Vitamin K3 analogs may have potential as clinical therapeutic agents for NB.
Some findings on the association between glaucoma and statins in the Asian population have been reported. We conducted a retrospective cohort study using health insurance claims data maintained by the JMDC Inc., which comprises data on about three million individuals representing 2.4% of the Japanese population. The association between the potency of statins and open-angle glaucoma in Japanese working-age population was examined using a commercially available health insurance claims and enrollment database. We identified 117,036 patients with a prescription of statins between January 1, 2005 and March 31, 2014; 59,535 patients were selected as new statin users. Of these, 49,671 (83%) patients without glaucoma who were prescribed statins for the first time were part of the primary analysis. New users of statin were defined as those with a prescription of statin at the beginning of the study, but without a prescription six months earlier. The cohort comprised 29,435 (59%) and 20,236 (41%) patients with a prescription of high-potency statin (atorvastatin and rosuvastatin) and low-potency statin (pravastatin, fluvastatin, pitavastatin, and simvastatin), respectively. Using Cox proportional hazards regression analysis, hazard ratios (HRs) were estimated for glaucoma adjusted for baseline characteristics. Although some baseline characteristics were not similar between the high-potency and low-potency statin groups, the standardized difference for all covariates was less than 0.1. No associations were found between high-potency statin use and glaucoma (adjusted HR = 1.08; 95% confidence interval, 0.93-1.24) in the primary analyses, using the risk for glaucoma in the low-potency statin group as reference. The risk of glaucoma with individual statin use was not significantly different from that with pravastatin. No significant association was found between high-potency statins and the increased risk of glaucoma in Japanese working-age population. Further studies are needed to examine the association between statins and glaucoma in the elderly population.
Neuroblastoma is a pediatric malignant tumor arising from the sympathetic nervous system. The patients with high-risk neuroblastomas frequently exhibit amplification and high expression of the MYCN gene, resulting in worse clinical outcomes. Vitamin K3 (VK3) is a synthetic VK-like compound that has been known to have antitumor activity against various types of cancers. In the present study, we have asked whether VK3 and its derivative, VK3-OH, could have the antitumor activity against neuroblastoma-derived cells. Based on our results, VK3-OH strongly inhibited cell proliferation and induced apoptotic cell death compared to VK3. Treatment of MYCN-driven neuroblastoma cells with VK3-OH potentiated tumor suppressor p53 accompanied by downregulation of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 and Mcl-1. Interestingly, VK3-OH also suppressed the MYCN at mRNA and protein levels. Furthermore, we found downregulation of LIN28B following VK3-OH treatment in MYCN-amplified and overexpressed neuroblastoma cells. Collectively, our current findings strongly suggest that VK3-OH provides a potential therapeutic strategy for patients with MYCN-driven neuroblastomas.
Guidelines for cardiovascular drug therapy recommend monitoring serum digoxin concentration (SDC) in patients receiving digoxin treatment, especially those with renal dysfunction and hypokalemia. However, only a few studies have reported the prevalence of SDC monitoring and laboratory testing in clinical practice. Therefore, the aim of this study was to describe the frequency of SDC monitoring and laboratory testing in digoxin users and to assess the association between SDC monitoring and patient characteristics. We used the Japanese insurance claims data covering approximately 1.7 million patients aged 20−74 years between January 1, 2005 and March 31, 2014. All patients who had at least one prescription for digoxin were included. The frequency of SDC and laboratory tests was calculated and the association between patient characteristics and SDC monitoring was assessed using logistic regression analysis. A total of 98,867 prescriptions of digoxin were issued to 3,458 patients between 2005 and 2014. The annual mean frequencies of monitoring SDC, serum potassium level and serum creatinine level and of recording electrocardiograms was 16.8%, 34.8%, and 38.7% and 24.1%, respectively. Atrial fibrillation, chronic heart failure, renal diseases, and use of oral anticoagulants were associated with SDC monitoring. We found the frequency of SDC monitoring to be relatively low in Japanese clinical practice.
Following adjustment for the sodium excretion index, an indirect measure of salt intake, there association with meat was no longer significant. Conclusion Inadequate control of BP in patients who were being treated with anti-hypertensive drugs, even in a community assisted by a primary care program, was independently associated with modifiable factors including salt consumption and BMI. An association with skin colour and serum creatinine was also observed. Introduction Blood pressure is a well established cardiovascular risk factor. In addition to traditional blood pressure indexes such as SBP and DBP, estimation of central SBP (cSBP) has become available recently. The characteristics of cSBP have not been fully described. This study investigated the relationship between cSBP and known cardiovascular risk factors according to age group and comparing this with four traditional blood pressure indexes, SBP, DBP, PP and MBP. Methods This study examined baseline cross-sectional data from 4375 healthy men and women aged 30e74 years old who participated in a community-based cohort study conducted from 2008 to 2009. Linear regression analyses were carried out on the five blood pressure indexes adjusting for sex, age, BMI, triglycerides, HDLcholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, HbA1c, state of anti-hypertensive medication, smoking, alcohol Intake, exercise, past history of cardiovascular diseases, ABI and cardio-ankle vascular index. We analysed the following two models: including these risk factors without sex and age (model 1); including age groups (age<50/ age$50) (model 2). Subgroup analyses according to age group and sex were also performed. Results In model 1 the R 2 for sBP was 0.356, and in model 2, 0.385. Incremental R 2 was 0.028 between the models. Subgroup analyses showed five blood pressure indexes were explained by the total variances of known cardiovascular risk factors, more so for the younger than the older age group which was more apparent for cSBP than for the other blood pressure indexes. Conclusion Known cardiovascular risk factors are associated with cSBP. This association is greater in younger (age<50) than in older (age$50) patients. SP1-71
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