No abstract

An 83-year-old man who had been receiving treatment for bronchial asthma since 62 years of age experienced difficulty breathing on exertion and was admitted to the hospital. On admission, computed tomography revealed tracheal wall thickening, while test results for antinuclear antibodies and anti-type II collagen antibodies were positive. Since a saddle nose deformity, malacia of the auricles and sensorineural deafness were also observed, relapsing polychondritis was diagnosed. Measuring the peak expiratory flow rate was useful in the early airway assessment. During the follow-up period, the patient's dyspnea worsened and noninvasive positive-pressure ventilation was introduced. As a result, the subjective symptoms improved.

The association between alcohol intake and stomach cancer risk remains controversial. We undertook a pooled analysis of data from six large-scale Japanese cohort studies with 256 478 participants on this topic. Alcohol intake as ethanol was estimated using a validated questionnaire. The participants were followed for incidence of stomach cancer. We calculated study-specific hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for stomach cancer according to alcohol intake using a Cox regression model. Summary HRs were estimated by pooling the study-specific HRs using a random-effects model. During 4 265 551 person-years of follow-up, 8586

A 44-year-old man demonstrating cold-like symptoms from the end of August 2013 was referred to us with abnormal shadows on his chest radiograph in September 2013. Clinical examination revealed a painless redcolored mass on the sole of his left foot that had enlarged over the course of one year. The left leg showed marked non-pitting edema that had gradually progressed over a month. A chest CT revealed mediastinal lymphadenopathy and diffuse interstitial septal thickening, and lymphangitic carcinomatosis was suspected. A lung biopsy and left inguinal lymph node biopsy revealed the diagnosis of amelanotic melanoma with lung metastasis.