the level of TS in primary colorectal lesions may be useful for predicting the efficacy of this regimen for patients with synchronous liver metastasis of colorectal cancer.

Aged↗
PubMed2001

[A case of metastatic breast cancer showing extraosseous accumulation of 99mTc-HMDP in axillary lymph nodes on bone scintigraphy].

We report a case of metastatic breast cancer that showed extraosseous accumulation of 99mTc-HMDP in left axillary lymph nodes on bone scintigraphy. Our patient had a giant left breast mass and multiple lymph node metastases with atypical calcifications. It is known that breast cancer sometimes is positively visualized as extraosseous accumulation on bone scintigraphy. Accumulation to metastatic lymph nodes of breast cancer has rarely been reported. It is suggested that bone scintigraphy is of benefit in detecting the metastatic lymph nodes of breast cancer as a screening or follow-up method.

Axilla↗