A 64-year-old man with repetitive gastrointestinal bleeding was admitted to our hospital. Colonic artery angiography revealed angiodysplasia as the bleeding site, and echocardiography showed aortic valve stenosis. A decrease in the high molecular weight von Willebrand factor multimers, which are known to play an important role in hemostasis, was observed, and Heyde syndrome was diagnosed. We selected colectomy instead of aortic valve replacement because the patient had undergone two open heart surgeries. Following colectomy, the patient showed a good clinical course without recurrent gastrointestinal bleeding. Colectomy might serve as a therapeutic option for Heyde syndrome after the precise site of angiodysplasia is detected by angiography.

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Nodular and reticular opacities were detected in both lower lung fields of a 75-year-old man in 2000. Bronchoscopy revealed pulmonary sarcoidosis. In 2002, nodular and reticular opacities were shown in the right upper lobe, and video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery was performed. The histological findings revealed usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP)-like lesions, whereas non-caseous granulomas were not detected. In the present case of pulmonary sarcoidosis, nodular and reticular opacities were predominantly distributed in both lower lung fields, and the histological findings obtained by video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery showed UIP-like lesions. These findings may enlighten the assist in understanding of the process of development of pulmonary sarcoidosis.

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A 45-year-old woman had bleary eyes and recurrent episodes of fever and arthritis in the knees and ankles. The patient had anterior uveitis, negative findings of the tuberculin test, and an increased serum lysozyme level, but bilateral hilar lymphadenopathy (BHL) was absent. During the course of her disease, the serum calcium and angiotensin-converting enzyme levels gradually increased to above the normal level, and the patient was clinically diagnosed as having sarcoidosis. The clinical features of arthritis were typical of those of Löfgrens syndrome although BHL and erythema nodosum were absent. The patient was successfully treated with 15 mg/day of prednisolone.

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An asymptomatic 71-year-old man was admitted for evaluation of a pulmonary tumor. Chest computed tomography revealed a cavitary tumor in the apical segment of the right lung. Histopathological examination of the resected lung revealed pulmonary cryptococcosis within a papillary adenocarcinoma. Macroscopic and histopathological findings speculated that papillary adenocarcinoma preceded pulmonary cryptococcosis.

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We encountered an adult patient with acute anterior poliomyelitis (AAP), whose monoparesis developed 28 days after his son's immunization with oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV). Neurological and electrophysiological examinations suggested that his muscular wasting of the left lower limb was due to a lower motor neuron disorder, and magnetic resonance imaging revealed the responsible lesion in the left anterior horn at the thoracolumbar junction. His stool was found to include poliovirus type 3, mainly originating from Sabin 3 by neutrization antibody and PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism method. This indicated that the AAP resulted from contact with his son. This patient raises the question about OPV in polio-free countries.

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We examined the gender-related differences in target organ damage in 220 untreated patients with essential hypertension (106 men and 114 women). As the indices of target organ damage, we examined the left ventricular mass index and the intima-media thickness in the carotid and femoral arteries obtained from echocardiography. In a multiple regression model, there was a significant positive correlation between the intima-media thickness and age in both groups. In men, there was a significant positive correlation between the left ventricular mass index and age, as well as the diastolic blood pressure, and body mass index. In women, there was a significant positive correlation between the left ventricular mass index and age, as well as plasma renin activity and smoking. In conclusion, there are gender-related differences in the contributing factors, which relate to left ventricular hypertrophy in patients with essential hypertension.

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We report four cases of Graves' disease that developed after painful Hashimoto's thyroiditis. All were middle-aged women, who had high titers of anti-thyroid antibodies and thyrotoxicosis at the onset of painful Hashimoto's thyroiditis. After 2 to 7 years, they developed Graves' disease with positive antibody against the thyrotropin receptor. Their clinical courses of Graves' disease went favorably due to the treatment with antithyroid drug or radioactive iodine therapy. Painful Hashimoto's thyroiditis is an atypical variant of Hashimoto's thyroiditis and is one form of destructive thyroiditis. Thyroid damage due to painful Hashimoto's thyroiditis may be associated with the development of Graves' disease.

