Impact of dry mouth on oral symptoms and function in removable denture wearers in Japan.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine the association of dry mouth with oral symptoms and function, such as denture instability, discomfort, soreness in denture-bearing tissue, and dissatisfaction with chewing, tasting, or speaking in removable denture wearers. STUDY DESIGN: The subjects were 493 removable denture wearers with a mean age of 67.3 years. Perception of oral dryness was measured by a questionnaire. A multiple logistic regression analysis was used to determine the effect of the dry mouth on oral symptoms and function after controlling for age and gender. RESULTS: Oral dryness during eating was related to dissatisfaction with chewing (odds ratio, 10.5; P < .001) and speaking (odds ratio, 3.5; P < .05) and overall dissatisfaction (odds ratio, 6.3; P < .01) in complete denture wearers. Feeling of dry mouth was likely to be associated with soreness in denture-bearing tissues in both complete and removable partial denture wearers. CONCLUSIONS: There was a significant association of the perception of dry mouth among a group of denture wearers with oral symptoms and function.     

Clinical studies on the measurement of urinary tissue polypeptide antigen (TPA) levels using Prolifigen TPA kit "Daiichi"-II in urothelial cancers

We have investigated the clinical significance of urinary tissue polypeptide antigen (TPA) as a tumor marker for urothelial cancers. Urinary TPA levels were determined by the immunoradiometric assay of Prolifigen TPA Kit "Daiichi"-II in 486 healthy controls and 1835 patients with various diseases including 526 with urothelial cancers and 140 with prostatic cancer. The mean value of urinary TPA was 199 +/- 213 (1SD)U/1 in 486 healthy controls. 95% of them having a level below 600 U/l. Therefore, 600 U/l was applied as a cut-off level. Positive rates of urothelial cancers and reactivated prostatic cancer were 57.6% (148 of 248 cases) and 45.5% (5 of 11 cases) respectively. On the other hand, the false positive rate of most urological benign diseases was only about 20% except for the acute stage of urinary tract infections and upper urinary tract stones with hydronephrosis. There was no significant difference in the positive rate between urinary TPA level and urinary cytology in urothelial cancers. The combination of both tests raised the positive rate to 73.1%. Therefore, urinary TPA may be useful in the monitoring of urothelial cancers, and the combination of urinary TPA and urinary cytology may increase the diagnostic accuracy.     

A novel t(2;6)(p12;q23) appearing during transformation of follicular lymphoma with t(18;22)(q21;q11) to diffuse large cell lymphoma

Follicular lymphoma is characterized genetically by t(14;18)(q32;q21), whereas t(18;22)(q21;q11), a rare variant form of t(14;18), has been preferentially observed in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). We describe here an unusual case of follicular lymphoma with a t(18;22)(q21;q11), that progressed to diffuse large cell lymphoma with a novel t(2;6)(p12;q23). Spectral karyotyping revealed that add(2)(p12) and add(6)(q23) were derived from a t(2;6)(p12;q23). Fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis confirmed rearrangements of the BCL2 gene at 18q21 and the BCL6 gene at 3q27. Our results indicate that a reciprocal translocation involving 6q23 could be implicated in the progression of follicular lymphoma and that t(18;22) may have a specific role in the pathogenesis of follicular lymphoma as well as CLL.     

The course ofAngiostrongylus cantonensis infection in athymic nude and neonatally thymectomized mice

BALB/c athymic nude and thymus-reconstituted nude mice and neonatally thymectomized BALB/c mice were infected with stage 3 larvae ofAngiostrongylus cantonensis and the worm burdens of the mice were determined at various times after infection. When the nude and thymectomized mice were exposed to the parasite, some worms were found to migrate from the brain to lungs but died there without reaching maturity. This pulmonary arterial migration of the worms in the nude mice did not occur following thymic reconstitution. These data suggest that the inability of murine intracranial worms to migrate to the lungs is at least in part due to thymus-dependent mechanisms, and also that the failure of worm maturation in mouse lungs might be due to thymus-independent immune mechanisms and/or nonimmunological mechanisms.     

Persistence of archetypal JC virus DNA in normal renal tissue derived from tumor-bearing patients.

JC virus DNAs derived from the urine of nonimmunosuppressed individuals generally contain an archetypal regulatory region which may have generated various regulatory regions of JC virus from from the brain with progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML). In this study, we examined whether JC virus persisting in normal human kidney tissue contains the archetypal regulatory region. Renal medulla, cortex, and tumor from 32 patients bearing renal tumors were screened for JC virus DNA by blot hybridization. Viral DNA was detected in the medulla in 13 cases (41%), in the cortex in 2 cases (6%), but not at all from the tumor. A number of viral DNA-positive specimens (8 from the medulla and 2 from the cortex) were used to amplify and sequence viral regulatory regions by polymerase chain reaction. Structures of the regulatory regions from all the specimens were, with a few nucleotide variations, identical with that of the archetypal region which was previously detected in the JC virus DNA from urine. This finding supports the hypothesis that the JC virus associated with PML evolved from the archetypal JC virus during persistence in human hosts. Furthermore, we present evidence that renal JCV is replicating and that progeny virions are excreted into the urine.     

HTL V-I from Iranian Mashhadi Jews in Israel is phylogenetically related to that of Japan,India, and South America rather than to that of Africa and Melanesia

A new endemic focus of human T-lymphotropic virus type I (HTL V-I) was recently reported among Mashhadi Jews, a group of immigrants from northeastern Iran to Israel. We extracted DNAs from fresh peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and/or gargle mouthwash from 10 HTL V-I carriers, who consisted of members of one family, and HTL V-I-associated myelopathy (HAM) and adult T-cell leukemia (ATL) patients. Long terminal repeat (LTR) regions of proviral DNAs were sequenced and analyzed phylogenetically. In a phylogenetic tree, all the Mashhadi HTL V-I isolates belonged to subtype A, one of the three subtypes of the cosmopolitan type of HTL V-I, and made a tight cluster distinct from the other isolates of subtype A from Japan, India, the Caribbean Basin, and South America. Although a few nucleotide substitutions were observed among the clones sequenced, no characteristic sequence variation was found in different disease manifestations, even in one family or different sources of DNA preparation.     

Long‐term observation of a Japanese mucolipidosis IV patient with a novel homozygous p.F313del variant of MCOLN1

Mucolipidosis type IV (MLIV) is an autosomal recessively inherited lysosomal storage disorder characterized by progressive psychomotor delay and retinal degeneration that is associated with biallelic variants in the MCOLN1 gene. The gene, which is expressed in late endosomes and lysosomes of various tissue cells, encodes the transient receptor potential channel mucolipin 1 consisting of six transmembrane domains. Here, we described 14‐year follow‐up observation of a 4‐year‐old Japanese male MLIV patient with a novel homozygous in‐frame deletion variant p.(F313del), which was identified by whole‐exome sequencing analysis. Neurological examination revealed progressive psychomotor delay, and atrophy of the corpus callosum and cerebellum was observed on brain magnetic resonance images. Ophthalmologically, corneal clouding has remained unchanged during the follow‐up period, whereas optic nerve pallor and retinal degenerative changes exhibited progressive disease courses. Light‐adapted electroretinography was non‐recordable. Transmission electron microscopy of granulocytes revealed characteristic concentric multiple lamellar structures and an electron‐dense inclusion in lysosomes. The in‐frame deletion variant was located within the second transmembrane domain, which is of putative functional importance for channel properties.