Abstract Drug-induced interstitial lung disease (DILD) occurs when drug exposure causes inflammation of the lung interstitium. DILD can be caused by different types of drugs, and some DILD patterns results in a high mortality rate; hence, DILD poses a serious problem in clinical practice as well as drug development, and strategies to diagnose and distinguish DILD from other lung diseases are necessary. We aimed to identify novel biomarkers for DILD by performing lipidomics analysis on plasma samples from patients with acute and recovery phase DILD. Having identified lysophosphatidylcholines (LPCs) as candidate biomarkers for DILD, we determined their concentrations using validated liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry biomarker assays. In addition, we evaluated the ability of LPCs to discriminate patients with acute phase DILD from those with recovery phase DILD, DILD-tolerant, or other lung diseases, and characterized their association with clinical characteristics. Lipidomics analysis revealed a clear decrease in LPC concentrations in the plasma of patients with acute phase DILD. In particular, LPC(14:0) had the highest discriminative index against recovery phase and DILD-tolerant patients. LPC(14:0) displayed no clear association with causal drugs, or subjects’ backgrounds, but was associated with disease severity. Furthermore, LPC(14:0) was able to discriminate between patients with DILD and other lung diseases, including idiopathic interstitial pneumonia and lung disease associated with connective tissue disease. LPC(14:0) is a promising biomarker for DILD that could improve the diagnosis of DILD and help to differentiate DILD from other lung diseases, such as idiopathic interstitial pneumonia and connective tissue disease.
For any integer $k$, M.Kaneko defined $k$-th poly-Bernoulli numbers as a kind of generalization of classical Bernoulli numbers using $k$-th polylogarithm. In case when $k$ is positive, $k$-th poly-Bernoulli numbers is a sequence of rational numbers as same as classical Bernoulli numbers. On the other hand, in case when $k$ is negative, it is a sequence of positive integers, and many combinatoric and number theoretic properties has been investigated. In the present paper, the negative case is treated, and their congruence and $p$-adic properties are discussed. Beside of them, application of the results to obtain a congruence property for the number of lonesum matrices is also mentioned.
Microdose clinical study was introduced to Japan in June 2008 for the purpose of promoting new drug development. However, the upper dose of the study is below 100 μg and the application of findings to drug development is limited. On the other hand, the ICH-M3 guidance “Non-clinical safety studies for the conduct of human clinical trials for pharmaceuticals” was revised in June 2009, which introduces other approaches to exploratory clinical studies. The guidance describes five approaches (two microdose approaches, one sub-therapeutic single dose approach, and two up to therapeutic dose range repeated-dose approaches). Because the highest doses of these studies are limited to within the anticipated non-toxic dose ranges, requirement of toxicity tests is decreased compared to the classic phase 1 study. The rationales for the reduction of toxicity tests are explained.
In 40 cases of full term pregnancey cesarean section performed before and during onset of labor. The amniotic fluid and blood samples from the uterine artery (U. A), uterine vein (U. V) and the peripheral vein (P. V) were collected and the changes of FPA, FPB β 15-42, HMW-kg, LMW-kg, glandular kallikrein and kinin were studied.The levels of FPA in UV increased significantly during onset of labor as compared to the increase in UA and PV and although the UV level of FPB β 15-42 also showed the same as that of FPA pattern of increase during labor but the increase was not so sharp. Levels of HMW- and LMW-kg gradually decreased during onset of labor but no significant differences among UV, UA and PV were found, Level of kinin in PV increased significantly during labor but remained unchanged in UV. In the amniotic fluid, the levels of FPA, FPB β 15-42, and HMW-kg increased gradually while that of kinin increased significantly and decreases of glandular kallikrein, LMW-kg and kininase II were seen during labor.These findings suggested that with the increased consumption of HMW- and LMW-kg and kinin during labor, the uteroplacental circulation exhibited a state of hypercoagulability with secondary hyperactivity of plasmin resulting in the increase in vascular permeability to the amniotic fluid and increased production of kinin.