Kumamoto University

About: Kumamoto University is a education organization based out in Kumamoto, Kumamoto, Japan. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Cancer. The organization has 19602 authors who have published 35513 publications receiving 901260 citations. The organization is also known as: Kumamoto Daigaku.

Prognostic Nutritional Index, Tumor-infiltrating Lymphocytes, and Prognosis in Patients with Esophageal Cancer

Abstract: Objective:To determine whether prognostic nutritional index (PNI) affects clinical outcome through local immunity in esophageal cancers.Background:PNI is an indicator of nutritional status and systemic immune competence, and has attracted attention as a prognostic biomarker. Tumor-infiltrating lymph

Induction therapy by frequent administration of doxorubicin with four other drugs, followed by intensive consolidation and maintenance therapy for adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia: the JALSG-ALL93 study.

Abstract: In order to improve the disappointing prognosis of adult patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), we applied similar induction therapy as that used for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), ie frequent administration of doxorubicin (DOX). DOX 30 mg/m(2) was administered from days 1 to 3 and from days 8 to 10 together with vincristine, prednisolone, cyclophosphamide and L-asparaginase, followed by three courses of consolidation and four courses of intensification. From December 1993 to February 1997, 285 untreated adult patients with de novo ALL were entered. Of 263 evaluable patients (age 15 to 59; median 31), 205 (78%) obtained complete remission (CR). At a median follow-up period of 63 months, the predicted 6-year overall survival (OS) rate of all patients was 33%, and disease-free survival (DFS) rate of CR patients was 30%, respectively. By multivariate analysis, favorable prognostic factors for the achievement of CR were age <40 and WBC <50 000/microl; for longer OS were age <30 and WBC <30 000/microl; and for longer DFS of CR patients were FAB L1 and ALT <50 IU/l. Among 229 patients who had adequate cytogenetic data, 51 (22%) had Philadelphia (Ph) chromosome. Ph-negative chromosome was a common favorable prognostic factor for CR, longer OS and DFS. DFS was not different between early sequential intensification (n = 48) and intermittent intensification (n = 43) during the maintenance phase. Among CR patients under 40 years old, the 6-year survival was not different between the allocated related allo-BMT group (34 patients) and the allocated chemotherapy group (108 patients). However, among patients with Ph-positive ALL, the survival of patients who actually received allo-BMT was superior to that of patients who received chemotherapy (P = 0.046).

Cutting edge: Phenotypic characterization and differentiation of human CD8+ T cells producing IL-17.

Abstract: Although IL-17-producing CD8+ T cells (Tc17 cells) have recently been identified, the detailed information about these cells still remains unclear In this article we describe a study investigating the phenotype and differentiation of human Tc17 cells Human Tc17 cells were detected in a minor population of CD8+ T cells and were predominantly found in CD27−/+CD28+CD45RA− memory subsets They also expressed CCR6 and a high level of CCR5 Though most Tc17 cells produced IFN-γ, a small part of the Tc17 cell population was IFN-γ negative in some individuals Analysis of the in vitro induction of Tc17 cells showed that these cells were induced from the CD27+CD28+CD45RA+ naive subset and that they expressed the CD27−CD28+CD45RA− and CCR6+ phenotype These results together indicate that Tc17 cells have a unique phenotype and suggest that they differentiate from the same precursors that differentiate into IFN-γ-producing CD8+ T cells