No abstract available.
Malocclusion* ; Prevalence*

BACKGROUND: This study was performed to develop a dietary self-efficacy questionnaire and to determine how dietary self-efficacy is related to selected biochemical markers and health-related quality of life in hemodialysis patients. METHODS: Participants included 172 patients who had been participating in a dialysis program for at least 6 months at two teaching hospitals. A questionnaire was used to assess socio-demographic factors, dialysis-related factors, dietary self-efficacy, and kidney disease quality of life (KDQOL). Serum levels of potassium and phosphorus and interdialytic weight gain were also measured. RESULTS: The internal reliability of dietary self-efficacy was 0.944 (Cronbach's alpha). Principal component analysis resulted in two factors, situational self-efficacy of compliance with dietary guidelines and self-efficacy of food choice. The correlation analysis showed a significant association between situational self-efficacy of compliance with dietary guidelines and serum potassium and KIDQOL. The average scores of situational self-efficacy of compliance with dietary guidelines and self-efficacy of food choice in the participants were 3.52+/-0.72 and 3.61+/-0.71 respectively. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that the situational self-efficacy of compliance with dietary guidelines was significantly associated with serum potassium level and KDQOL and self-efficacy of food choice was significantly associated with KDQOL. CONCLUSIONS: Based on our results, the developed dietary self-efficacy questionnaire may be a suitable survey tool for hemodialysis patients, which can play a role in predicting clinical indicators of patient and health-related quality of life. We recommend further research into clarifying whether the positive effects of increased dietary self-efficacy is maintained in long-term dialysis patients.
Biomarkers ; Compliance ; Dialysis ; Diet ; Hospitals, Teaching ; Humans ; Kidney Diseases ; Linear Models ; Phosphorus ; Potassium ; Principal Component Analysis ; Quality of Life ; Renal Dialysis ; Self Efficacy ; Weight Gain

Hemoglobin M (HbM) is a group of abnormal hemoglobin variants that form methemoglobin, which leads to cyanosis and hemolytic anemia. HbM-Milwaukee-2 is a rare variant caused by the point mutation CAC>TAC on codon 93 of the hemoglobin subunit beta (HBB) gene, resulting in the replacement of histidine by tyrosine. We here report the first Korean family with HbM-Milwaukee-2, whose diagnosis was confirmed by gene sequencing. A high index of suspicion for this rare Hb variant is necessary in a patient presenting with cyanosis since childhood, along with methemoglobinemia and a family history of cyanosis.

PURPOSE: To report a case of a young man with nonspecific normal retinal vessels found in foveal avascular zone. METHODS: We experienced a 20-year-old man with decreased visual acuity of left eye. In anterior segment there was no abnormality, but there were unusual vessels in foveal avascular zone that appeared to be normal vessels. RESULTS: In fluorescein angiography, dye was exhibited on the vessel of foveal avascular zone in 14-15 sec after injection, and there were no leaking or abnormal findings. CONCLUSIONS: Normal retinal vasculature in foveal avascular zone is known to be an extremely unusual case in normal adult, and it is to report a case with review of available papers.
Adult ; Fluorescein Angiography ; Humans ; Retinal Vessels* ; Retinaldehyde* ; Visual Acuity ; Young Adult

PURPOSE: We studied the effect of LASIK and LASEK for correction of myopic astigmatism and the clinical results in relation to preoperative astigmatism and operative methods. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the results of 176 eyes of 97 patients in the LASIK group and of 56 eyes of 29 patients in the LASEK group. All patients had undergone LASIK or LASEK for correction of myopic astigmatism with MEL-70TM (Aesculap-Meditec, Jena, Germany). Patients were divided into groups I (or=3.00D) according to preoperative astigmatism, and into groups A (LASIK) and B (LASEK) according to operative method. Each patient was followed up for over 6 months with measurements of uncorrected visual acuity, manifested refraction, and spherical equivalent at 1, 3, and 6 months after operation. RESULTS: In groups IA, IB, IIA, IIB, IIIA, IIIB, IVA, and IVB, preoperative cylindrical errors were 0.56 +/- 0.17D, 0.61 +/- 0.13D, 1.27 +/- 0.28D, 1.24 +/- 0.21D, 2.18 +/- 0.25D, 2.10 +/- 0.25D, 3.39 +/- 0.66D, and 3.50 +/- 0.61D, and postoperative 6-month astigmatism measurements were 0.33 +/- 0.49D, 0.34 +/- 0.36D, 0.28 +/- 0.30D, 0.63 +/- 0.44D, 0.48 +/- 0.42D, 0.44 +/- 0.57D, 0.86 +/- 0.42D, and 1.00 +/- 0.78D, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The correction of myopic astigmatism in LASEK was less effective than in LASIK at early postoperative periods, but they showed similar effect on the correction of astigmatism at 6 months after surgery, especially in the group with medium to low grade of astigmatism.
Astigmatism* ; Humans ; Keratectomy, Subepithelial, Laser-Assisted* ; Keratomileusis, Laser In Situ* ; Postoperative Period ; Retrospective Studies ; Visual Acuity

