Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge the late Dr. K. Kita (Japan Baptist Hospital, Kyoto, Japan) for suggesting the conception of this paper. We are also grateful to the late Dr. T. Uchiyama (Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan), Dr. R. Ueda (Aichi Cancer Center, Nagoya, Japan), Dr. T. Kitamura (Tokyo University, Tokyo, Japan), and Dr. E. Tatsumi (Kobe University, Kobe, Japan) for supplying mAb. We thank Drs. T. Kyo and H. Dohy (Hiroshima Red Cross Atomic-Bomb Survivors Hospital, Hiroshima, Japan), H. Tsutani and T. Ueda (Fukui University, Fukui, Japan), K. Nasu (Osaka Red Cross Hospital, Osaka, Japan), K. Kawakami (Suzuka Chuo Hospital, Suzuka, Japan), K. Oka (Suzuka Kaisei Hospital, Suzuka, Japan), T. Sekine (Matsusaka Chuo Hospital, Matsusaka, Japan) for important information.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.