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Biomedical subjects

A Okubo

Publications and source records attributed to A Okubo.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed1994

HTLV-I associated uveitis and hyperthyroidism.

The records of 76 consecutive patients with etiology-undefined uveitis examined during the 3-year period between 1990 and 1992 were reviewed and 6 patients were found who had concomitant hyperthyroidism. These 6 patients had presented with uveitis symptoms and signs when hyperthyroidism was relieved with thiamazole therapy. The uveal disease was characterized by acute, granulomatous or nongranulomatous anterior uveal involvement and granular or membranous vitreous opacities with or without retinal vascular change. These manifestations resolved in a few weeks in response to topical and/or systemic corticosteroids. Three patients had recurrence of uveitis after remission for months to years. All of the patients had serum antibodies to HTLV-I. The uveal disease resembled HTLV-I associated uveitis that may develop in patients with HTLV-I associated myelopathy or HTLV-I carriers; 2 cases had chronic myelopathy or arthropathy that was considered associated with the retrovirus. The present observations suggest that the association between uveitis and hyperthyroidism is not accidental but shares a common underlying etiologic factor, HTLV-I, although the pathomechanism remains to be defined.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Transbronchial lung biopsy in the diagnosis of suspected ocular sarcoidosis.

We conducted clinical research using transbronchial lung biopsy in 60 patients with suspected ocular sarcoidosis who showed no bilateral hilar lymphadenopathy and sparse contributory evidence for sarcoidosis. The patients had a combination of granulomatous iritis with mutton-fat keratic precipitates or iris nodules, trabecular nodules, tent-like peripheral anterior synechiae, snowball or string-of-pearls vitreous opacities, retinal perivasculitis, and spotty retinochoroidal exudates. The transbronchial lung biopsy specimen showed noncaseating epithelioid granuloma in 37 patients (61.7%); these patients were diagnosed as having sarcoidosis. Bronchoalveolar lavage showed a high percentage of patients with an increased lymphocyte fraction among those with positive transbronchial lung biopsy results. The present results may serve as a basis for a clinical diagnosis of sarcoidosis in patients with suspected sarcoidosis without apparent extraocular manifestations.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

[Basic and clinical evaluation of EIA (pin immuno assay, PIA) kit for antithyroglobulin antibody (TGAb) and antimicrosomal (antiperoxidase) antibody (TMAb)].

Newly developed enzyme immunoassay kit (Pin Immuno Assay, PIA) for quantitative determination of serum antithyroglobulin antibody (TGAb) and antimicrosomal (-peroxidase) antibody (TMAb) was evaluated. The method utilizes the Sandwich ELISA principle with a unique micropin as solid phase coated with antigen. Reproducibilities assessed by intra- and interassay variation were less than 6.9% (CV) and 7.2% for TGAb or 4.2% and 6.0% for TMAb respectively. Changes in the first or second incubation time did not affect both TGAb and TMAb values. Upper normal limits obtained from 47 healthy subjects were 150 IU/ml for TGAb and 25 IU/ml for TMAb. Positive results in TGAb were obtained 60.0% in patients with Graves' disease and 80.0% in chronic thyroiditis and in TMAb 77.8% in Graves' disease and 66.7% in chronic thyroiditis. Patients with other autoimmune diseases such as SLE, RA were also found high incidence of positive results, 48.3% for TGAb and 65.0% for TMAb respectively. These results indicate that the nonradioisotopic assay technique for thyroid autoantibodies are useful in diagnosis of autoimmune diseases especially thyroid diseases.

Autoantibodies↗
PubMed1992

Intraocular manifestations of systemic sarcoidosis.

