A 47-year-old female with a 17-year history of autoimmune hepatitis had been treated with prednisolone, azathioprine, and ursodeoxycholic acid. Although her alanine aminotransferase level occasionally showed mild abnormality, the prednisolone dose could not be increased because she had developed cataract during the course of her illness. In May 2012, she developed severe normochromic normocytic...

BACKGROUND During twin pregnancies, several complications may result in the death of a co-twin depending on the date of death. We describe herein 2 infant survivors of monozygotic twin pairs with 2 distinct possible complications: a aplasia cutis congenita and Volkmann ischemic contracture. OBSERVATIONS One infant had extensive aplasia cutis congenita with an associated monozygotic co-twin wh...

Cochlear nerve (CN) aplasia refers to the absence of a visible CN on oblique sagittal magnetic resonance images of the lateral aspect of the inner auditory canal (IAC). Magnetic resonance (MR) is the preferred technique in patients with sensorineural hearing loss and/or vertigo; however, computed tomography (CT) is used to evaluate the IAC or facial nerve canal. Three types of aplasia or hypopl...

BACKGROUND In utero exposure to thalidomide causes a wide range of birth defects, including phocomelia, hearing loss and visceral disorders, known as thalidomide embryopathy (TE). Fifty years after the first report of TE, we conducted the first cross-sectional multicenter study to investigate the development of lifestyle-related diseases and identify risk factors for visceral disorders in subje...