The great majority of pure PCA and PCA+ territory infarcts are caused by cardiac or intra-arterial embolism. Intrinsic PCA disease, vasoconstriction, and coagulopathy are less common causes of infarction.

Background: Intracranial atherosclerotic disease is one of the most common causes of ischemic stroke especially in Asians, Hispanics and blacks. Although middle cerebral artery (MCA) stenosis is increasingly being recognized with the advent of magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) or transcranial Doppler ultrasonography, few studies have focused on acute neurological worsening (NW) in patients with MCA stenosis. We investigated the relationship between NW and lesion patterns detected by diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI). Methods: We studied 44 consecutive patients out of a total of 2,863 consecutive patients who had symptomatic lesions in the territory of the MCA and in whom MRA and/or conventional angiography showed isolated MCA stenosis ≥50% in the MCA trunk. Acute DWI lesion patterns were classified as follows: (1) pial artery territory infarcts (PAI); (2) small cortical and/or subcortical infarcts (SCS); (3) deep penetrating artery territory infarcts (DPI); (4) cortical border zone infarcts (CBZ), and (5) internal border zone infarcts (IBZ). NW was defined as worsening by ≥2 points on the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) during the first 7 days. Functional outcome was assessed by the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) at 3 months after stroke onset. Poor outcome was defined as ≥3 on the mRS. The severity of MCA stenosis on MRA was further categorized as 50-75% (moderate) and >75% or focal signal loss with the presence of distal MCA signal (severe). Results: There were 14 patients (31.8%) who showed NW and 16 patients (36.3%) who showed poor outcomes. Nine of the 14 patients with NW showed poor outcomes (64.2%). The most frequent lesions in the present study were SCS (n = 16, 36.3%), followed by IBZ (n = 12, 27.2%) and DPI (n = 11, 25.0%). Prevalence of IBZ was significantly higher in the group with NW compared to that without NW (p = 0.0081), while the prevalence of SCS, DPI, PAI and CBZ did not differ between the two groups. Logistic regression analysis showed significantly high age- and sex-adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for NW only for IBZ (OR 10.9, p = 0.0051). The degree of stenosis did not correlate with NW and lesion patterns. Conclusions: Only IBZ among various lesion patterns correlated strongly with NW. IBZ are considered to be more associated with hemodynamic compromise, while embolic pathogeneses contribute more to CBZ or SCS. Early interventional medical treatments such as thrombolytic or anti-platelet therapy or stenting should be considered in cases of IBZ in MCA stenosis.

Background and Objective: Stroke patients with severe leg paralysis are often bedridden in the acute and subacute phase, which increases the risk of disuse muscle atrophy in the chronic phase. The evidence to date indicates that oxidative stress plays an important role in the mechanism of disuse muscle atrophy. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine if long-term radical scavenger treatment with edaravone following an acute stroke prevents the progression of disuse muscle atrophy and improves leg locomotor function in the chronic phase.Methods: This randomized controlled pilot study was conducted at 19 acute stroke and rehabilitation centers across Japan. Forty-seven ischemic stroke patients with at least leg motor weakness admitted within 24 hours of onset were randomly assigned to receive continuous intravenous infusions of edaravone 30 mg twice daily for 3 days (short-term group) or 10–14 days (long-term group). The primary endpoints of the study included the degree of leg disuse muscle atrophy, as measured by the percentage change from baseline in femoral muscle circumference 15 cm above the knee, and the improvement in leg locomotor function, as assessed by the maximum walking speed over 10 m, 3 months after the onset of stroke.Results: Three-month follow-up was completed by a total of 41 patients (21 in the short-term group and 20 in the long-term group). On admission, there was no significant difference in the severity of stroke or the grade of leg paresis between the two treatment groups. The grade of disuse muscle atrophy and incidence of gait impairment 3 weeks after stroke onset were also similar between the short- and long-term groups. However, disuse muscle atrophy of the paretic and non-paretic legs was significantly less severe in the long-term versus the short-term treatment group (3.6±5.9% and 1.5±6.0% vs 8.3±5.2% and 5.7±6.4%; p<0.01 and p<0.05) 3 months after stroke onset. Additionally, the maximum walking speed over a distance of 10 m was significantly greater in the long-term group (98±67 vs 54±55 cm/sec; p<0.05).Conclusion: Edaravone treatment for up to 14 days suppresses the progression of disuse muscle atrophy and improves leg locomotor function to a greater extent than shorter-term treatment in acute stroke patients. This suggests that the management of stroke may be improved with long-term edaravone therapy by providing myoprotective effects that ameliorate functional outcome in the chronic phase.

All patients with PCA territory infarcts and sensory findings either had thalamic infarcts in thalamogeniculate or lateral posterior choroidal artery territory or had thalamic ischemia. Sensory findings in PCA territory infarction indicate ventrolateral thalamic ischemia.

