We conducted a survey to clarify the evaluation methods of animal-assisted therapy (AAT) for the elderly with senile dementia in an adult day care center. AAT was implemented for a total of six biweekly sessions. The AAT group consisted of seven subjects and the control group numbered 20 subjects. In a comparison between Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) scores at baseline and those measured three months later, the average MMSE score before AAT (baseline) was 11.43 (+/- 9.00), and three months later it was 12.29(+/- 9.69). In the AAT group, the average score on Nishimura's Activities of Daily Living (N-ADL) at baseline was 28.43(+/- 14.00), and after ATT it was 29.57(+/- 14.47). In the AAT group, the average baseline score on behavioral pathology of Alzheimer's disease (Behave-AD) was 11.14(+/- 4.85), and three months after AAT it was 7.29(+/- 7.11) (p < 0.05). In the control group, the average baseline score was 5.45(+/- 3.27) and three months later it was 5.63(+/- 3.59). The evaluation of salivary CgA, as a mental stress index, showed a decreasing tendency in the AAT group. Our findings demonstrate the usefulness of using several methods for evaluation of the changes in patients given AAT.

Duodenal gastrinomas do not seem to behave as malignantly as sporadic pancreatic gastrinomas. Statistical analysis of 49 patients with sporadic pancreatic gastrinoma and 21 patients with sporadic duodenal gastrinoma reported since 1980 in Japan revealed that the incidence of hepatic metastasis was 57% in patients with sporadic pancreatic gastrinoma and only 9% in patients with sporadic duodenal gastrinoma (p less than 0.01). These findings suggest that there is an essential biological differences between duodenal and pancreatic gastrinoma. Five patients with sporadic duodenal microgastrinoma (tumor diameter less than 5mm) in our hospital had no hepatic metastases; however, 4 patients had lymph node metastases. Immunohistochemical study of 5 sporadic duodenal microgastrinomas and 6 sporadic pancreatic gastrinomas revealed that the sporadic duodenal gastrinomas contained significantly fewer insulin-producing or glucagon-producing cells than sporadic pancreatic gastrinomas. The cellular composition of the metastatic lymph nodes from duodenal microgastrinomas was similar to that of the primary tumor. This difference in cellular composition between the duodenal microgastrinomas and the pancreatic gastrinomas suggests that the process of development and differentiation of gastrinoma cells is different.

To characterize Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) strains recently prevalent in Japan, JEV surveillance was performed in pigs from 2002 to 2004. Eleven new JEV isolates were obtained and compared with previous isolates from Japan and other Asian countries. All of the isolates were classified into genotype 1 by nucleotide sequence analysis of the E gene. Two new isolates with different levels of neurovirulence and neuroinvasiveness, but with only one nucleotide difference in the E gene, Sw/Mie/34/2004 and Sw/Mie/40/2004, were isolated at the same farm on the same day. Sw/Mie/40/2004 displayed higher neurovirulence and neuroinvasiveness in mice than the other four new isolates. Another new isolate, Sw/Hiroshima/25/2002, was neutralized by antiserum to Beijing-1 at a level similar to the homologous Beijing-1 strain, whilst seven other new isolates were neutralized at 10-fold-lower titres. However, there were no amino acid differences in the E protein among these eight isolates. The present study indicated that the 11 new JEV isolates were genetically similar, but biologically and serologically heterogeneous. The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the E gene and 39 NTR sequences of the 14 JEV isolates determined in this study (-indicates 'data not available'

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