Tailor-Made Mesh for Pelvic Organ Prolapses: Correlation between Patient’s Height and Mesh Size

Tension-free vaginal mesh (TVM) surgery is a common and minimally invasive procedure for pelvic organ prolapses. Since commercial kits are not readily available in Japan, we have planned tailor-made mesh by information of each patient before every TVM surgery. The aim of this report is to inform methods to design mesh for individual patients with pelvic organ prolapses. We also investigated the correlations among mesh size and height, weight, and body mass index (BMI). Before the operation, we obtained a KUB (abdominal X-ray). Three factors were measured from this X-ray: the first was the distance between the bilateral ischial spine, the second was the distance between the obturator foramen, and the third was the length of the arcus tendineus fascia pelvis (ATFP). These three factors always should be considered for designing of mesh. The correlations among the bilateral ischial spine distance, obturator foramen distance, ATFP length, height, weight, and BMI were assessed using the Pearson correlation coefficient. Although these three factors described above are necessary to design a mesh for individual patients, the bilateral ischial spine and obturator foramen distance correlated with the height of the patient. On the other hand, since the length of ATFP differs in each patient and is not correlated with height, we should consider this length when we design the mesh. Well-designed, tailor-made mesh will probably fit each pelvic organ prolapsed patient very well.

Intraoperative Fluoroscopic Monitoring during TVM Surgery: Safer Procedure Even for Beginners

Tension-free vaginal mesh (TVM) surgery is a common and minimally invasive procedure for female pelvic organ prolapse. In 2004, this procedure was developed by a French group, and standardized surgical kits are now commercially available in many countries. Although it is less invasive, one of the shortcomings of this procedure is that it involves a single surgeon groping around with their fingers without any intraoperative monitoring. Therefore, using Intraoperative fluoroscopic monitoring during TVM surgery makes it safer, even for beginners. In this case, we performed TVM for the anterior vaginal wall. First, we used the c-arm of a fluoroscope to insert bilateral ureteral stents. A urethral catheter was then used for both urine drainage and contrast medium injection. In all procedures, we were able use fluoroscopic imaging whenever necessary. We were able to easily confirm the positions of the prolapsed bladder and the bilateral ureteral stents with fluoroscopic imaging, and the ischial spine was easy to locate before the procedure. We were also able to confirm the position of the top of the needle with fluoroscopic imaging whenever necessary. If a surgeon is worried about the risk of bladder injury during TVM surgery, they should inject contrast medium into the bladder at the start of the procedure. Intraoperative fluoroscopic monitoring during TVM surgery is easy and makes the procedure safer, even for beginners. Moreover, fluoroscopic imaging also allows intraoperative training. To avoid exposing the body to excess radiation, we must minimize the total length of the fluoroscopic examination.

Information Exchange on MANET for Efficient Evacuation

In disaster situations, people need to evacuate from dangerous areas to safe ones. In particular, they must formulate an evacuation plan for themselves when they cannot obtain support. Communicating with other evacuees to obtain information is useful in formulating an evacuation plan, and some studies have used a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) for this purpose, because such a network can be constructed using only wireless devices even when a fatal situation arises. However, we cannot treat a MANET in the same manner as other networks (such as a carrier network or Wi-Fi), and MANETs have several shortcomings in regard to information exchange. It is necessary to investigate the effects of these limitations on creating evacuation support systems on a MANET. We evaluated whether the limited information exchange available using a MANET is sufficient to create evacuation support systems through the use of a multi-agent evacuation simulator. As a result, our simulator showed that limited communication in which people communicate only with neighbors provides substantial efficiency for evacuation. People can continue to evacuate effectively even if they cannot obtain all of the desired information owing to MANET limitations.

Practical Use of Gemcitabine and Cisplatin Combination Therapy as First-Line Treatment for Japanese Patients with Advanced Biliary Tract Cancer

Gemcitabine and cisplatin combination therapy (GC) is accepted as a standard treatment for advanced biliary tract cancer (BTC). However, little information is available regarding such treatment in the clinical practice setting in Japan. We retrospectively examined the clinical data of patients with unresectable or recurrent BTC who received GC as first-line treatment. The regimen consisted of cisplatin (25 mg/m2) and gemcitabine (1000 mg/m2) administered intravenously on days 1 and 8 of repeated 3-week cycles. Twenty patients were analyzed. A total of 148 cycles of GC was administered, with a median of 8 and a range of 1 to 18 cycles. Treatment delay and dose reduction were noted in 35 (24%) and 41 (28%) of the 148 cycles, respectively. The major adverse events of grade 3 or 4 included neutropenia (50%), leukopenia (45%), anemia (30%), and thrombocytopenia (15%). Nonhematologic toxicities included nausea (10%), appetite loss (10%), and fatigue (10%). Median progression-free and overall survival times were 6.9 and 12.3 months, respectively. Gallbladder cancer showed a significantly higher response rate than did other types of BTC (chi-squaretest, P = 0.002). GC was thus effective and well tolerated as first-line chemotherapy for Japanese patients with advanced BTC in the clinical practice setting.