The incidence of intraocular manifestations was studied in 159 patients with systemic sarcoidosis. Eighty-seven patients (54.7%) who presented ocular lesions suggestive of sarcoidosis as an initial manifestation were diagnosed after a systemic survey. Seventy-two patients (45.3%) had chest signs or symptoms and were referred to ophthalmic examination during a diagnostic survey. Of the 159 patients, 126 (79.2%) showed intraocular involvements at diagnosis. In these patients with ocular involvements, iritis was the most frequent lesion, being seen in 74.7%. Gonioscopic examinations revealed trabecular nodules and tent-like peripheral anterior synechia in 61.2 and 54.5% of the patients respectively. Retinal perivasculitis and spotty retinochoroidal exudates were seen in 67.3 and 53.9% of the patients respectively. The data indicated the presence of intraocular lesions in a significant number of patients with sarcoidosis. These findings emphasize that all patients with systemic sarcoidosis need a thorough eye examination. This ocular examination should include gonioscopy.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

[De novo retinal break associated with excessive cryotherapy].

Three patients who had been treated with transscleral cryotherapy for retinal breaks and associated retinal detachment developed de novo retinal breaks and/or retinal thinning at the site of cryotherapy in the early postoperative period. Additional surgical interventions were required because retinal detachment had extended or remained unchanged postoperatively. We think that this may be due to excessive cryotherapy and is an early postoperative complication transscleral cryotherapy that to our knowledge has not previously been reported. This would suggest that when performing cryotherapy for retinal breaks and associated retinal detachment, care should be taken not to treat excessively.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Odontogenic epithelial hamartoma of the gingiva: a case report.

A rare case of odontogenic epithelial hamartoma of the gingiva in a 63-year-old Japanese female is reported. This tumor-like lesion probably originated from the reduced tooth-forming tissues such as rests of dental lamina lying dormant in the gingiva after odontogenesis. The differential diagnosis of this lesion from many other odontogenic and glandular tumors is important; however, through careful clinico-pathological examinations, it would not be a very difficult task.

Connective Tissue↗
PubMed1991

[An elderly case of small cell lung cancer showing a good partial response by chronic daily administration of oral etoposide].

An 86-year-old man was admitted to our hospital with complaints of dyspnea and productive cough, and diagnosed as small cell lung cancer with sputum cytology. We concluded that he was unsuitable for standard aggressive intravenous chemotherapy because of an old age, a poor performance status and cardiac complication. He was treated with oral etoposide (100 mg/day x 16.5 days), and showed a good partial response and improvement of clinical symptoms. Toxicities were leukopenia, alopecia, and anorexia. Daily oral administration of etoposide is considered to be effective and useful for elderly patient with small cell lung cancer.

Administration, Oral↗
PubMed1991

[Measurement of anti-microsomal and anti-thyroglobulin antibodies by radioimmunoassay].

In this study, we measured anti-microsomal (same as anti-thyroid peroxidase) and anti-thyroglobulin antibodies (anti-TPOAb and anti-TgAb) in sera by new RIA kits and compared with the conventional particle agglutination (PA) kits. Two of 80 normals (2.5%) showed anti-TPOAb positive activity (greater than or equal to 0.3 unit/ml), and 9 of same samples (11.3%) showed anti TgAb positive activity (greater than or equal to 0.3 unit/ml). Sixty of 67 patients with Graves' disease (89.6%), and 14 of 22 with Hashimoto's disease (63.6%) were anti-TPOAb positive, and 42 (62.7%), and 18 (81.8%) were anti-TgAb positive respectively. Samples of 5 non-autoimmune disease were all negative by TPOAb and TgAb assays, suggesting the high specificity of new RIA kits to the autoimmune thyroid diseases. The RIA and PA methods showed a good correlation (anti-TPOAb:rs = 0.9134, anti-TgAb:rs = 0.7016). However, several negative sera in PA assay showed positive values in the RIA, so it was showed that new RIA kits were more sensitive than the PA assays.

Autoantibodies↗
PubMed1990

Heterogeneity in responses of human blood monocytes to granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor.

Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) has stimulatory effects on various monocyte functions. We examined whether all or only some blood monocytes could respond to GM-CSF. Monocytes from peripheral blood of healthy donors were separated by size into five fractions by counter-flow centrifugal elutriation (CCE). The phagocytic activities of monocytes in these fractions depended on the size of the cells. On activation by bacteria-derived stimuli, these fractions showed similar responses of production of monokines such as interleukin-1 (IL-1) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and cytotoxicity against allogeneic tumor cells. On treatment of these fractions with optimal concentration of GM-CSF, fractions 3, 4, and 5 showed tumoricidal activity and produced cell-associated IL-1, fraction 3 producing the most, whereas release of IL-1 and TNF in the supernatant was not observed. The cell-associated IL-1 was identified as IL-1 alpha, not IL-1 beta, by neutralizing tests with antisera against IL-1 alpha and IL-1 beta. GM-CSF also induced the proliferative and colony-forming responses of medium and large monocytes. These observations suggest that adoptive therapy with macrophage progenitor cells in peripheral blood may be useful in combination with GM-CSF for treatment of monocytopenia after chemotherapy or radiation therapy.

Cell Division↗
PubMed1990

Tumor cytotoxicity and interleukin 1 production of blood monocytes of lung cancer patients.

The effects of lung cancer on the abilities of blood monocytes to produce interleukin-1 and to mediate antitumor activity were examined. The functional integrity of blood monocytes was determined by their capacity to respond in vitro to a variety of activating agents and become tumoricidal, as assessed by a radioactive release assay and ability to produce interleukin-1 in vitro. The results show that the presence of lung cancer significantly increased the number of harvested blood monocytes and that the spontaneous tumoricidal activity of these monocytes was slightly high as compared to monocytes obtained from healthy donors. The production of interleukin-1 by monocytes of healthy donors and lung cancer patients was similar. Blood monocytes obtained from lung cancer patients were less cytotoxic against allogeneic A375 melanoma cells as compared with those of healthy donors subsequent to incubation with a soluble muramyl dipeptide analog or lipopolysaccharide, but were as tumoricidal as those from healthy donors when activated with lipophilic muramyl tripeptide (MTP-PE) entrapped in multilamellar liposomes. The finding that monocytes of patients with lung cancer can respond to MTP-PE encapsulated in liposomes, recommends the use of these liposomes in therapy of human lung cancer.

Acetylmuramyl-Alanyl-Isoglutamine↗
PubMed1990

Production of tumor necrosis factor-alpha by alveolar macrophages of lung cancer patients.

The abilities of human alveolar macrophages (AM) obtained from healthy donors and patients with lung cancer to produce tumor necrosis factor (TNF) were compared with those of their blood monocytes after activation with lipopolysaccharide (LPS). TNF activity was assayed by measuring cytotoxicity against actinomycin D-treated L929 cells and TNF was determined quantitatively by sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) with polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies against TNF-alpha. Unstimulated AM from healthy donors released variable amounts of TNF spontaneously, whereas blood monocytes did not. When treated with LPS for 24 h, AM and monocytes produced TNF dose-dependently, but TNF production by AM was significantly more than that by blood monocytes. This TNF activity was inhibited completely by monoclonal anti-TNF-alpha antibody. Macrophages generated by in vitro maturation of monocytes induced by granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) produced more TNF than freshly isolated monocytes. No difference was found in the abilities of AM from healthy donors and patients with lung cancer to produce TNF after activation stimuli. These observations suggest that human AM may be important in in vivo antitumor defense of the lung through TNF-alpha production.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Suppression by interleukin 4 of activation of human blood monocytes to the tumoricidal state.

