In accordance with the study aims, we were able to demonstrate the utility of a questionnaire as an essential tool to plan and conduct effective communication between health professionals and primary family carers in Japanese cancer patients. This pilot test should be followed up with a larger sample and a controlled trial.

BackgroundThe US National Cancer Institute (NCI) has developed the Patient-Reported Outcomes version of the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (PRO-CTCAE) to capture patients’ self-reported symptomatic adverse events in cancer clinical trials. The aim of this study was to develop and linguistically validate a Japanese translation of PRO-CTCAE. Forward- and back-translations were produced, and an independent review was performed by the Japan Clinical Oncology Group (JCOG) Executive Committee and the US NCI. We then conducted cognitive interviews with 21 patients undergoing cancer treatment. Participants were asked to complete the PRO-CTCAE and were interviewed using semi-structured scripts and predetermined probes to investigate whether any items were difficult to understand or answer. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, and a thematic analysis was performed. The data were split into two categories: 1) remarks on the items and 2) remarks on the questionnaire in general.ResultsTwenty-one cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy or hormone therapy were interviewed at the University of Tokyo Hospital and the Kansai Medical University Hirakata Hospital during 2011 and 2012. Thirty-three PRO-CTCAE items were evaluated as “difficult to understand,” and 65 items were evaluated as “difficult to answer” by at least one respondent. However, on further investigation, only 24 remarks were categorized as “comprehension difficulties” or “clarity” issues. Most of these remarks concerned patients’ difficulties with rating their experience of individual symptomatic events.ConclusionsThe study provides preliminary evidence supporting the linguistic validity of the Japanese version of PRO-CTCAE. Further cognitive interviewing is warranted for PRO-CTCAE items relating to sexuality and anxiety and for response options on severity attribute items.

The Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster occurred on 11 March 2011, which caused the leakage of radioactive materials into the environment. In this study, we report public concerns about radiation in Fukushima and Tokyo almost one year after the nuclear disaster. We examined the public concerns by analyzing the data from 1022 participants, 555 in Fukushima and 467 in Tokyo. They were asked whether they were concerned about radiation from some of six different types of sources, which could be answered in a binary way, ‘yes’ or ‘no’. We found not only similarities, but also significant differences in the degrees of concerns between Fukushima residents and Tokyo ones. Fukushima residents more concerned about radiation from land, food and radon in larger rate than that of Tokyo ones, while Tokyo residents were concerned about radiation from medical care. Residents in neither location were concerned about radiation from space. Our results suggested that careful risk communication should be undertaken, adaptively organized depending on location and other factors, e.g. comprehension about radiation, presence of the experience of evacuation, and also age and gender of the people.

In this research we propose a new motion classification method to improve operability of a 3D gesture interface that assists text input on mobile devices. A certain range of time-series finger scale data is cropped and is classified using linear discriminant analysis. To confirm possibility of linear separation, data were visualized using principle component analysis. Experimental result with changing cropping ranges and sampling rates showed that the recognition rate improved when the cropped time is longer, and more than 97.9% recognition rates were achieved with cropping time of 0.77s/0.38s from both/one sides of the peak.

O-β-d-Mannopyranosyl-(1→4)-O-α-d-mannopyranosyl-(1→3)-l-rhamnopyranose, a trisaccharide including a repeating unit of the O-specific polysaccharide (OSP) of Bulkholderia vietnamiensis strain LMG 6988, and O-(2-acetamido-2-deoxy-β-d-mannopyranosyl)-(1→4)-O-α-d-galactopyranosyl-(1→4)-d-galactopyranose, a trisaccharide including a repeating unit of OSP of Acinetobactor baumannii serogroup O18, were synthesized by means of in-situ-activating glycosylation using 2-O-acetyl-3,4,6-tri-O-benzyl-d-glucopyranose (2ATBG) and a reagent mixture of p-nitrobenzenesulfonyl chloride, silver triflate, and 1,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene, and related systems. New syntheses of 2ATBG, allyl 2,3,6-tri-O-benzyl-α-d-galactopyranoside, benzyl 2,3,6-tri-O-benzyl-α-d-galactopyranoside, and 2-azido-3,4,6-tri-O-benzyl-2-deoxy-d-mannopyranose are described.

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Chemotherapeutic agents are rarely used for symptom management in patients under palliative care setting. This is because chemotherapeutic agents not only have limited efficacy in palliative treatment but are also known to exert severe adverse effects. We describe our experience with a patient with metastatic breast cancer who was successfully treated with low-dose capecitabine, without the development of any severe toxicities and with significant improvement in activities of daily living (ADL) and quality of life (QOL).The patient, a 43-year-old female, had breast cancer with liver, bone, and cutaneous metastases. She visited our clinic after a year-long hiatus during which she underwent alternative therapy. She presented with ulcerated lesions on the anterior chest and dyspnea due to malignant pleural effusion. After treatment for the latter, we administered capecitabine (600 mg/day) in accordance with the wishes of the patient and her attendants. The ulcerated lesions on the anterior chest, dyspnea, ADL and QOL improved significantly, without the development of any serious adverse effects. The findings of this case indicate that chemotherapy in the form of low-dose capecitabine monotherapy may be considered in patients under palliative care setting.

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