Distribution and Possible Function of Cannabinoid Receptor Subtype 1 in the Human Prostate

Background: Cannabinoid receptor subtype 1 (CB1) has a relationship to the proliferation of various cells including malignant tumoral cells. We investigated and compared the expression of CB1 in benign and malignant human prostate tissues and in benign and malignant human prostate cell lines, as well as its function for the proliferation of human prostate cancer cells. Methods: Real-time quantitative PCR was performed to compare its expressions in human prostate tissues (normal, benign hyperplasia, and cancer) and prostate cell lines (3 normal and 3 malignant). For localization of CB1, immunofluorescent staining with rabbit anti-CB1 polyclonal antibodies and tetramethyl isothiocyanate (TRITC)-labeled swine anti-rabbit immunoglobulin (DAKO) were used under fluorescence microscope. To further analyze whether cell death was induced by anandamide (non-selective agonist for CB1/CB2) via a receptor dependent mechanism, the viability of DU145 cells, which is known as androgen-insensitive prostate cancer cell, was measured using MTT assay. Results: CB1mRNA was found to be expressed in the all 3 human prostate tissues, however, CB1 protein was expressed in BPH and low grade malignant PC tissues, but not in high grade malignant PC tissues. CB1 as for cell lines, the expression of CB1 was low in malignant cell lines except for DU145. Anandamide elicited cell death, which was significantly inhibited by AM251 (selective antagonist for CB1), indicating that cell death induced by anandamide in DU145 cells was mediated by CB1. Anandamide time-dependently elicits up-regulation of CB1 in DU145 cells. Conclusions: CB1 may be an inhibitory regulator of androgen-insensitive human prostate cancer epithelial cell growth.

Expression of Large Conductance, Voltage- and Ca²⁺-Activated K⁺(BK) Channels in Human Urinary Bladder: Alteration of Subunit Expression Profile in Association with Bladder Outlet Obstruction

Purpose: Large conductance, voltage- and Ca2+-activated K+ (BK) channel is thought to have a central role to regulate urinary bladder smooth muscle functions, and its dysfunction may lead to increase of urination frequency and overactive bladder. The present study aims to investigate the expression pattern of BK channel subunits in the human urinary bladder, and how it changes in association with bladder outlet obstruction (BOO). Materials and Methods: Human bladders were obtained from 7 controls without prostatic enlargement and lower urinary tract symptoms and 4 BPH patients with clinically diagnosed overactive bladder who were verified by the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) and prostate volume. The expression and location of BK channel protein complex was examined using immunohistochemistry with affinity-purified anti-BKα antibodies. A real-time RT-PCR was used to quantify the expression of each BK channel subunit (α and β1 - 4) gene in the mucosal and muscle layers of human urinary bladder. Results: Immunohistochemical staining for BK-α protein complex was localized in the muscle and submucosal regions of urinary bladder. RT-PCR analysis revealed the presence of α-, β1-, and β4-subunit genes of BK channel in the mucosal layer, α- and β1-subunit in the muscle layer. The expressions of α- and β1-subunit genes in the muscle (α: p = 0.0003, β1: p = 0.0003) and mucosal (α: p = 0.03, β1: p = 0.02) layers significantly decreased in BOO bladders compared with controls. The expression levels of α- and β1-subunit in mucosal layer were statistically correlated with storage score of IPSS (α;r = 0.84, p = 0.002, β1;r = 0.84, p = 0.002), and so were in muscle layer (α;r = 0.934, p 0.0001, β1;r = 0.917, p = 0.00018). Conclusions: BK channels, which are mainly composed of α- and β1-subunits, are expressed in both the mucosal and muscle layers of human urinary bladder. Decreased expression of BK channel in BOO might be implicated in the mechanisms underlying the development of overactive bladder.

Acceleration of Homomorphic Arithmetic Processing Based on the ElGamal Cryptosystem

In recent years, opportunities for using cloud services as computing resources have increased and there is a concern that private information may be leaked when processes data. The data processing while maintaining confidentiality is called secret computation. Cryptosystems can add and multiply plaintext through the manipulation of ciphertexts of homomorphic cryptosystems, but most of them have restrictions on the number of multiplications that can be performed. Among the different types of cryptosystems, fully homomorphic encryption can perform arbitrary homomorphic addition and multiplication, but it takes a long time to eliminate the limitation on the number of homomorphic operations and to carry out homomorphic multiplication. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an arithmetic processing method that can perform an arbitrary number of homomorphic addition and multiplication operations based on ElGamal cryptosystem. The results of experiments comparing with the proposed method with HElib in which the BGV scheme of fully homomorphic encryption is implemented showed that, although the processing time for homomorphic addition per ciphertext increased by about 35%, the processing time for homomorphic multiplication was reduced to about 1.8%, and the processing time to calculate the statistic (variance) had approximately a 15% reduction.