Strong corrosive acid is accidentally ingested by children or by psychiatric patients for the purpose of suicidal attempt. Late complications include chemical burn to pharyunx, perforation and stricture of upper gastrointestinal tract, respiratory insufficiencyand renal failure caused by hemoglobinuria following hemolysis. Acetic acid is difficult to ingestion large volume in a time because it is a strong irritant, provocating painful pharynx, and its autopsy case is rare. We report an autopsy case of acetic acid intoxication with acute disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) in several hours. We present pathogenesis of acetic acid intoxication and the associated forensic problems. A comatous 39-year-old female was admitted to emergency room 6 hours after she swallowed 90 gm of acetic acid. She was treated with gastric lavage but she was expired 9 hours after swallowing acetic acid. She was consulted to Department of Forensic Medicine of Kyungpook National University School of Medicine. She was grossly icteric and livor mortis was generally dark red. External wounds were 10 hemorrhagic lesions with 5 x 3.7cm and 3 x 2.8cm on the left arm and hand dorsum and facial abrasions. Internal gross examination revealed several purpural lesions in the gastric serosal surface and greater omentum. Microscopically, the stomach showed diffuse mucosal coagulation necrosis and intravascular hyalinized or fibrinoid thrombi in submucosal blood vessels. Liver showed necrosis of periportal area (zone I) and intracellular cholestasis around the central vein. Sections from renal tissue frequently show hemoglobin casts in the tubules and RBCs in the Bowman's capsules. Acetic acid of a remnant bottle, sampled blood and bloody necrotic tissues in the stomach were toxicologically examined in National Science Laboratory. The purity of ingested acetic acid is 98%, the concentration of acetic acid ion in blood is 734ppm and the content in gastric juice is 0.09%. In patients after acetic acid ingestion, DIC is most probably caused by procoagulants, produced by extensive acid-induced necrosis of the upper gastrointestinal tract. In this case, several purpural lesions were revealed on the arm, around facial abrasion and intravenous injection sites of the wrists. These are important to differentiate with contusion because she was battered before acetic acid ingestion. Purpurae in DIC are poorly demarcated, dark purple elevations with spreading margin but subcutaneous hemorrhage in contusion is grayish black or dark red with well demarcation (Table 2). But careful examination should be considered because traumatic hemorrhage is also exaggerated and mixed in DIC. (The Korean Journal of Legal Medicine)
Acetic Acid* ; Adult ; Arm ; Autopsy ; Blood Vessels ; Burns, Chemical ; Capsules ; Child ; Cholestasis ; Constriction, Pathologic ; Contusions ; Dacarbazine ; Deglutition ; Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation ; Eating ; Emergency Service, Hospital ; Female ; Forensic Medicine ; Gastric Juice ; Gastric Lavage ; Gyeongsangbuk-do ; Hand ; Hemoglobinuria ; Hemolysis ; Hemorrhage ; Humans ; Hyalin ; Injections, Intravenous ; Liver ; Necrosis ; Omentum ; Pharynx ; Postmortem Changes ; Purpura ; Renal Insufficiency ; Stomach ; Upper Gastrointestinal Tract ; Veins ; Wounds and Injuries ; Wrist

The major complications of Meckel's diverticulum(MD) are bleeding, intestinal obstruction, infection, umbilical fistula and perforation. Although the relative incidences vary between authors, bleeding is the most common complication in children. The aim of our study is to show the symptomatic guideline for the diagnosis of the bleeding MD. Eight cases with bleeding MD which were operated upon at the department of Pediatric Surgery, Yeungnam University Hospital from April 1985 to April 2001 were reviewed. Half of the patients were under 2 years of age and all patients were male. All patients were preoperatively diagnosed by previous history of intestinal bleeding (melena, hematochezia) and 99mTc pertechnetate MD scan. Segmental resection and end-to-end anastomosis was performed in 6 patients and diverticulectomy in 2 patients. Heterotropic gastric mucosa was found in 6 patients. Postoperative complication was not observed in any cases. In conclusion, in any male children with obscure intestinal bleeding, especially less than 2 years of age, bleeding MD must be suspected. It seems to us that 99mTc pertechnetate MD scan is a useful tool to diagnose bleeding MD.
Child ; Diagnosis* ; Fistula ; Gastric Mucosa ; Hemorrhage* ; Humans ; Incidence ; Intestinal Obstruction ; Male ; Meckel Diverticulum* ; Postoperative Complications ; Sodium Pertechnetate Tc 99m

Epithelial-myoepithelial carcinoma (EMC) is a rare, often low grade malignant neoplasm that occurs most commonly in the parotid gland. However, EMC originating from a minor salivary gland is extremely rare. A 38-year-old female patient was referred to our department for dysarthria and a huge mass at the base of tongue. Transoral resection of the mass was performed using a midline glossotomy approach. The pathological examination revealed epithelial-myoepithelial carcinoma of a minor salivary gland. Sequential adjuvant chemoradiotherapy was performed. After clinical follow-up of 26 months, she has remained free of disease. We report on this rare condition in order to share our experience.
Adult ; Chemoradiotherapy, Adjuvant ; Dysarthria ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Parotid Gland ; Salivary Glands, Minor* ; Tongue*

The authors would like to amend a reference (Lee et al., 2003) that was cited in "Cell culture" section of "Materials and Methods". Instead of "(Lee et al., 2003)", we would like to change the reference to "(Kim et al., 2003)". In "References", it also needs to include the following reference. Kim YY, Seol HW, Ahn HJ. Temporal expression of differentiation markers in embryoid bodies from various human embryonic stem cell line. International Society for Stem Cell Research 1st Annual Meeting, Washington, DC. U.S.A. June 8-11, 2003, Abstract No. 35. The authors apologize for any inconvenience.

