New born rat heart cells were dissociated using trypsin and/or collagenase to elucidate the dissociation efficiency of these two enzymes. And the effect of dimethyl sulfoxide during and immediately after cell dissociation was also investigated to clarify the so-called protective activity of dimethyl sulfoxide on cell performance. The results can be summarized as follows. 1. Cold trypsin 18 hours pretreatment followed by warm collagenase treatment resulted best cell viability and cell yield. 2. Single warm trypsin treatment gave the poorest result. 3. Dimethyl sulfoxide did not seem to play any protective role during or immediately after rat heart cell dissociation. It had very damaging effect on rat heart cells.
Animals ; Cell Survival ; Collagenases* ; Dimethyl Sulfoxide* ; Heart* ; Rats* ; Trypsin*

No abstract available.
Child* ; Humans

PURPOSE: To characterize the MR findings of hypoxic-ischemic brain injury and to assess the value of the MR imaging. MATERIALS AND METHODS: SE T1 -, T2-weighted, and IR brain MR images of 44 infants and children with the past history of perinatal hypoxic insults were reviewed. Abnormal brain MR findings of 8 patients with birth history of prematurity and 36 patients with birth history of full-term/posterm including 7 with severe anoxic insult history, were compared in regard to the location and the character of the lesions RESULTS: MRI demonstrated the followings;(1)abnormal signal intensity lesions of subcortical and/or deep cerebral white matter, cortex, and deep gray matter, (2)atrophy of the cerebral white matter, cortex and corpus callosum, with/without ventriculomegaly, and (3)delay in myelination. Periventricular and deep white matter lesions were demonstrated in the prematurity, the deep white matter lesions and/or subcortical white matter lesions in the term/post-term, and deep gray matter lesions in the 7 patients with severe anoxic insults history. CONCLUSION: MR imaging was useful in the diagnosis of the hypoxic-ischemic brain injury, and the white and gray matter lesions were correlated with the time of the injury and the severity of hypoxic insult.
Brain Injuries* ; Brain* ; Child ; Corpus Callosum ; Diagnosis ; Humans ; Infant ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Myelin Sheath ; Reproductive History

Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is an intergral membrane protein. Overexpression or mutation of EGFR may play a role in careinogenesis. Recently, many molecular biologic techniques have been used to study expression of oncogenes. One of them, in situ mRNA hybridization, using paraffin embedded blocks, offers a unique means to allow precise localization within histological preparations, and also overcomes problems relating to translation defects and abnormal translation. In order to confirm the usefulness of epidermal growth factor receptor as a tumor marker, and to compare the expression of EGFR between in situ MRNA hybridization and an immunohistochemical study, in situ MRNA hybridization was performed along with an immunohistochemical study for EGFR in paraffin sections of 84 uterine cervix carcinomas. A positive reaction for EGFR was observed mairdy in the cytoplasm of tumor cells. The vascular muscle layer and uterine muscle tissue around the cancer nest revealed a positive reaction in immunohistochemical stain for EGFR, with a negative reaction for EGFR mRNA. In the cancer nests, the immunohistochemical positive reaction for EGFR was strong in differentiated cells and keratin pearls, but a strong positive reaction for EGFR mRNA was localized in undifferentiated cells. The overall positive of immunostaing for EGFR was 77% for uterine cervix carcinoma; 71 % for carcinoma in situ, 71 % for microinvaseve carcinoma, and 89% for invasive carcinoma. The overall positivity of EGFR from in situ MRNA hybridization was 94% of the uterine cervix carcinoma; 93% for carcinoma in situ, 93% for microinvasive carcinoma, and 96% for invasive carcinoma. From these results, EGFR is a useful tumor marker for uterine cervix carcinoma, and in situ mRNA hybridization has greater sensitivity and specificity than immunohistochemistry.
Sensitivity and Specificity ; Tumor Markers, Biological

BACKGROUND: Polyarteritis nodosa(PAN) is a disease of necrotzing vasculitis which has a clinical spectrum encompassing those cases of multisystem involveme it and skin-limited variant. The clinical course of cutaneous PAN has been considered to be a benign one, however there is sorne controversy regarding its nosological entity. OBJECTIVE: To characten the clinical course of the patients with cutaneous PAN and determine whether or not it is a benign disease or something more sever. METHODS: Clinical and laboratory findings in 8 patients with Logy-proven cutaneous PAN but without any detectable visceral involvement were observed periochelly during a follow-up period over 18 months. Meticulous physical and pertinent laboratory earinations were performed each time during their visits. RESULTS: Livedo reticulari, on the lower legs was the mostorenon cutaneous findings with these patients. During the follow-up periods there were no suspected abnormal physical and laboratory findings to have other organ involvement in all 8 patients Serologic examinations for antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody and hepatitis-B surface antigen revealed negative in all patients tested. CONCLUSION: The follow-up periods of 2 years or so does not seem to be long enough in characterizing the clinical features of PAN. However, the cutaneous: on of PAN can be regarded as a benign cutaneous variant of the disease having no visceral lesion of arteritis, even though mild degrees of constitutional symptoms and a few laboratory abnormlites could be seen.
Antibodies, Antineutrophil Cytoplasmic ; Antigens, Surface ; Arteritis ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Leg ; Polyarteritis Nodosa* ; Vasculitis

No abstract available.
Chungcheongbuk-do* ; Leptospira interrogans* ; Leptospira*

Three cases of necrotizing vasculitis clinically showing bullous skin lesions and histopathologically confirmed as leukocytoclastic vasculitis are reported. Compared with those of skin -limited non-bullous forms of cutaneous vasculitis, these cases showed relatively frequent abnormalities in urinalysis and required more aggresive corticosteriod therapy. Clinicians should be aware of the possible systemic involvements when the skin lesions are bullous in cutaneous necrotizing vasculitis.
Skin* ; Urinalysis ; Vasculitis*

To evaluate the relationships among the c-erbB-2 oncogene expression, DNA ploidy and other prognostic factors, an immunohistochemical study of the c-erbB-2 oncogene product and flow cytometric analysis of DNA ploidy were performed in paraffin sections of 42 cases of ovarian carcinomas. The results were as follows: 1) The positive reaction for c-erbB-2 oncogene product was observed mainly along the cytoplasmic membrane, and occasionally within the cytoplasm of the tumor cells. 2) Overall the positivity of c-erbB-2 oncogene expression was 45.2% of the ovarian carcinomas. By the histological types, the positivity was 35.7% in serous carcinoma, 80.0% in mucinous carcinoma, and 45.2% in endometrioid carcinoma; by the degree of differentiation, 57.1% in well differentiated carcinoma, 40.0% in moderately differentiated, and 27.3% in poorly differentiated; by the nuclear grading, 58.3% in grade I, 52.6% in grade II, and 18.2 % in grade III; and by the clinical staging, 57.1% in stage I, 42.8% in stage II, and 35.0% in stage III. The expression of the c-erbB-2 oncogene in the ovarian carcinomas was higher in the tumors of good differentiation, of the lower nuclear grade and of the lower clinical stage. 3) The incidence of DNA aneuploidy in the cases positive for the c-erbB-2 oncogene expression(47.3%) was higher than that in the negative cases(31.4%). From the above results, therefore, it is suggested that the c-erbB-2 oncogene may be involved in the early stage of ovarian carcinogenesis. Also suggested is that ovarian carcinomas positive for the c-erbB-2 oncogene in the early stages may have higher probability of having a DNA aneuploid cell line during the progress of the tumors.
Adenocarcinoma, Mucinous ; Aneuploidy ; Carcinogenesis ; Carcinoma, Endometrioid ; Cell Membrane ; Cytoplasm ; DNA* ; Incidence ; Oncogene Proteins ; Oncogenes ; Paraffin ; Ploidies*

A 40-year-old woman had a pruritic, vesiculobullous eruption of her face for 6 weeks with no evidence of systemic disease. A biopsy showed subepidermal blisters and dermal infiltrates of neutrophilic inflammatory cells. Direct immunofluorescence demonstrated thick linear deposits of IgG and C3 along the basement membrane zone. The cleavage plane was identified to be just beneath the lamina densa. Using Western immunoblots, the patient's IgG autoantibodies were found to recognize type VII proeollagen. Moderate starting doses of systemic prednisolone gave a good response for this patient with an early inflammatory form of epidermolysis bullosa acquisita.
Adult ; Autoantibodies ; Basement Membrane ; Biopsy ; Blister ; Blotting, Western ; Epidermolysis Bullosa Acquisita* ; Epidermolysis Bullosa* ; Female ; Fluorescent Antibody Technique, Direct ; Humans ; Immunoglobulin G ; Neutrophils ; Prednisolone

We studied 24 cases of cutaneous T-cell lymphomas and six cases of benign lymphoproliferative diseases of the skin (2 Jessner's lymphocytic infiltration, 2 pseudolymphoma, 2 lymphomatoid papulosis) for the presence of Epstein-Barr Virus(EBV) RNA, using the in situ hybridization(ISH) method. Among the 24 cases of cutaneous T-cell lymphomas (CTCL), 18 cases including 12 cases of mycosis fungoides(MF) were primary CTCL, and the other 6 cases were secondary CTCL. The ISH study demonstrated a positive reaction for EBER probe in 6 out of the 24 cases(25%) of CTCL, and a negative reaction for BHLF nuclear RNA probe in all the cases studied. Double-labelling immunohistochemistry/ISH studies revealed that the EBV positive cells were CD45RO positive and CD20 negative. EBV genome was not demonstrated in any benign lymphoproliferative diseases of the skin. Among the EBER positive cases, none of the 12 cases of MF demonstrated EBER signals, and 6 out of the 12(50%) cases of CTCL were positive for EBER probe. In conclusion, latent infection of EBV may play a role in the development of non-mycosis fungoides T-cell lymphomas involving the skin.