Background Little is known about the impact of infectious disease (ID) consultations on the management of patients with cancer. This study aimed to describe the consultation services provided by ID specialists to all departments in a comprehensive cancer center in Japan. Methods We conducted a retrospective review of ID consultations with adult patients at a comprehensive cancer center in Japan from April 2017 to March 2018. Results During the study period, 776 patients with cancer had an ID consultation. Of these, 414 (53.4%) were hospital inpatients. Reasons for the ID consultation comprised clinical management (n = 481, 62.0%), immunization (n = 272, 35.1%), and infection control (n = 23, 3.0%). Of the 474 ID consultations for diagnostic purposes, the most frequent condition was fever or elevated inflammatory markers of unknown origin (n = 125, 26.4%). The most frequent diagnoses after the diagnostic ID consultation were hepatobiliary infections (n = 97, 22.4%), respiratory infections (n = 89, 20.618.8%), and intra-abdominal infections (n = 71, 16.4%). The commonest reasons for immunization consultations were to prevent seasonal influenza (n = 193, 71.0%) and post-splenectomy vaccination (n = 58, 21.3%). The commonest reasons for infection control consultations were suspected tuberculosis or contact with tuberculosis (n = 11, 47.8%) and herpes zoster infection (shingles) (n = 7, 30.4%). Conclusions ID specialists play an important role in the clinical management of patients with cancer. ID physicians who work in cancer centers need to be specialized in treating IDs, diagnosing the causes of fevers of unknown origin, and controlling infection.

a b s t r a c tClostridium bacteremia is a well-known cause of infection in patients with gastrointestinal lesions. However, the clinical characteristics of this infection in cancer patients are unclear. We retrospectively reviewed cases of blood cultures positive for Clostridium species between March 1, 2004 and May 30, 2018 at the Shizuoka Cancer Center Hospital. Medical records of 40 patients who met the study criteria were reviewed for age, gender, underlying disease, history of disease, blood culture results, laboratory test results, and radiographic data. The common sources of Clostridium species in these patients were hepatobiliary tract infection and liver abscess (13/40; 32.5%) and bacteremia/enteritis due to gastrointestinal tumor (13/40; 32.5%). All patients had malignancies, with the most common being colorectal cancer (n ¼ 9) followed by pancreatic cancer (n ¼ 8) and gastric cancer (n ¼ 6). The most common species isolated was C. perfringens followed by C. ramnosum. Twenty-five patients (62.5%) had polymicrobial bacteremia with the following organisms isolated from concurrent blood cultures: Escherichia coli (n ¼ 8) and Klebsiella spp. (n ¼ 7). Of these bacteremia cases, 37 had digestive organ lesions such as gastrointestinal malignancy, peritoneal dissemination, or intestinal infiltration. Seventeen patients died, resulting in an overall mortality rate of 42.5% at 30 days. Common cases of Clostridium bacteremia were derived from gastrointestinal lesions, and because Clostridium bacteremia is observed regardless of species, it should be considered necessary to examine gastrointestinal lesions.

Background: CYP2C19 variants are associated with the antiplatelet effects of clopidogrel against recurrent cardiovascular events. However, it remains unknown whether the elapsed time from stroke onset affects the relationship between the genetic variants and such events. To address this, we conducted a prospective cohort study to determine the effect of CYP2C19 variants on clinical outcomes in the chronic phase. Methods and Results: In total, 518 Japanese non-acute stroke patients treated with clopidogrel were registered at 14 institutions. Patients were classified into 3 clopidogrel-metabolizing groups according to CYP2C19 genotype: extensive metabolizer (EM: *1/*1), intermediate metabolizer (IM: *1/*2 or *1/*3), and poor metabolizer (PM: *2/*2, *2/*3, or *3/*3). Antiplatelet effects of clopidogrel were assessed by adenosine diphosphate (ADP)-induced platelet aggregation and vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein (VASP) phosphorylation. The endpoint was composite cerebrocardiovascular events (CVEs). In 501 successfully followed-up patients, the median time from index stroke to enrollment was 181 days. There were 28 cardiovascular and 2 major bleeding events. There were no significant differences in the rates of cardiovascular events among the groups. Conclusions: Despite associations between CYP2C19 variants and on-clopidogrel platelet reactivity, there was no significant difference in rates of CVEs in the chronic stroke phase among the 3 clopidogrel-metabolizing groups of CYP2C19 variants.

A 42 year-old man with lumbago and fever had hydronephrosis due to a mass surrounding the abdominal aorta, associated with pachymeningitis and a suprasellar tumor. He was given a diagnosis of multifocal fibrosclerosis, involving both retroperitoneal and intracranial fibrosis. He responded to treatment with corticosteroid and cyclophosphamide. The intracranial lesions seemed to be rare, but important manifestations of the systemic disease, and were clearly visualized by magnetic resonance imaging. The phenotype of the infiltrated lymphocytes was CD4+, supporting the hypothesis that autoimmunity was involved pathogenetically. We propose a comprehensive category termed "inflammatory fibrotic disease" including both systemic and localized diseases.