No abstract available.
Estradiol* ; Female ; Humans ; Plasma* ; Progesterone*

We analyzed an astigmatism and an uncorrected visual acuity in 235 eyes for 6 months following sutureless cataract surgery(167 eyes) with 5 mm(Group 1), 6 mm(Group 2), and 7 mm(Group 3) incision lengths at 2.5 mm posteriorly from the corneoscleral limbus, and shoelace sutured cataract surgery(68 eyes) with 7 mm(Group 4) incision length at 1 mm posteriorly from the corneoscleral limbus performed by one surgeon. In three groups of sutureless cataract surgery, the surgically induced corneal astigmatisms were stable after one month postoperatively, but decreasing the length of incision substantially reduced the astigmatic changes(p>0.05), the astigmatic swings(p>0.05) and the astigmatic ranges. In comparison to sutured cataract surgery with 7 mm incision length, sutureless cataract surgery with same incision length reduced the astigmatic changes(p<0.01), reduced the astigmatic swings(p<0.01) and narrowed the astigmatic ranges and also was stabilized earlier. The shorter the length of incision in sutureless cataract surgery, the higher the incidence of an uncorrected visual acuities of 20/40 or better(p>0.05) was noted. In comparison to sutured catarct surgery with 7 mm incision length, suture less cataract surgery with same incision length had higher incidence of an uncorrected visual acuities of 20/40 or better(p<0.01). The tesults indicate that smaller incision length in sutureless cataract surgery was associated with a lower surgically induced astigmatism(p>0.05) and a better uncorrected visual acuity(p>0.05). And sutureless cataract surgery rather than sutured cataract surgery was associated with a lower surgically induced astigmatism(p<0.01), an earlier stability, and a better uncorrected visual acuity(p<0.01).
Astigmatism ; Cataract* ; Incidence ; Sutures ; Visual Acuity

PURPOSE: This study is to see chemotherapeutic results followed by Rotational Combination Chemotherapy (R-11 protocol) treatment for the patients with late relapse of childhood ALL six months after the completion of chemotherapy. METHODS: The subjects of study were the 13 children who had been diagnosed as ALL at the Severance Hospital and the Wonju Christian Hospital and completed the chemotherapy. They, however, diagnosed a late relapse of ALL between December, 1996 and December, 2001. After that, they were given an chemotherapy with R-11 protocol. RESULTS: The average age of the 13 patients was 11.8 ( 2.8) years old at relapse. They showed the complete remission (8 patients, 61%), partial remission (4, 31%), and induction failure (1, 8%). The total remission ratio was 92%. Four year Event Free Survival (EFS) after the second remission was 61.5%. They also showed acute toxicity during remission induction with severe than grade III according to the WHO criteria. The leukopenia and thrombocytopenia (hematologic toxicity) were seen at 11 cases (84%) and 9 cases (69%) respectively, and hepatotoxicity (non-hematologic toxicity) was shown at 6 cases (46%). There are also chronic toxicity, one case developed leukomalacia, and 6 cases did various symptoms of infections. CONCLUSION: There is no optimal chemotherapeutic protocol for late relapse of childhood ALL, and the treatment with R-11 protocol is worth a trial.
Child ; Disease-Free Survival ; Drug Therapy* ; Drug Therapy, Combination ; Gangwon-do ; Humans ; Leukopenia ; Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma* ; Recurrence* ; Remission Induction ; Thrombocytopenia

PURPOSE: Anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) agents have been used for the last 10 years, but their safety profile, including cytotoxicity against various ocular cells such as retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells, remains a serious concern. Safety studies of VEGF agents conducted to date have primarily relied on healthy RPE cells. In this study, we assessed the safety of three anti-VEGF agents, namely, ranibizumab, bevacizumab, and aflibercept, on senescent RPE cells. METHODS: Senescent human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived RPE cells were generated by continuous replication and confirmed with senescence biomarkers. The viability, proliferation, protein expression, and phagocytosis of the senescent RPE cells were characterized 3 days after anti-VEGF treatment with clinical doses of ranibizumab, bevacizumab, or aflibercept. RESULTS: Clinical doses of ranibizumab, bevacizumab, or aflibercept did not decrease the viability or alter proliferation of senescent RPE cells. In addition, the anti-VEGF agents did not induce additional senescence, impair the protein expression of zonula occludens-1 and RPE65, or reduce the phagocytosis capacity of senescent RPE cells. CONCLUSIONS: Clinical dosages of ranibizumab, bevacizumab, or aflibercept do not induce significant cytotoxicity in senescent RPE cells.
Aging ; Bevacizumab* ; Biomarkers ; Endothelial Growth Factors ; Epithelial Cells* ; Humans ; Phagocytosis ; Ranibizumab* ; Retinaldehyde* ; Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A

OBJECTIVE: To characterize prognostic factors in patients with pulmonary metastasis in recurrent cervical cancer. METHODS: The records of 2,042 patients treated for cervical cancer from 1994 to 2004 at two institutions were retrospectively reviewed. Twenty-five (1.04%) patients had pulmonary lesions consistent with metastatic cervical cancer. The data were analyzed retrospectively and reviewed for patient characteristics. RESULTS: Patients were treated with chemotherapy, radiotherapy only, chemoradiotherapy, surgery, and conservative treatment. There were no significant differences in survival rates between each treatment method (p=0.3410). Mean survival after treatment of pulmonary metestasis was 23 months. Histologic type, lymph node metastasis, other organ metastasis, and pretreatment SCC level were not significant prognostic factors, but FIGO stage (p=0.039) and disease-free interval (p=0.033) were significant factors. CONCLUSION: This study revealed that FIGO stage and disease-free interval were independent prognostic factors of pulmonary metestasis in recurrent cervical cancer.
Chemoradiotherapy ; Drug Therapy ; Humans ; Lymph Nodes ; Neoplasm Metastasis* ; Prognosis ; Radiotherapy ; Retrospective Studies ; Survival Rate ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms*

BACKGROUND: Cord blood(CB) has been suggested as an alternate source of stem cells in transplantation because of lower incidence of graft versus host disease and ease of collection. To optimize storage space cord blood needs to be stored as separated product. Additionally, for cord blood bank to be economical and efficient, volumes smaller than that of whole packs needs to be stored. However, CB processing procedures described so far involve open systems and/or reagents which are not licensed for use in humans. Consequently, these procedures poorly match the needs for closed-system, large-scale CB banking. In our study, we use the triple bag system in which the CB is separated by centrifugation to maintain of sterility and volume reduction. And simple and effective RBC depletion method was evaluated with 10% pentastarch and 4% modified gelatin. METHODS: The collection of CB was performed from 45 full term newborns. The collection was made by gravity and uterine contraction before placental expulsion with triple transfusion bag containing CPD-A1. 10% Pentastarch(Group A) or 4% modified gelatin(Group B) is added directly to the CB containing bag. After RBC sedimentation, the WBC-rich supernatant is collected in a satellite bag. After RBC depletion, recovery of mononuclear cells(MNC), CD34+ cells were compared between two groups. RESULTS: Mean volume of collected CB and final RBC-depleted products were 68.1+/-17.0 mL and 18.1+/-4.1 mL in Group A and 68.0+/-15.8 mL, 23.1+/-6.3 mL in Group B, respectively. After RBC depletion, the number of MNC and CD 34+ cells were 2.61+/-1.51x108, 1.19+/-0.96x106 in Group A and 4.03+/-3.16x108, 1.43+/-0.86x106 in Group B. Mean recovery of MNC, CD34+ cells were 70.2+/-43.7%, 60.2+/-31.5% in Group A, and 84.7+/-39.9% and 87.7+/-7.5% in Group B, respectively. CONCLUSION: CB processing in closed-system using triple bag with 4% modified gelatin appears to be safe, easy, effective and particularly suitable for large-scale CB banking.
Centrifugation ; Fetal Blood* ; Gelatin ; Graft vs Host Disease ; Gravitation ; Humans* ; Hydroxyethyl Starch Derivatives ; Incidence ; Indicators and Reagents ; Infant, Newborn ; Infertility ; Stem Cells ; Umbilical Cord* ; Uterine Contraction

De-identification of personal health information is essential in order not to require written patient informed consent. Previous de-identification methods were proposed using natural language processing technology in order to remove the identifiers in clinical narrative text, although these methods only focused on narrative text written in English. In this study, we propose a regular expression-based de-identification method used to address bilingual clinical records written in Korean and English. To develop and validate regular expression rules, we obtained training and validation datasets composed of 6,039 clinical notes of 20 types and 5,000 notes of 33 types, respectively. Fifteen regular expression rules were constructed using the development dataset and those rules achieved 99.87% precision and 96.25% recall for the validation dataset. Our de-identification method successfully removed the identifiers in diverse types of bilingual clinical narrative texts. This method will thus assist physicians to more easily perform retrospective research.
Algorithms ; *Data Anonymization ; *Electronic Health Records ; *Health Records, Personal ; Humans ; Multilingualism ; Natural Language Processing ; Research Design

