Purpose: We performed a prospective study to review whether bright pancreas without fatty liver was related to lifestyle-associated disease.
Subjects: The subjects were 3, 563 individuals (2, 228 males, 48.6±8.7 years old on the average, and 1, 335 females, 46.5±8.5 years old on the average) without fatty liver, as diagnosed using abdominal ultrasonography.
Methods: We performed interview, hematological examination, and abdominal ultrasonography at the subjects' first visit and 1 year later. The diagnosis of bright pancreas was based on abdominal ultrasonography. We diagnosed bright pancreas when ultrasonographic findings showed positive liver pancreas echo contrast without bright liver. We investigated age, sex, alcoholic consumption, smoking habits, physical exercise, and body mass index (BMI) as causes of bright pancreas, and reviewed the correlation with lifestyle-associated disease, for example, hypertension, diabetes mellitus and impaired glucose tolerance, and hyperlipidemia.
Results: The prevalence of mild bright pancreas was 44.8% in males (999 subjects) and 29.7% in females (397 subjects) . That of severe bright pancreas was 3.1% in males (70 subjects) and 1.0% in males (14 subjects) . The prevalence of bright pancreas was higher in elderly males with obesity. Subjects with bright pancreas tended to suffer from lifestyle-associated disease. Logistic regression analysis showed that bright pancreas was related to elderly males with obesity, hypertension, diabetes mellitus or impaired glucose tolerance, and hyperlipidemia. Serum amylase decreased statistically significantly in subjects with severe bright pancreas.
Conclusion: We considered that aging or visceral fat accumulation with lipid and glucose metabolic abnormality increase the brightness of the pancreas. Many facilities do not target bright pancreas without fatty liver in their lifestyle education. The evidence of the correlation between bright pancreas and lifestyle-associated disease indicates that we should educate individuals with bright pancreas, despite fatty liver.

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Sleep apnea syndrome (SAS) attracts an attention in recent years. As a screening medical checkup, we have established the screening inspection method using pulse oximetry in our institution. We examined problems and the usefulness of screening system we have established.
There were 122 (15.8%) cases of reexamination among 772 tourist industry drivers (760 men, 12 women, average age 37.4 years -old±10.5) who underwent mass screening with pulse oximetry. The reasons of reexamination include the directions by industrial physicians of companies in 53 cases (43.4%), shortage in examination time in 37 cases (30.4%), poor waveform in 15 cases (12.3%), no data in 13 cases (10.7%), shortage of battery in 2 cases (1.6%), and overtime in 2 cases (1.6%) . Industrial physicians suspected an inadequate probe attachment for insufficient results and recommended reexaminations, which resulted in much improvement in measurement data. Moreover, the poor waveform has been significantly improved by the recall. To make an operating manual more simple can also decrease in the incidence of reexamination.
Although the medical checkup method using pulse oximetry is a simple and useful method, it seems to be necessary for customers to understand the contents and methods of the examination, since customers themselves perform putting instrument on and measurement. An aggressive reexamination seems to result in an increase in accuracy of measurement.

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Ultrasound findings of pancreatic cancer focus on the following three; (1) dilatation of the main pancreatic duct with or without dilatation of the common bile duct, (2) hypoechoic mass lesion, (3) swollen pancreas, associated with pseudotumor findings. In this paper, concerning ultrasound of the pancreas, tips and pitfalls were revealed, findings of pancreatic cancer were shown, Pseudotumor findings were displayed, and principles of differential diagnosis among cancer, benign tumor, and Pseudotumor were discussed with presentation of demonstrable cases.

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Factories of food processing company run day and night all days a year. Most of the workers are paid by work-time bases. Health conditions and life habits of these workers were analyzed by questionnaires at the time of annual physical health examinations. Workers were classified into groups; day and night workers, male and female, ages below and over 35 years, and types of work (administration, cooking, packing, distribution, production control, and quality control) . The results from these groups were compared. The results from three independent factories were also compared.
951 sheets of questionnaires were collected from three factories. Collection rate was 83%. Physical and metal tiredness which were classified into two steps; tired or not tired were statistically no significant differences in most of the groups and three factories. 65% of workers felt physical tiredness and 28% of them felt no physical tiredness. 58% of them felt mental tiredness and 34% of them felt no mental tiredness. 53% felt stress in works and 34% felt no stress. Causes of stress were high in the order of human relations, qualities of works and quantities of works. Rate who felt stress by human relations was higher in woman than man. Rate who felt stress by qualities and quantities of work was higher in ages below 35 years than in ages over 35 years. Health conditions classified into two steps were not statistically different. 75% of workers were healthy and 14% of them were unhealthy. 20% of them had misgivings about future health and 75% had not. Diseases under treatment were higher in the order of hypertension, hyperlipemia, and diabetes. 59% were found to be no smoker, 56% were no drinker, and 75% did not any physical practice. But most of them were found to sleep about 6 hours. These results were compared to the similar results made by the Ministry of Labor in 1997.

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