The effect of interleukin 4 (IL-4) on expression of antitumor activity of blood monocytes purified by counter-flow centrifugal elutriation from healthy donors was examined. The blood monocytes were incubated for 24 h in medium with lipopolysaccharide, interferon gamma (IFN-gamma) or desmethyl muramyl dipeptide (norMDP) or with IFN-gamma and norMDP in the presence of IL-4, and then their tumoricidal activity was assayed by measuring 125IUdR release from human melanoma (A375) cells. Irrespective of activation stimulus, addition of IL-4 to cultures of monocytes and activators resulted in dose-dependent suppression of the tumoricidal activity of monocytes against parent A375 melanoma cells and the variant cells, A375-R resistant to IL-1 and tumor necrosis factor alpha. IL-4 suppressed the early induction phase of monocyte activation. Rabbit anti-IL-4 antisera completely blocked the IL-4-mediated suppression of monocyte activation to the tumoricidal state. These findings suggest that IL-4 is important in vivo in down-regulation of anti-tumor expression of monocytes.

Cells, Cultured↗
PubMed1990

Decrease of lymphokine (interleukin-2)-activated killer activity in peripheral blood after administration of natural interferon-gamma.

Interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) acts on a large array of different types of cell and has potent immunomodulatory activities besides cytotoxic effects on tumors. In a phase I study, some immunologic parameters of blood mononuclear cells from healthy volunteers who received intramuscular injections of natural human IFN-gamma were analyzed. The percentage of Leu-11a positive cells, natural killer (NK) activity, lymphokine (interleukin-2)-activated killer (LAK) activity and monokine production were measured either in blood mononuclear cells or in purified samples of lymphocytes or monocytes of the donors before and 24 h after IFN-gamma injection. After IFN-gamma injection, the percentage of Leu-11a positive cells and the LAK activity in the blood were significantly reduced, but NK activity and monokine production remained unchanged. These findings suggest that in vivo IFN-gamma acts directly or indirectly on Leu-11a positive cells and reduces LAK activity by changing the recruitment of LAK precursors in the blood.

Burkitt Lymphoma↗
PubMed1990

Vitreous as tamponade in healing of rhegmatogenous retinal detachment.

The condition of the vitreous body was assessed by a photographic method after surgical treatment in 116 patients with rhegmatogenous retinal detachment showing horseshoe-shaped retinal breaks. The condition was classified into three groups: 1) the cortical vitreous covered the retinal break under both static and kinetic conditions (complete type), 2) the cortical vitreous covered the break only under the static condition (incomplete type), and 3) the break was not covered by the cortical vitreous (uncovered type). The success rate of the primary surgery was 100% in both the complete and incomplete types, but it was 58% in the uncovered type, where the final success rate after the second surgery was only 89%. The radial retinal folds were found after surgery at a high incidence in the uncovered type. The time required for disappearance of the subretinal fluid was shorter in the complete than in the incomplete type; in the uncovered type it took a long time for the subretinal fluid to diminish. It was concluded that the cortical vitreous served as a tamponade to prevent vitreous fluid flow into the subretinal space, thus facilitating reattachment of the retina.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

On the spatial spread of the grey squirrel in Britain.

We present a diffusion-competition model to describe the interaction between the externally introduced grey squirrel and the indigenous red squirrel in Britain. We estimate the model parameters from field data. Solution of the model predicts waves of grey squirrel invasion with speed of invasion typical of that observed in the field. Numerical solution of the model on a two-dimensional domain gives population distributions qualitatively similar to those observed. We suggest that competition alone could account for the observed displacement of the red squirrel by the grey in large regions of Britain. The solutions are qualitatively similar to those for a single species spreading in the absence of competition. The quantitative difference is because competition slows down the speed of advance of the invading species.

Animals↗
PubMed1989

A case of bronchogenic cyst with high production of antigen CA 19-9.

A 35-year-old man was hospitalized with complaints of retrosternal pain and high fever. A chest radiograph showed a large round mass in the mediastinum. Of the several tumor markers in the serum tested, only CA 19-9 was elevated. Thoracotomy revealed a cystic mass with purulent hemorrhagic materials. Histologically the cyst was lined by bronchial epithelium with no evidence of malignancy. The high level of CA 19-9 in the cystic fluid, and positive immunohistochemical staining of the bronchial glands in the cyst wall for CA 19-9 indicated that the elevated serum level of CA 19-9 originated from the bronchogenic cyst after its infection.

Adult↗