A Case of Extensive Gastrointestinal Involvement of Malignant Lymphoma Associated with Early Gastric Carcinoma

Abstract: Described is a 59 year old Japanese man With malignant lymphoma involving the stomach, duodenum, terminal ileum, colon and rectum, who developed early gastric carcinoma. Repeated gastroduodenoscopy revealed various appearances of the gastrointestinal involvement in malignant lymphoma, such as giant folds, polypoid lesions, and ulcerations, in addition to a depressed lesion of early gastric carcinoma. Colonoscopy also showed multiple polypoid lesions throughout the large bowel. Though the gastrointestinal involvement in malignant lymphoma is not rare, diffuse multiple polypoid lesions in the entire large bowel as seen in our case have rarely been endoscopically described. The coexistance of malignant lymphoma and gastric carcinoma in our case might be only a coincidence, though some reports of an increasing incidence of second tumors in patients with malignant lymphoma have been published. Further consideration will be needed as to the relationship between malignant lymphoma and the occurence of a second malignancy.     

Negative correlation of reaction times and the auditory P50 in a Go, No-Go paradigm

Abstract We investigated the relationship between reaction times in a Go, No-Go paradigm and various components of the auditory event-related potentials. The P50 latencies in the Go trials were significantly earlier than those in the No-Go trials. The N200 and P300 were positively associated with the reaction times. However, the P50 latencies showed negative correlation with the reaction times, and the negative correlation at F3 was the largest. Referring to source studies on P50, it is suggested that the activation of either the ascending activating system or the left premotor area through that system might affect the speed of reaction.     

Cultural distance and its relationship to psychological adjustment of international exchange students

Abstract This study aimed to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the Cultural Distance Questionnaire (CDQ), and to examine whether or not the measured cultural distance influenced the psychological adjustment of international exchange students and, if so, which aspects were most influential. Subjects were 211 Japanese high school and college students who stayed for one year with a host family in one of 23 countries around the world. They were asked to complete the Maudsley Personality Inventory before departure from Japan, the 12-item General Health Questionnaire six months after arrival in the host country and the CDQ six months after they returned from abroad. We found that the CDQ had high internal consistency reliability. Satisfactory validity was suggested for the CDQ because it offered wide coverage of various aspects of daily lives that reflect cultural differences, because it was uncontaminated by social desirability or by personality traits and because the obtained scores by country and region were largely in accordance with the expected directions. It was found that the greater the cultural distance between Japan and the foreign community, as measured by the CDQ, the greater the psychological distress of the international student placed in that community. Furthermore, the results showed that it was the food that had the greatest impact on the intercultural adjustment.     

Screening for depression among first-visit psychiatric patients: Comparison of different scoring methods for the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale using receiver operating characteristic analyses

Abstract The present paper aims to compare the ability of eight scoring methods for the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), one of the most widely used self-report inventories for depression, to screen for a major depressive episode. The subjects were 591 patients who constituted representative samples of the first-visit patients to 23 psychiatric hospitals and clinics all over Japan. The criterion diagnoses were given by a semi-structured interview with established inter-rater reliability. The eight alternative scoring methods included the conventional Likert method, which gives the weights 0,1,2 and 3 to the four anchor points of the CES-D; the presence method, which gives the weights 0, 1, 1 and 1, respectively; the GHQ method, which gives the weights 0, 0, 1 and 1, respectively; the persistence method, which gives the weights 0, 0, 0 and 1, respectively; 10-item version, 5-item version, single-item version and the algorithmic method. On the basis of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses, it was found that the traditional Likert scoring method of the full CES-D performed best in detecting major depressive episodes among first-visit psychiatric patients. The presence method, the GHQ method and the 10-item version appeared to have a similar ability. The persistence method, the 5-item version and the single-item version resulted in significantly worse performance.     

A Case of Small Cell Lung Cancer Successfully Treated with VM26

A 79-year-old man was admitted to our hospital for a close examinationof an abnormal shadow on a routine chest roentgenogram. A largetumorous shadow in the right S¹ segment, and hilar and mediastinalnode swelling were observed. Transbronchial biopsy revealedthat the histologic type of the tumor was oat cell carcinoma.The clinical stage was considered to be limited disease. Becauseof his age, 79 years, he was treated with VM26 as a single agent.VM26 was administered by intravenous drip infusion of 60 mg/m²daily for five consecutive days every three to four weeks. Afterthe third course of treatment with VM26, he achieved partialresponse, and then radiation therapy to the primary site andthe hilar and mediastinal nodes was given at a total dose of6,000 rad. There have been few phase II studies of VM26 in patientswith small cell lung cancer (SCLC). Further phase II studiesshould be conducted for confirmation of the reproducibilityof the phase II study of VM26 in SCLC, and the efficacy of combinationchemotherapy including VM26 against SCLC should also be tested.