ABSTRACT
A 65-year-old woman suffered from swollen parotid and submandibular glands in July 2005, and sicca of the eyes and oral cavity arose in October 2005. We diagnosed her as having Mikulicz's disease based on magnetic resonance imaging of the head, gallium scintigraphy, and a lip biopsy in June 2006. After prednisolone 10 mg/day was commenced, her salivary glands shrank slightly. Although the amount of prednisolone had been tapered to 7 mg/day by May 2007, her serum IgG rebounded. In January 2008, hachimijiogan extract granules 7.5 g/day were introduced. Swelling of the salivary glands disappeared and her serum IgG level decreased. In May 2008, the amount of prednisolone was tapered successfully to 6 mg/day. Mikulicz's disease is a corticosteroid-sensitive disease, but in this case steroid resistance made treatment difficult. Based on this case, we performed functional assays of P-glycoprotein with calcein-AM, which demonstrated that hachimijiogan can reverse drug resistance.
Subject(s)
Prednisolone , SerumABSTRACT
We report the case of a 46-year-old man with hypertension whose blood pressure decreased due to saiko-karyukotsuboreito consumption.The patient also presented with some symptoms that suggested autonomic imbalance. After consuming 7.5g/day of a spray-dried powder of saikokaryukotsuboreito (Tsumura & Co.) for 3 months, his blood pressure measured at office was considerably lower. Twenty-four hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring revealed that the surge in morning blood pressure, which is considered to be a risk factor for cerebrovascular disease, diminished in addition to the 24-hour mean blood pressure. A postural test revealed that his autonomic balance, which had been in a sympathetic dominant state, was inversely inclined to a parasympathetic dominant state.Our case report suggests that saikokaryukotsuboreito acts on the autonomic nervous system, which in turn exerts an antihypertensive effect, and that this effect is helpful in lowering the blood pressure in hypertensive patients whose autonomic balance is impaired due to stress.