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To evaluate the deterioration degree of insulation material by monitoring partial discharges (PDs), it is necessary to fully understand the PD behavior prior to breakdown. We performed measurements of temporal variations in the number and magnitude of PDs in a void of epoxy resin. It was found that the number of PDs with larger magnitude is less before breakdown and that there is a decreased tendency of the number and magnitude of PDs with the elapsed time. The tendency is remarkable as the applied electric field is small. Additionally, the time to breakdown becomes short when the scattering of the number of PDs per unit time decreases. © 2024 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan and Wiley Periodicals LLC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: In December 2021, enfortumab vedotin (EV), an antibody‐drug conjugate directed against nectin‐4, was approved in Japan as a new treatment after platinum‐containing chemotherapy and PD‐1/PD‐L1 inhibitors. This study evaluated, using real‐world data, the efficacy and safety of EV therapy in patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma (mUC). Materials and methods: Fifty‐five patients with mUC who discontinued pembrolizumab therapy due to disease progression between June 2018 and April 2023 at Yokohama City University Hospital were evaluated retrospectively. Of the 55 patients, 25 received EV therapy (EV group) and 30 did not (non‐EV group). All patients who underwent EV therapy were diagnosed with disease progression after the approval of EV in Japan. Results: The median (range) follow‐up period after pembrolizumab discontinuation was 6.3 (0.7–31.1) months. There were eight (32.0%) deaths due to cancer in the EV group and 27 (90.0%) in the non‐EV group. The overall survival (OS) after pembrolizumab discontinuation was not reached in the EV group versus 2.6 months in the non‐EV group (p < 0.001). A multivariate analysis revealed that EV therapy (EV vs. non‐EV group; hazard ratio 0.26; 95% confidence interval 0.16–0.41; p < 0.001) was an independent prognostic factor for OS. Conclusion: EV prolonged OS in mUC following pembrolizumab therapy in real‐world data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the treatment of primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL), intraoperative rapid pathological diagnosis can dramatically change the surgical strategy, and more accurate diagnostic methods are required. In April 2020, we adopted intraoperative rapid immunohistochemistry (IHC) in addition to conventional rapid intraoperative diagnosis based on morphological assessment, mainly for patients with PCNSL. Here, we investigate the usefulness and significance of intraoperative rapid IHC based on our initial experience. We performed intraoperative rapid IHC using antibodies for cluster of differentiation (CD)20, CD3, leukocyte common antigen (LCA) and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) using enzyme‐labeled antibody methods in 25 patients, including PCNSL patients, from April 2020 to July 2022. We examined the utility of this approach in determining treatment strategies for brain tumors. Postoperative final pathological diagnoses from paraffin‐embedded sections were as follows: diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma, 16 cases; glioblastoma, six cases; pilocytic astrocytoma, one case; adenocarcinoma, one case; and inflammatory disorder, one case. The entire process took 32 min and staining for CD20, CD3, LCA, and GFAP was comparable to that using paraffin‐embedded sections. In all cases, the results of intraoperative rapid IHC were consistent with final pathological diagnoses from paraffin‐embedded sections. In addition, in two cases, the results of conventional intraoperative rapid pathological diagnosis based on morphological assessments using frozen sections were drastically changed by adding intraoperative rapid IHC. Intraoperative rapid IHC contributes to deciding appropriate treatment strategies and facilitating early initiation of chemotherapy for PCNSL. This may allow new therapeutic strategies not only for PCNSL but also for other brain tumors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method has been developed to detect ultralow concentrations, below 1 ng/L (ppt), of bisphenol A (BPA) using column switching, and electrochemical detection. This HPLC method provided a detection limit of 0.36 ppt BPA and repeatability of 9.3% with a relative standard deviation at 1 ppt (r = 0.999 with a linear calibration curve over a concentration range of 1-100 ppt.). BPA is inherently ubiquitous in the environment, including the very tools and solvents used for its analysis, so to obtain meaningful results, the overall BPA contamination concentration must be below the detection limit for BPA using the analytical system. Therefore, purified water for preparing the standard BPA solution must be filtered with a hydrophobic membrane to suppress BPA background levels of contamination. In addition, all of the glassware used to prepare the standards and samples for analysis must be treated carefully to eliminate residual BPA contamination. Although BPA-free water and heat-treated glassware were used as precautionary measures for analysis, manual preparation and injection resulted in considerable BPA levels that will confound the results. Furthermore, the use of manual injection syringes with a fixed cemented needle also contributed to substantial BPA contamination, even if fluorescence detection was employed. However, manual injection syringes with a removable needle gave rather good results compared to that of the cemented needle type. By employing these precautionary measures and procedures to reduce BPA contamination from the analytical procedure, 1-10 ppt of BPA in environmental water samples was accurately determined using a column-switching HPLC system. This paper describes a systematic procedure and solution for reducing BPA contamination introduced by methods and procedures to determine a full range of BPA concentrations in environmental samples, such as lake water, even at very low concentrations.