[Safe and Effective Analgesia with Bilateral Continuous TAP Block for a Patient with Marfan Syndrome after Open Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Repair].

A patient with Marfan syndrome underwent emergency open abdominal aortic aneurysm repair. She was referred to our department for postoperative analgesia. Taking the risk of possible dural ectasia into consideration, we avoided epidural block. Alternatively, we performed bilateral continuous transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block with sufficient analgesia. Lumbosacral dural ectasia is frequently observed in patients with Marfan syndrome. A few reports described that their fragile dura may contribute to an increased risk of dural puncture and postdural puncture headache (PDPH). Thus, in planning neuraxial block for a patient with Marfan syndrome, the possible consequences of lumbosacral dural ectasia should be considered. A case we herein present shows bilateral continuous TAP block could be a safe and effective alternative to epidural block.

[Anesthetic management of parturients with peripartum cardiomyopathy].

Peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM) is a rare life-threatening cardiomyopathy of unknown cause that occurs in the peripartum period in previously healthy women, and is becoming the leading cause of maternal death in U.S.A and U.K. Anesthesiologists are supposed to be involved in the deliveries of those parturients with PPCM by providing labor analgesia, anesthesia for cesarean section and for heart transplantation. For cesarean section, either regional anesthesia or general anesthesia can be chosen, but low dose combined spinal-epidural analgesia has been reported to be a reliable choice.

A question is "what are the optimal targets for anticoagulant therapies?"

A high mortality rate is found among septic patients with disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC). Anticoagulants have been used for treating septic DIC especially in Japanese clinical settings; however, their effectiveness is quite controversial across studies. According to several randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses, antithrombin and recombinant thrombomodulin had no therapeutic benefit in the treatment of sepsis. However, the majority of the previous research did not discuss "septic DIC" but simply "sepsis", and some reviews showed that anticoagulants were benefit only in septic DIC. Although immunothrombosis plays an important role in early host defense, it can lead to DIC and organ failure if dysregulated. Therefore, we advocate anticoagulant therapies might have beneficial effects, but research on optimal patient selection is currently lacking.

Transgenic rescue of hemolytic anemia due to red blood cell pyruvate kinase deficiency.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Red blood cell pyruvate kinase (R-PK) deficiency is the most common glycolytic enzyme defect associated with hereditary non-spherocytic hemolytic anemia. Cases with the most severe deficiency die in the peri- or neonatal period and no specific therapy exists at present. To test whether the targeted overexpression of the normal R-PK gene in erythroid cells could reduce hemolysis in R-PK mutant mice, we performed a genetic rescue study using human R-PK transgenic mice. DESIGN AND METHODS: Human R-PK promoter driven with human mLCR of the human b-globin locus was used for the erythroid-specific expression of human R-PK in murine erythrocytes. The transgenic lines were mated with homozygous R-PK mutant mice and subsequently backcrossed. Mutant homozygotes with the mLCR-R-PK transgene were examined for any therapeutic effects of transgene expression. RESULTS: Two PK transgenic lines, hRPK_lo and hRPK_hi, were obtained. R-PK activity of the transgenic mice reached as high as three times that of the animals with the endogenous PK gene. Overexpression of human R-PK in the homozygous mutant mice successfully reduced hemolytic anemia. Improvements of hemolysis were evaluated by hemoglobin concentration, reticulocyte count, and spleen weight, which showed significant correlations with the levels of expression of the transgene. Recovery from metabolic disturbance in mutant red blood cells was shown as normalized concentrations of the glycolytic intermediates upstream of PK. In addition, there was a remarkable negative correlation between R-PK activity and the number of TUNEL-positive erythroid progenitors in the spleen. INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that overexpression of the wild-type PK gene in mutant erythroid cells ameliorates both erythroid apoptosis and the shortened red blood cell lifespan observed in PK mutant mice. It is likely that the level of transgene expression required to achieve evident therapeutic effects should be equivalent to or more than that of the endogenous PK gene. This gene-addition strategy may be suitable for clinical application if there is a high level of transgene expression of R-PK in erythroid progenitors/red blood cells.