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Cough consisting of an initial deep inspiration, glottal closure, and an explosive expiration accompanied by a sound is one of the most common symptoms of respiratory disease. Despite its clinical importance, standard methods for objective cough analysis have yet to be established.
Object: We investigated the characteristics of cough sounds acoustically, designed a program to discriminate cough sounds from other sounds, and finally developed a new objective method of non-invasive cough counting. In addition, we evaluated the clinical efficacy of that program.
Subjects and Methods: We recorded cough sounds using a memory stick IC recorder in free-field from 2 patients and analyzed the intensity of 534 recorded coughs acoustically according to time domain. First we squared the sound waveform of recorded cough sounds, which was then smoothed out over a 20ms window. The 5 parameters and some definitions to discriminate the cough sounds from other noise were identified and the cough sounds were classified into 6 groups. Next, we applied this method to develop a new automatic cough count program. Finally, to evaluate the accuracy and clinical usefulness of this program, we counted cough sounds collected from another 10 patients using our program and conventional manual counting. And the sensitivity, specificity and discriminative rate of the program were analyzed.
Results: This program successfully discriminated recorded cough sounds out of 1902 sound events collected from 10 patients at a rate of 93.1%. The sensitivity was 90.2% and the specificity was 96.5%.
Conclusion: Our new cough counting program can be sufficiently useful for clinical studies.

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Objective: To examine whether exercise training using nontreadmill walking is effective for the improvement of exercise performance of patients with pulmonary tuberculosis sequelae (PTS) characterized by restrictive ventilatory defect.
Patients and Methods: Fourteen patients with stable PTS hospitalized for assessment of exertional dyspnea in Fukujuji Hospital from April 1997 to March 1999 were enrolled in this observational study. All patients underwent baseline pulmonary function tests, arterial blood-gases analysis and exercise tests for initial assessment. Four patients were excluded because of hypoxemia during the initial treadmill test. The remaining 10 patients who stopped exercising because of symptom limitations became candidates for the exercise training. The patients were instructed to perform daily walking exercise training in a hallway in the hospital for 2 weeks. The training was started at their maximum walking speeds during the treadmill test, and walking speed was gradually increased as the patients gained confidence. After finishing the exercise training, the patients performed pulmonary function tests, arterial blood-gases analysis was done, and exercise tests were conducted in identical fashion to the baseline protocol.
Results: There were no significant changes in pulmonary function tests and arterial blood-gases analysis after the exercise training. Exercise tolerance improved with a significant increase in peak oxygen uptake (from 13.6±2.8 to 14.8±2.8 ml/kg/min, p<0.01) and distance covered in a 6-minute walk (from 399±62 to 467±65 m, p<0.01) after the exercise training.
Conclusion: The exercise training we conducted is shown to be a safe and effective modality for the improvement of exercise performance of patients with PTS.

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Backgrounds and Aims: Most low-grade gastric mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphomas respond to eradication of H. pylori, however, some are refractory. The effectiveness of radiotherapy for MALT lymphoma refractory to H. pylori eradication has been demonstrated. However, the long-term outcome and associated late radiation morbidity of radiotherapy for gastric MALT lymphoma are unclear. We evaluated the efficacy of radiotherapy and the radiation-associated adverse effects for gastric MALT lymphoma refractory to H. pylori eradication therapy.
Methods: Eighteen patients with H. pylori-positive gastric MALT lymphoma received H. pylori eradication therapy, of which three patients refractory to eradication of H. pylori were subsequently treated with irradiation (median 39 Gy, range 36-40 Gy). Efficacy of radiotherapy and associated radiation morbidity were evaluated. Adverse events were evaluated according to RTOG and NCI-CTC criteria.
Results: Radiation was well tolerated. All three patients treated with radiotherapy achieved complete remission, which was sustained for a median follow-up period of 42.0 months (range, 24-72 months). As acute radiation side effects, all patients experienced mild nausea (Grade 1 by RTOG and 1 point [1 category] in NCI-CTC). One patient had Grade 1 appetite loss. There were no severe late adverse events. One patient had left kidney atrophy of approximately 10%, but none had renal dysfunction.
Conclusions: Radiotherapy for patients with gastric MALT lymphoma refractory to H pylori eradication was effective without any critical acute or late adverse events.

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Wrong:Yoshioka Katsunobu
Right:Katsunobu Yoshioka

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Wrong:Miyoshi Isao
Right:Isao Miyoshi

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Wrong:Chiho Ishida²⁾, Daisuke Yanase²⁾ and Masahito Yamada²⁾
Right:Chiho Ishida¹⁾, Daisuke Yanase¹⁾ and Masahito Yamada¹⁾

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Wrong:Figure 4. labels D, C
Right:Figure 4. labels C, D

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Wrong:Fifty-five patients (57.6%) received
Right:Fifty-five patients (59.8%) received

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