Streptococcus bovis, a group D non-enterococcal organism has recently received increased attention, especially for its role as a cause of infective endocarditis and associated colorectal neoplasm. Infectious endocarditis due to group D streptococci include two non-enterococcal species, S. bovis and S. equinas, which may be mistaken for enterococci in clinical laboratory. However, S. bovis is readily distinguished from the enterococci by screen with bile-esculin hydrolysis and growth in 6.5% NaCl broth. Although endocarditis caused by S. bovis or enterococci share common clinical findings, therapeutically and prognostically, S. bovis endocarditis more resembles infection with viridans group organism. Also the infection of S. bovis significantly increased the prevalence of colorectal cancer in previous report. As discussed above, the patients with S. bovis endocarditis are carried out study of colorectal cancer. We report a case of endocarditis with colon cancer caused by S. bovis in 54 year old female.
Colon* ; Colonic Neoplasms* ; Colorectal Neoplasms ; Endocarditis* ; Female ; Humans ; Hydrolysis ; Middle Aged ; Prevalence ; Streptococcus bovis* ; Streptococcus*

BACKGROUND: Detection of variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) between recipient and donor has been adopted to monitor the degree of chimerism after allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT). In allogeneic SCT, besides MHC-disparity, the disparity of various polymorphous proteins encoded by several genes may play a critical role in the pathogenesis of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). However, the biologic effect of VNTR disparity has been scarcely studied. METHODS: We analyzed 84 patients receiving SCT from HLA-identical sibling (n=68) or unrelated donors (n=16). Enrolled diseases included AML 48, ALL 8, CML 15, NHL 10, and high-risk MDS 3. The PCR was performed to amplify 3 VNTR regions (D1S80, D1S111, and D17S5). RESULTS: We observed strong correlation between the D1S80 disparity and transplant outcomes in terms of OS (P=0.0179) or non-relapse mortality (NRM) (P=0.0305), but not for D1S111 or D17S5 disparity. The D1S80-fully matched pair showed a better OS (72% vs 38%) and lower NRM (17% vs 50%) compared to partially matched or mismatched pairs. In multivariate analyses, D1S80-fully matched pair was found to be independent favorable prognostic factor for OS (P=0.03) or NRM (P=0.05). In addition, the D1S80 disparity was significantly associated with the myeloid engraftment speed (P=0.01) or the occurrence of gut chronic GVHD (P=0.05). CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that disparities in D1S80-located on chromosome1-seemed to be associated with increased incidence of gut chronic GVHD and NRMs, thus suggesting the existence of unknown genes of minor histocompatibility antigens targeting gut or cytokine/cytokine receptor on chromosome 1.
Chimerism ; Chromosomes, Human, Pair 1 ; Graft vs Host Disease ; Humans ; Incidence ; Minisatellite Repeats* ; Minor Histocompatibility Antigens ; Mortality ; Multivariate Analysis ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Siblings ; Stem Cell Transplantation* ; Stem Cells* ; Tissue Donors* ; Unrelated Donors

Human embryonic stem (hES) cells are capable of differentiating into pluralistic cell types, however, spontaneous differentiation generally gives rise to a limited number of specific differentiated cell types and a large degree of cell heterogeneity. In an effort to increase the efficiency of specified hES cell differentiation, we performed a series of transient transfection of hES cells with EGFP expression vectors driven by different promoter systems, including human cellular polypeptide chain elongation factor 1 alpha (hEF1alpha), human cytomegalo-virus, and chicken beta-actin. All these promoters were found to lead reporter gene expression in undifferentiated hES cells, but very few drug-selectable transfectants were obtained and failed to maintain stable expression of the transgene with either chemical or electroporation methods. In an attempt to increase transfection efficiency and obtain stable transgene expression, differentiated hES cells expressing both mesodermal and ectodermal markers were derived using a defined medium. Differentiated hES cells were electroporated with a hEF1alpha promoter-driven EGFP or human noggin expression vector. Using RT-PCR, immunocytochemistry and fluorescence microscopy, the differentiated hES cells transfected with foreign genes were confirmed to retain stable gene and protein expression during prolonged culture. These results may provide a new tool for introducing exogenous genes readily into hES cells, thereby facilitating more directed differentiation into specific and homogenous cell populations.
Actins/genetics ; Animals ; Bone Morphogenetic Proteins/genetics ; *Cell Differentiation ; Chickens ; Cytomegalovirus/genetics ; Drug Delivery Systems ; Embryo/*cytology ; *Gene Therapy ; Green Fluorescent Proteins/genetics/*metabolism ; Humans ; Immunoenzyme Techniques ; Microscopy, Fluorescence ; Peptide Elongation Factor 1/genetics ; Pluripotent Stem Cells/*cytology ; Promoter Regions (Genetics)/*genetics ; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't ; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Transcription, Genetic/genetics