Publications by authors named "Kenichiro Taira"

Article Synopsis
  • α-synuclein seed amplification assays (α-syn SAA) show promise but may have reduced sensitivity due to variations among patients with Lewy body disease (LBD).
  • In a study of 34 Parkinson's disease (PD) patients and 7 with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), 85.2% of those with abnormal cardiac MIBG scans tested positive for α-syn SAA, while only 14.3% of those with normal scans did.
  • MIBG cardiac scintigraphy was identified as a significant factor influencing α-syn SAA positivity, indicating that while α-syn SAA can be sensitive for LBD in specific cases, its effectiveness may be diminished in patients with normal M
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Article Synopsis
  • In Parkinson's disease patients, levels of cerebrospinal fluid metabolites homovanillic acid (HVA) and 5-hydroxyindole acetic acid (5-HIAA), which are linked to dopamine and serotonin, are found to be decreased.
  • A study involving 57 drug-naïve PD patients indicated significant differences in 5-HIAA levels between those with positive vs negative cardiac MIBG imaging, suggesting a direct association.
  • Additionally, a correlation was found between HVA levels and striatal dopamine transporter binding, confirming that both HVA and 5-HIAA have important roles in PD pathology and imaging outcomes.
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This study aimed to characterize dysphagic patients with inclusion body myositis (IBM) with cricopharyngeal bar (CPB) (n = 17; IBM-CPB(+)) by comparing their swallowing function and muscle magnetic resonance imaging data with IBM patients without CPB (n = 28; IBM-CPB(-)). IBM-CPB(+) patients were older at diagnosis and had more frequent obstruction-related dysphagia and stronger knee extension than IBM-CPB(-) patients. IBM-CPB(+) patients also had less intramuscular fatty infiltration than IBM-CPB(-) patients on T1-weighted magnetic resonance images of the rectus femoris (2.

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Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophy (DMD/BMD) are commonly inherited muscle disorders. We report a 31-year-old male who had muscle symptoms with left-right differences and intellectual disability. He was diagnosed with BMD at age 15 primarily based on muscle biopsy findings.

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Objective: To determine the prevalence and characteristics of the cricopharyngeal bar (CPB), defined as marked protrusion with lacking relaxation and stricture of the upper esophageal sphincter on videofluoroscopy, in patients with inclusion body myositis (IBM).

Methods: We conducted a case-control study of comprehensive series of adult healthy individuals and consecutive patients with neuropsychiatric disorders aged over 45 (52 versus 2486). A standard videofluoroscopy was performed.

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Objective: To show the predictive risk factors for aspiration pneumonia and prognostic importance of a cricopharyngeal bar (CPB) on videofluoroscopic examination of swallowing (VFS) in inclusion body myositis (IBM).

Methods: In this retrospective study, we examined a consecutive series of 37 patients with clinico-pathologically defined IBM based on the European Neuromuscular Center diagnostic criteria for IBM from 2013. The Swallowing Disturbance Questionnaire was used for the evaluation of dysphagia.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the connection between idiopathic inflammatory myopathy (IM) with myasthenia gravis (MG), focusing on thymoma association and similarities with IM caused by immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs).
  • Out of 10 patients analyzed, 70% had thymoma, with varying timing between their IM and MG diagnoses, and many exhibited severe symptoms such as respiratory failure and rhabdomyolysis.
  • The findings highlight unique features like specific antibody presence and muscle pathology, suggesting immune dysregulation linked to thymoma may play a role in the development of these conditions.
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Neuronal intranuclear inclusion disease (NIID) is a rare neurodegenerative disease with marked variety in its clinical manifestations. While characteristic neuroimaging and skin biopsy findings are important clues to the diagnosis, autopsy studies are still important for confirming the exact disease features. We herein report the case of a patient who received an antemortem diagnosis of familial NIID with dementia-dominant phenotype that was later confirmed by an autopsy.

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Background: The morphometric analysis of myelinated nerve fibers of peripheral nerves in cross-sectional optical microscopic images is valuable. Several automated methods for nerve fiber identification and segmentation have been reported. This paper presents a new method that uses a deep learning model of a convolutional neural network (CNN).

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Objective: To determine the clinical features of myositis patients with the histopathologic finding of CD8-positive T cells invading non-necrotic muscle fibers expressing major histocompatibility complex class 1 (CD8-MHC-1 complex), which is shared by polymyositis (PM) and inclusion body myositis (IBM), in relation to the p62 immunostaining pattern of muscle fibers.

Methods: All 93 myositis patients with CD8-MHC-1 complex who were referred to our hospital from 1993 to 2015 were classified on the basis of the European Neuromuscular Center (ENMC) diagnostic criteria for IBM (Rose, 2013) or PM (Hoogendijk, 2004) and analyzed.

Results: The 93 patients included were 17 patients with PM, 70 patients with IBM, and 6 patients who neither met the criteria for PM nor IBM in terms of muscle weakness distribution (unclassifiable group).

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Objective: To show cancer association is a risk factor other than statin exposure for anti-3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase autoantibody-positive (anti-HMGCR Ab+) myopathy.

Methods: We analyzed the clinical features and courses of 33 patients (23 female and 10 male) with anti-HMGCR Ab+ myopathy among 621 consecutive patients with idiopathic inflammatory myopathies.

Results: Among the 33 patients, 7 (21%) were statin-exposed and 26 were statin-naive.

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Cardiac iodine-123-labeled-metaiodobenzylguanidine uptake is reduced in early-stage Parkinson's disease, suggesting sympathetic nerve degeneration. The scintigraphic findings in patients with Parkinson's disease with different clinical features have, however, not been established. Iodine-123-labeled-metaiodobenzylguanidine myocardial scintigraphy was performed in 143 patients with Parkinson's disease.

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