Stomach cancer is the most popular tumor in Korea but the prognosis following extensive surgery and chemotherapy has not improved for many years. Conventional external radiotherapy also has some limitation, namely, a cancerocidal dose cannot be delivered to tumors because of low radiation tolerance of adjacent critical sensitive organs. In order to overcome these limitations of curative surgery and external radiotherapy, intraoperative radiotherapy was proposed in many centers and the results were excellent. We treated two cases of locally advanced gastric cancers with IORT by using NEC 18 MeV Linear Accelerator after standard subtotal resection of the stomach. After treatment, the patients are in good conditions so far, but in order to evaluate the effectiveness of IORT, a study will be performed on the survival rates between patients treated by IORT and those treated by surgery alone.
Drug Therapy ; Humans ; Korea ; Particle Accelerators ; Prognosis ; Radiation Tolerance ; Radiotherapy ; Stomach ; Stomach Neoplasms* ; Survival Rate

Carcinoma of extrahepatic biliary tract is slow growing tumor but curative resection is rarely successful, Radiation therapy has been introduced for enhancing palliation and possible longterm survival. We treated a case of advanced extrahepatic biliary tract carcinoma with high dose rate remote afterloading system through T-tube as a initial irradiation postoperatively. We hope that this treatment may affect not only ennancing palliation and better quality of life but also in local tumor control.
Biliary Tract* ; Hope ; Quality of Life

Carcinoma of extrahepatic biliary tract is slow growing tumor but curative resection is rarely successful, Radiation therapy has been introduced for enhancing palliation and possible longterm survival. We treated a case of advanced extrahepatic biliary tract carcinoma with high dose rate remote afterloading system through T-tube as a initial irradiation postoperatively. We hope that this treatment may affect not only ennancing palliation and better quality of life but also in local tumor control.
Biliary Tract* ; Hope ; Quality of Life

OBJECTIVE: A significant concern has been raised about the emerging resistance that is largely caused by the excessive or inappropriate use of antibacterial agents for viral respiratory infections. This study investigated the trend of respiratory tract infections (RTIs) and the use of antibiotics. METHODS: Utilizing the national level health insurance claims data from 2005 to 2008, we examined encounter days, antibiotic use, and the prescription rate for respiratory tract infections including upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs), lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs), and otitis media in outpatient settings. The antibiotic use was measured as defined daily dose per 1,000 patients per day (DDD/1,000 patients/day). RESULTS: The visit for URTI increased from 141,693,465 in 2005 to 120,717,966 in 2008 and the visit for LRTI decreased from 61,778,718 to 66,930,122. For RTIs, prescription rates of antibiotics decreased from 65.2% to 58.5% for URTIs and 76.9% to 68.3% for LRTIs from 2005 to 2008. The antibiotic use decreased to 20.85 DDD/1,000 patients/day after a significant increase of 22.01 DDD/1,000 patients/day in 2006. Among antibiotics, J01CR had the highest use- 7.93 DDD/1,000 patients/day followed by J01DC of 3.71 DDD/1,000 patients/day and J01FA of 3.2 DDD/1,000 patients/day. One notable trend is that J01FA presented a continuous increase in antibiotic use from 2.3 in 2005 to 3.26 DDD/1,000 patients/day in 2008. CONCLUSION: The use of antibiotics had poor compliance to guidelines for RTIs. Despite decrease in the use of antibiotics, prescription rates for URTIs were still about 50% indicating that the delayed prescribing antibiotics (or wait-and-see) were not observed.
Anti-Bacterial Agents ; Compliance ; Humans ; Insurance, Health ; Otitis Media ; Outpatients ; Prescriptions ; Respiratory System ; Respiratory Tract Infections

BACKGROUND: The large proportion of unilaterally affected sinus lesion is chronic sinusitis, even though a considerable number of unilateral sinus lesions include inverted papilloma, cyst, malignancy and fungal infection. OBJECTIVES: This study was designed to determine anatomically related factors of unilateral chronic sinusitis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We obtained the CT scans in a series of 257 patients with unilaterally affected sinus lesions from July 1991 through December 1995, and retrospectively analysed 183 patients with unilateral chronic sinusitis excluding cystic or tumorous disorders, fungal sinusitis, and antrochoanal polyp. RESULTS: The major proportion of unilateral sinus lesions are simple chronic sinusitis. The CT scan reveals that bony anatomical variations of OMU are statistically significant factors related with development of unilateral chronic sinusitis. Nasal polyp is, also, one of the factors associated with unilateral chronic sinusitis. The direction of nasal septal deviation has no statistically significant relation with unilateral chronic sinusitis. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that the anatomical variations of OMU, either singly or in combination, interfere with the normal air flow and mucociliary clearance and they may contribute development of unilateral sinusitis.
Humans ; Mucociliary Clearance ; Nasal Polyps ; Papilloma, Inverted ; Polyps ; Retrospective Studies ; Sinusitis* ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed