PURPOSE: Music therapy is a non-pharmacological treatment of the behavioral and psychological symptoms. This study was conducted to contribute to the rehabilitation of patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease in the areas of functionality, emotionality and sociability. METHODS: The study included 35 participants, aged between 52 and 77 years, who were diagnosed with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPD) and reported suffering from depression, chronic illness anticipated stigma, and worrying about quality of life . The patients were recruited from the department of outpatient neurology at School of Medicine, D University in B Metropolitan City. Group music therapy was performed for nine weeks. The results were analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA. RESULTS: In terms of stigma, there were significant differences between two groups and time (p<.05). Analysis of the interaction between time and service method revealed significant differences (p<.05). Between time, and the interaction between time and service method revealed significant differences in terms of quality of life (p<.05). CONCLUSION: The results suggest that group music therapy will be effective on the psychosocial well-being of patients with Parkinson's disease living in assisted and independent living communities.
Chronic Disease ; Depression ; Humans ; Independent Living ; Methods ; Music Therapy* ; Music* ; Neurology ; Outpatients ; Parkinson Disease* ; Quality of Life ; Rehabilitation

PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to evaluate stage IV breast cancer at the initial presentation by the review of a single institute' data. We also tried to figure out the factors to predict stage IV breast cancer. METHODS: We reviewed the prospectively collected database of 1,424 consecutive patients with primary breast cancer at the National Cancer Center in Korea from October 2000 to January 2005. RESULTS: The proportion of stage IV breast cancer was 2.7% (38/1,424). The median tumor size of the stage IV patients was 4.1 cm. The most common metastatic site was bone (47.4%) followed by lung (44.7%) and liver (36.8%). Metastases were found in 0.9% (6/672) of the T1 tumors, 2.4% (13/535) of the T2 tumors, 8.3% (4/48) of the T3 tumors, and 27.1% (13/48) of the T4 tumors (p<0.001). On multivariate analysis, the statistically significant predictors of distant metastasis were tumor size (> or =2 cm) (p=0.026), positive lymph node status (p<0.001), alkaline phosphatase (>104 IU/L) (p=0.013), aspartate transferase (>40 IU/L) (p=0.003) and CA15-3 (>32 U/mL) (p=0.025). CONCLUSION: Our study showed that the factors to predict distant metastasis of breast cancer were large size of tumor, positive lymph node status, elevated alkaline phosphatase, aspartate transferase and CA15-3. Therefore breast cancer patients with those clinical characteristics should be carefully evaluated to detect distant metastasis.
Alkaline Phosphatase ; Aspartic Acid ; Breast Neoplasms* ; Breast* ; Humans ; Korea ; Liver ; Lung ; Lymph Nodes ; Multivariate Analysis ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Prospective Studies ; Transferases

Teratomas comprise the most common extragonadal germ cell tumors in childhood. Most teratomas involving the thyroid are benign and occur in children. However, the adult cases reported are mostly malignant and commonly arise in the thyroid. We report a case of a 31-yr-old female with a huge neck mass. Pathologic examination revealed it to be malignant teratoma composed of primitive neuroepithelial tissue with primitive neural tubes and loose myxoid to fibrous immature mesenchymal stroma. The patient underwent extensive evaluation of the thyroid gland with computed tomography (CT) scan and positron emission tomography (PET) scan, which revealed no evidence of metastatic disease. She underwent total thyroidectomy with bilateral modified radical neck dissection, intensive chemotherapy and radiotherapy. At 22-months of follow-up, the patient has remained euthyroid and showed no evidence of recurrence. This is the first case, to our knowledge, of malignant thyroid teratoma with a exuberant primitive neuroectodermal tumor component in Korea.
Adult ; Female ; Head and Neck Neoplasms/pathology ; Humans ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Neuroectodermal Tumors, Primitive/*complications/diagnosis/*pathology ; Positron-Emission Tomography/methods ; Teratoma/*complications/diagnosis/*pathology ; Thyroid Diseases/diagnosis ; Thyroid Gland/*pathology ; Thyroidectomy ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed