No abstract available.

55 consecutive anatrophic nephrolithotomies on 53 patients performed between July, 1983 and June, 1990 were reviewed. The patients (36 male and 19 female) ranged in age from 3 to 72 years. The operation time averaged 219.8 minutes with a range of 120-330 minutes, and the ischemic time ranged between 20 and 90 minutes, with a mean of 43.5 minutes. Postoperative complications developed in 18 patients, which were such as persistent urinary tract infection in 5cases (9.4%), atelectasis in 4 (7.5%), transient urine leak in 2 (3.8%), delayed bleeding in 2 (3.8%) and urinary retention in 2 (3.8%). Postoperative residual stones were identified in 15 (27.3%), but in 8 of these 15patients stones were delivered spontaneously and thus 48 of 55 cases (87.3%) became stone free. The recurrence of stone was noted in 2 out of 48 patients during the short follow up period. Anatrophic nephrolithotomy seems to be an effective method compared to other procedure because of decreasing recurrence of stone by complete stone removal and reconstruction of abnormal collecting system.
Follow-Up Studies ; Hemorrhage ; Humans ; Male ; Methods ; Postoperative Complications ; Pulmonary Atelectasis ; Recurrence ; Urinary Retention ; Urinary Tract Infections

No abstract available.
Carcinoma, Renal Cell* ; Humans

Male urethral diverticulum is uncommon lesion, furthermore calculus formation within the male urethral diverticulum is very rare. Generally, urethral diverticula are classified as congenital and acquired. The majority of male urethral diverticula are acquired and approximately 10 to 20 per cent are congenital. Acquired urethral diverticula in the male may arise from many sources, including infection (prostatic abscess, infection of periurethral glands, hematoma or schistosomiasis), obstruction (stricture, impacted stone, Cunningham clamp or condom catheter) and trauma (instrumentation, external injury and pelvic fracture). Calculi formation is more common in the acquired diverticulum owing to stagnation of urine and infection. These calculi in the diverticulum usually are solitary and may attain considerable size with predisposing factors, 1) a ureteral or bladder calculus that is lodged in the urethra 2) urethral trauma or stricture, 3) calcification around a foreign body or hair. The treatment of urethral diverticulum combined with stone is excision of the diverticula with removal of stone. We treated two cases of urethral diverticulum combined with stone in the male, and report with review of literature.
Abscess ; Calculi ; Causality ; Condoms ; Constriction, Pathologic ; Diverticulum* ; Foreign Bodies ; Hair ; Hematoma ; Humans ; Male* ; Ureter ; Urethra ; Urinary Bladder Calculi

No abstract available.
Hypertrophy*

Vasectomy has become a popular method for male sterilization in Korea and this, in turn, has been followed by an increase in the number of patients requesting vasectomy reversal. Recently, many authors have reported a high success rate of vasovasostomy using microsurgical techniques. However, a significant discrepancy persist between the patency and pregnancy rate despite improvements in surgical techniques. A total of 200 patients undergoing vasovasostomy from May 1983 to April 1990 were reviewed. Of these 200 patients, only 130 patients (98 patients by two-layer, 32 patients by modified two-layer technique) could be followed up and analyzed as to pregnancy rate related to age, vasal obstructive interval, gross appearance and sperm quality of the vas fluid, operative method, and presence or absence of sperm granuloma. Success rates were 90.3% for patency and 65.4% for pregnancy. With regard to factors influencing to operation, it seemed that the results were better when there was a shorter vasal obstructive interval, watery vas fluid, presence of normal morphologic sperm quality, presence of sperm granuloma, and when the operation was done using the two-layer technique. However, no statistically significant difference was found, except between the bilateral presence and absence of sperm granuloma at the vasectomy site. Thus it is suggested that the most important single factor influencing the success rate of vasovasostomy is a meticulous and skillful operative technique itself, althought other factors may affect the outcome. More effort and research are needed to find the factors affecting the success rate of vasovasostomy.
Granuloma ; Humans ; Infertility* ; Korea ; Pregnancy Rate ; Pregnancy* ; Spermatozoa ; Sterilization, Reproductive ; Vasectomy ; Vasovasostomy*

BACKGROUND: Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are involved in the degradation of the extracellular matrix, which is an important step in tumor invasion and metastasis. A positive correlation between the expression of MMP-9 and aggressive behavior of renal cell carcinomas (RCCs) has been reported. MMP-9 expression in RCCs and adjacent normal kidney tissues were examined in this study. MATERILAS AND METHODS: Twenty-five patients pathologically diagnosed as clear cell RCCs, from specimens obtained at radical nephrectomy, between May 2003 and December 2004 were enrolled in this study. MMP-9 activity was estimated using gelatin zymography, and quantified using a laser densitometer. The results were compared with clinicopathological characteristics. RESULTS: The expression of MMP-9 was significantly elevated in the RCC compared with non-tumor kidney specimens (p<0.01). The levels of MMP-9 expression in the RCC patients with large tumors (>4 cm) or vascular invasion were significantly higher than in those without these clinical manifestations (p<0.01). There were also significant differences in the expression of MMP-9 among T stages (p<0.01). The tissue MMP-9 level was the highest in nuclear grade 4, but there was no statistical significance between the histological grades (p=0.17). CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that enhanced MMP-9 expression contributes to carcinogenesis and tumor progression in the later stages of RCC.
Carcinogenesis ; Carcinoma, Renal Cell* ; Extracellular Matrix ; Gelatin ; Humans ; Kidney ; Matrix Metalloproteinase 9* ; Matrix Metalloproteinases ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Nephrectomy

Studies on nocturnal penile tumescence characteristics in normal men have advantages of further investigations of erection physiology and of impotence research. We conducted a study of nocturnal penile tumescence in 30 Korean healthy males aged 21 to 68 (divided into 5 groups, from 20s to 60s) by means of polysomnographic monitoring to provide normative data on how it is related to man`s sexual function with aging and its range of characteristics for the management of impotence. Analyses of 60 sleep data showed that with aging from 20s to 60s, there was steady decrease in mean values of total tumescence time, total tumescence time/total sleep period time, total tumescence time/total REM period time, amount of maximum REM-related tumescence episodes, frequency of REM-related tumescence, frequency of maximum REM-related tumescence episode, as well as of penile circumferential change and penile rigidity in maximum tumescence episode. These results indicate that there is steady decrease in the quality of nocturnal penile tumescence including frequency, duration, amount and degree with aging from 20s to 60s, which reflects changes of sexual capacity and function in psychosexul aspect. We suppose these normative data will contribute to further clinical investigations of nocturnal penile tumescence and male sexual dysfunction.
Adult* ; Aging* ; Erectile Dysfunction ; Humans ; Male ; Penile Erection* ; Physiology

Injuries to the pelvic nerve plexus following major pelvic ablative surgery are commonly observed conditions in urologic field and often related to voiding difficulty with flaccid type of neurogenic bladder. The pathophysiological background for voiding difficulty is unknown and also it is difficult to investigate in human. The present study was undertaken to investigate the functional changes on the bladder and urethra in major pelvic ganglion denervated rats (experimental group). Injury to the pelvic nerve plexus was created by selective removal of bilateral major pelvic ganglions of mature Sprague-Dawley rats (male, 250-300 gm). One week after operation, urodynamic evaluation and NADPH diaphorase histochemistry were performed in each rat. The whole bladder wet weight and residual urine of experimental group significantly increased to 1.6 times and 29 times that of control group, respectively. For urodynamic investigations, the bladder and the urethra were completely disconnected by means of ligation between the bladder neck and the proximal urethra, and simultaneous recordings of the intravesical and proximal urethral pressure were performed. During simultaneous urethro-vesical filling in experimental group, vesical contraction and urethral relaxation were not induced. However, an administration of L-arginine (120 mg/kg intravenously), a nitric oxide substrate, resulted in a gradual decrease in urethral pressure when the bladder pressure was reached at submaximal level. On NADPH diaphorase histochemistry in control group, a large number of NADPH positive nerve fibers were found in the proximal urethra, whereas those were found less commonly in the bladder. In experimental group, the number of NOS positive nerve fibers in the bladder was similar to that in control group. But in the proximal urethra, the number of NOS positive nerve fibers (84.7 +/- 12.7) decreased significantly in contrast to that (185.9 +/- 56.3) in control group. These results indicate that failure to empty in neurogenic bladder may be resulted from relaxation impairment of bladder outlet, which can be explained by the reduction of neuronal NOS in the proximal urethra in experimental group.
Animals ; Arginine ; Denervation ; Ganglion Cysts* ; Humans ; Ligation ; NADP ; NADPH Dehydrogenase ; Neck ; Nerve Fibers ; Neurons* ; Nitric Oxide ; Nitric Oxide Synthase ; Nitric Oxide Synthase Type I* ; Rats* ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Relaxation ; Urethra* ; Urinary Bladder* ; Urinary Bladder, Neurogenic ; Urodynamics

Median raphe cyst is known as congenital lesion of the perineum and genitalia, but its etiology is unclear. Most investigators believe that the median raphe cyst represent defects in the embryologic developenient bf the male genitalia. Simple surgical excision is effective in most cases. We report our experience with two cases of median raphe cyst without specific symptoms. Even though median raphe cyst is asymptomatic, surgical therapy is worth applicable because it relieve a patient from cosmetic and psychotic problem.
Genitalia ; Genitalia, Male ; Humans ; Male ; Perineum ; Research Personnel