The bowel is the only organ of the body in which neural reflexes can be elicited in the absence of input from the brain or spinal cord. This activity is mediated by the enteric nervous system (ENS), which contains primary afferent neurons. Experiments were carried out to locate the primary afferent neurons of the ENS. Two types of stimulation were used to activate neurons in the wall of the gut...

Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) account for approximately 2% of gastric cancers and can be challenging to diagnose due to the difficulty sampling tissue from these lesions. Current biopsy methods are inadequate for determining the mitotic index, a major prognostic factor of these tumors. We sought to evaluate the ability of a prototype submucosal biopsy forceps to make a histologic diag...

BACKGROUND Circumferential mucosal incision around a lesion is effective for reliable endoscopic mucosal resection. However, mucosal incision with a needle knife is difficult, even with submucosal injection of normal saline solution. To make needle-knife incision easier and safer, sodium hyaluronate has been used rather than normal saline solution. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clin...

The aim of this study was to investigate the change in the energy metabolism and invasiveness in the perioperative period of endoscopic submucosal dissection for early gastric cancer. Fifty-two consecutive patients were enrolled into the study between July 2013 and May 2014 and examined resting energy expenditure using an indirect calorimeter, body weight and basal energy expenditure using the ...

It has been proposed that defective submucosal gland function in CF airways is a major determinant of CF airway disease. We tested the hypothesis that submucosal gland function is defective early in CF subjects with minimal clinical disease. Functional assays of gland fluid secretion rate and viscosity were performed on freshly obtained nasal biopsies from 6 CF subjects and 5 non-CF controls (a...

AIM The aim of this study is to compare the short-term clinical outcomes between endoscopic submucosal dissection and transanal local excision for rectal carcinoid tumors. METHODS Between 2007 and 2012, 31 patients with rectal carcinoid underwent endoscopic submucosal dissection at our hospital. They were compared with a matched cohort of 23 patients who underwent transanal local excision for...

Preoperative differential diagnosis of gastric submucosal tumors has generally been difficult because they are covered with normal mucosa. However, recent advances in endoscopic ultrasound (EUS)-guided sampling of submucosal gastrointestinal lesions have made it possible to achieve preoperative differential diagnosis of gastric submucosal tumors. A 76-year-old woman was referred to our hospital...

Antibacterial defenses in the airway are dependent on multifactorial influences that determine the composition of both fluid and/or electrolytes at the surface of the airway and the secretory products that aid in bacterial killing and clearance. In cystic fibrosis (CF), these mechanisms of airway protection may be defective, leading to increased colonization with Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Submuco...

Submucosal tunnel endoscopic resection (STER) is a standardized technique for the enucleation of small submucosal midgut tumors [1,2]. For lesions smaller than 2 cm, the suggested management is long-term surveillance [2]. However, en bloc ablation is a possibility in order to obtain definite histology and avoid lifelong follow up [2]. Furthermore, in bariatric surgery, the detection and resecti...