Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging disease caused by a novel Bunyavirus with a high mortality rate. We herein report a fatal case of an 86-year-old woman with SFTS complaining of a fever, fatigue, and bicytopenia. Her condition deteriorated with rapid progression of bleeding tendency, disturbance of consciousness, and multiple organ failure leading to death on Day 6 of her illness. The histopathological findings in the autopsy revealed marked infiltration of macrophages with hemophagocytosis in the bone marrow, liver, and spleen leading to a diagnosis of hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH). HLH might be a critical pathogenesis in fatal cases of SFTS.

As mouth breathing is associated with asthma and otitis media, it may be associated with other diseases. Therefore, this population-based cross-sectional study evaluated the association of mouth breathing with the prevalences of various diseases in children. Preschool children older than 2 years were included. A questionnaire was given to parents/guardians at 13 nurseries in Tokushima City. There were 468 valid responses (45.2%). We defined a subject as a mouth breather in daytime (MBD) if they had 2 or more positive items among the 3 following items: “breathes with mouth ordinarily,” “mouth is open ordinarily,” and “mouth is open when chewing.” We defined subjects as mouth breathers during sleep (MBS) if they had 2 or more positive items among the following 3 items: “snoring,” “mouth is open during sleeping,” and “mouth is dry when your child gets up.” The prevalences of MBD and MBS were 35.5% and 45.9%, respectively. There were significant associations between MBD and atopic dermatitis (odds ratio [OR]: 2.4, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.4–4.2), MBS and atopic dermatitis (OR: 2.4, 95% CI: 1.3–4.2), and MBD and asthma (OR: 2.2, 95% CI: 1.2–4.0). After adjusting for history of asthma and allergic rhinitis; family history of atopic dermatitis, asthma, and allergic rhinitis; and nasal congestion; both MBD (OR: 2.6, 95% CI: 1.3–5.4) and MBS (OR: 4.1, 95% CI: 1.8–9.2) were significantly associated with atopic dermatitis. In preschool children older than 2 years, both MBD and MBS may be associated with the onset or development of atopic dermatitis.

Biological agents represent an important advancement in for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but there is a subset of patients who do not improve despite therapy. This study aimed to determine the efficacy of biological agents for RA and to identify clinical factors that are associated with their response. We studied 98 patients with RA who started an initiating biological agent which was selected from infliximab, etanercept, adalimumab and tociliximab at 4 medical institutions. Etanercept was the most frequently used biological agent followed by infliximab although there was a difference in the selection of the biological agents among medical institutions. We found that etanercept achieved the highest treatment response, remission rate and drug survival rate. A high disease activity in the baseline disease activity score-c-reactive protein (CRP) was shown to be a negative predictor of the treatment response, and high patient global assessment was significantly less likely to achieve a good response. At week 4, decreases in 28 swollen joint counts and CRP were useful as predictors for sustaining the efficacy up to week 48. These data demonstrate that assessments of the disease activity at baseline and the early treatment response may be useful in predicting the efficacy and drug survival rate of biological agents.

In this study, we administered a questionnaire to medical students to evaluate the effect of community-based clinical education on their attitudes to community medicine and medicine in remote area. Questionnaires were given 4 times to all the students from first-year to sixth-year. Of 95 students, 65 students (68.4%) who completed all questionnaires, were used in this study. The intensity of students' attitudes was estimated by using visual analogue scale. The intensity of interest, a sense of fulfillment and passion in medicine of remote area was significantly increased after the community-based practice. On the other hand, the level of understanding in medicine in remote area was increased by the lecture not by the practice. The intensity of desire both to become a generalist and a specialist was significantly increased when the grade went up. Most of sixth-year students desired to have abilities of a generalist and a specialist simultaneously. This study shows that the community-based practice is more meaningful in increasing motivation in medicine in remote area than the lecture, and suggests that it is important to prepare more courses to experience community medicine to increase the number of physicians who desire to work in remote area.

In this study, two male patients were complicated by malignant diseases, hepatoma and lung cancer, after the diagnosis with RS3PE syndrome. Since two patients who complicated with malignant diseases (hepatoma and lung cancer) were excluded from this study because malignant diseases might affect the clinical course of PMR and RS3PE syndrome, 24 patients were included in this study.After the diagnosis, all patients were treated with initial dosages of 10 -20 mg per day oral prednisolone according to 2015 Recommendations for the management of PMR (11). Clinical assessments included symptoms and the measurement of serum CRP by standard laboratory methods because elevated levels of CRP are common in patients with PMR and RS3PE syndrome (12). Visits were scheduled every 2 to 4 weeks, and at each visit the dosage of prednisolone was tapered by a tapering schedule of 1 to 2.5 mg reduction when no specific symptoms were complained and CRP was normal or nearly normal. Prednisolone free remission was defined as the absence of clinical symptoms and normal levels of CRP with discontinuation of any drugs which control the diseases including corticosteroids. A relapse was defined as an aggravation or reappearance of clinical symptoms associated with an elevated CRP. If the disease activity relapsed after dose tapering, the prednisolone was increased to dosages related to the disease requiring.