[Pneumonitis induced by the drug ougon].

We report a case of drug-induced pneumonitis associated with the herbal medications Sho-saiko-to and Ouren-gedoku-to. A 62-year-old man experienced fever and dry cough after using Ouren-gedoku-to for 2 months. He was admitted to our hospital because a subsequent 5-day course of Sho-saiko-to for suspected bronchitis aggravated these symptoms and caused exertional dyspnea. Chest X-ray films revealed a ground-glass appearance in both lower lung fields. Cessation of these medications improved the patient's clinical and X-ray findings. Bronchoalveolar lavage showed an increase in lymphocytes with a decreased CD 4/CD 8 ratio. While drug-induced lymphocyte stimulation tests gave negative results, challenge tests for Ouren-gedoku-to and Sho-saiko-to were both positive. A diagnosis of drug-induced pneumonitis was made. Our findings suggested the involvement of Ougon, the only common ingredient in the two medications.

Acute lung injury after inhalation of water-proofing spray while smoking a cigarette.

A 34-year-old Japanese woman developed acute lung injury soon after inhaling a water-proofing spray which she applied onto her ski suit while smoking a cigarette at the same time. She initially demonstrated arterial hypoxemia (PaO2 = 59 mm Hg) and ground-glass opacities in both lung fields on the CT scan, which both returned to normal without any medication. Several water-proofing sprays, which are easily obtainable in Japan, contain 1,1,1-trichloroethane, liquefied petroleum gas and fluoride resin. Although these components have not been reported to be toxic to the lung yet, high concentrations of these components and/or the pyrolytic products of fluoride resin may have caused acute lung injury in this case.

Tyrosinase inhibitors from crude drugs.

Various crude drugs were examined for their tyrosinase inhibitory activity. Marked activity was observed in Chouji and Yakuchi extracts and the active substances in these extracts were identified as eugenol and yakuchinone A, respectively. Other vanillyl compounds such as ferulic acid, curcumin and yakuchinone B also had higher activities than eugenol or yakuchinone A and inhibited the enzyme competitively. The presence of the hydroxyl group at the 4 position of the aromatic ring of the cinnamoyl moiety and the alpha,beta-unsaturated carbonyl conjugated with an aromatic ring in these substances may play important roles in the competitive inhibition of tyrosinase.

Effective conditions of electroacupuncture stimulation for suppressing tooth pulp-evoked jaw-opening reflex in the rat.

The effects of electroacupuncture (EA) on the rat jaw-opening reflex elicited by tooth pulp stimulation were studied to decide the effective stimulus conditions for electroacupuncture stimulation (EAS). The present study revealed that one of the most important factors for producing a strong EA effect was the stimulus pulse-frequency and that the stimulus pulse-duration was not an essential factor for this effect. In the rat, the following stimulus conditions were very useful for the quantitative study of the EA effect. (1) Stimulation time is 15 min. (2) Stimulus pulse-frequency is 30 to 150 Hz. (3) Stimulus pulse-duration is 0.1 to 5 ms. When the EAS was applied to the Ho-Ku point under these conditions, the degree of the suppression of the jaw-opening reflex was about 50% of the control.