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: To investigate the morphological and histopathological associations between an individual pit seen on stereomicroscopy or magnifying colonoscopy and an individual crypt seen in histological sections of colorectal tumors. METHODS: Fifty two colorectal lesions were examined by colonoscopy. The mucosal pits of the lesions were observed using a magnifying colonoscopy with a zoom 1 to 100 magnification after administering indigo carmine spray. The pits of the excised specimens were observed by using a stereomicroscopy after 0.2% cresyl violet stain. The pit patterns were classified into six types: normal round pit (I); asteroid pit (II); small round pit (IIIs); large tubular pit (IIIL); gyrus-like pit (IV); and non-structural pattern or amorphysm (V). Histologic diagnoses were determined by H&E staining under light microscopy. RESULTS: The histologic findings according to the pit patterns were 1 chronic nonspecific inflammation and 1 submucosal tumor in 2 cases with type I pit pattern; 4 hyperplastic polyps in 4 cases with type II; 1 hyperplastic polyp, 16 adenomas with low-grade dysplasia, 3 adenomas with high-grade dysplasia, and 1 carcinoma in situ in 21 cases with type IIIL; 4 adenomas with low-grade dysplasia, 3 adenomas with high-grade dysplasia, and 4 carcinoma in situ in 11 cases with type IV; 1 adenoma with low-grade dysplasia in 1 case with type II IIIL; 3 adenomas with low-grade dysplasia, 4 adenomas with high-grade dysplasia, and 2 carcinoma in situ in 9 cases with type IIIL IV; 1 adenoma with high-grade dysplasia, 2 carcinoma in situ, and 1 adenocarcinoma in 4 cases with type IV V. In assessing the histologic findings according to pit pattern by stereomicroscopy, the overall diagnostic predictive value was 82.6% (43/52), and the diagnostic accuracy in differential diagnosis between nonneoplastic and neoplastic lesions was 98% (51/52). The ratio of agreement of the pit pattern between the magnifying colonoscopy and the stereomicroscopy was 68% (17/25). CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that there was a close correlation between the pit patterns and the histologic findings of colorectal tumors, and that the observation of pit patterns of colorectal lesions provides a differential diagnosis between neoplastic and nonneoplastic lesions.
Adenocarcinoma ; Adenoma ; Carcinoma in Situ ; Colonoscopy ; Colorectal Neoplasms* ; Diagnosis ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Indigo Carmine ; Inflammation ; Microscopy ; Polyps ; Viola

PURPOSE: Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) is one of the most common nutritional deficiencies in children on a weaning diet. We investigated weaning practices in infants and children, as well as their mothers' knowledge about weaning. METHODS: We investigated 129 children with IDA and 166 without IDA (aged 6-36 months) who had visited 10 university hospitals between March 2006 and July 2007. We investigated the hematologic values of both groups. A questionnaire on weaning was answered by the mothers of these children. RESULTS: The hematologic values in the IDA group showed a significant difference from those in the comparison group (P<0.05). Children who were solely breastfed until 6 months of age were 85%, 34% (P<0.05), and weaning was started by 6.3, 6.4 months, respectively (P>0.05). Rice gruel, boiled rice, and fruit juice accounted for approximately 8 0% of the starting foods in both groups (P>0.05). Only 40% of the children in the IDA group had a balanced diet within a month, versus 38% in the comparison group. In response to questions about the necessity of iron-fortified foods for breast-fed infants, less than 50% of mothers in both groups answered correctly. In the IDA group, 42% showed serum ferritin less than 10 ng/ mL, while 92% showed serum MCV less than 72 fL. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, collection of information on history should be thorough for feeding and selective examinations for IDA in high-risk groups. Considering the adaptation period, we suggest beginning children on a weaning diet at 45 months. In addition, we need to educate mothers on weaning practice, especially on the necessity of iron-fortified foods for breast-fed infants.
Anemia, Iron-Deficiency ; Child ; Diet ; Ferritins ; Fruit ; Hospitals, University ; Humans ; Infant ; Iron ; Malnutrition ; Mothers ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Weaning

INTRODUCTION: Diffuse interstitial lung diseases (DILD) comprise of a large group of lung diseases with diverse etiologies. They are classified into four categories based on the etiology and pathological findings. In Korea, epidemiological data on DILD has never been reported in a prospective manner. METHOD: From May 2002 to April 2004, total 487 patients with DILD were prospectively registered at Samsung Medical Center. The prospective observational analysis of the etiologies, its classification based on 2002 ATS/ERS (American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society) guidelines, as well as diagnostic tests and the retrospective analysis of the treatment modalities were carried out. Any infectious and malignant causes were excluded. RESULTS: 1) The patients were classified into idiopathic interstitial pneumonia (IIP) in 269 patients (55.2%), known causes of DILD in 168 patients (34.5%), sarcoidosis in 27 patients (5.5%), other forms of DILD in 14 patients (2.9%), and undetermined DILD in 9 patients (1.9%). 2) The diagnostic test showed that most patients had undergone chest high resolution computed tomography (HRCT) and pulmonary function test (PFT) (97%, 89%). Transbronchial lung biopsy (TBLB) and surgical lung biopsy (SLB) were performed in limited patients (38%, 29%). 3) Among 269 patients with IIP, 220 (82%) had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) while 23 (9%) had nonspecific interstitial pneumonia. SLB was carried out in 36% of patients with IIP. 4) Symptomatic supportive care was given to 67% of IPF, but specific medical treatment including corticosteroids was administered to 89% of non-IPF patients. CONCLUSION: A nationwide registry of DILD patients is required to determine the annual incidence, etiology, and practice pattern of diagnosis and treatment in Korea.
Adrenal Cortex Hormones ; Biopsy ; Classification ; Diagnosis ; Diagnostic Tests, Routine* ; Humans ; Idiopathic Interstitial Pneumonias ; Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis ; Incidence ; Korea ; Lung ; Lung Diseases ; Lung Diseases, Interstitial ; Respiratory Function Tests ; Retrospective Studies ; Sarcoidosis ; Thorax