The attitude toward the use of autopsies affects the incidence of performance of the procedure. In foreign countries, many studies on this subjects have been conducted. However, in Korea, no study has been reported. We hypothesized that the general university students may be negative, whereas the medical college students may have positive attitude toward the use of autopsies. In contrary to our hypothesis, there existed only a little difference for the attitude toward conducting an autopsy between the general university students and the medical students. Both groups had positive attitudes toward autopsy. When the medical students become medical doctors, the main reason for not requesting patients to be conducted an autopsy is that their family members may feel offended. These results show that the low incidence of autopsy cases in Korea is caused not by the attitude of the general population, but by the attitude of medical doctors. Thus, we should make every effort to increase the incidence of autopsy by educational programs and discussions about autopsy and death.
Autopsy* ; Humans ; Incidence ; Korea ; Students, Medical

Cytophagic histiocytic panniculitis is a rescently described histiocytic disorder. It is characterized by the presence of fever, pancytopenia, and subcutaneous nodules resulting from the infiltration of lympho-histiocytes in the dermis and subcutaneous adipose tissue. The characteristic findings is presence of bean-bag histiocytes containing phagocytized red blood cells, lymphocytes, and platelets. We experienced two cases of cytophagic histiocytic panniculitis with hard and erythematous subcutaneous nodules. These skin lesions exhibited infiltration of the subcutaneous tissue by large, benign histiocytes with cytophagic features. Hemophagocytic histiocytes were observed in the cervical lymph node in case 1, and bone marrow in case 2. One patient is alive, while the other one died with hemorrhagic complications.

A case of malignant eccrine acrospiroma of the anterior chest wall is reported. This mass had been present for 20 years and during rescent 5 years it showed frequent ulceration and bleeding suggesting malignant transformation. Microscopically, several foci malignant transformation from preexisting benign eccrine acrospiroma are seen and in immunohistochemical staining, the tumor cells both benign and malignant portion, show positive reaction to cytokeratin.

Allele-and genotype frequencies of the two short tandem repeat (STR) loci, HumFGA and D21S11, were determined in Korean population(n=196). DNA typing was accomplished by applying fluorescence-labeled PCR products and a differently labeled sequenced allelic ladders, followed by automated analysis using ABI 377 automatic sequencer and GeneScan 2.02 software. Prior to typing, allelic ladder of each locus was constructed with a combination of all alleles occuring from the population sample. A total of 15 alleles and 48 genotypes with the heterozygosity of 0.854 for HumFGA, and 12 alleles and 33 genotypes with the heterozygosity of 0.787 for D21S11 are observed in a population of 196 genetically unrelated individuals. No deviations from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium were observed(p=0.753 for HumFGA, p=0.262 for D21S11). The data presented here (power of discrimination and average power of exclusion) show that both STR Loci, HumFGA and D21S11, are very informative for individualization from criminal evidences, and are also useful for parentage testing.
Alleles* ; Criminals ; Discrimination (Psychology) ; DNA Fingerprinting ; Gene Frequency* ; Genotype ; Humans ; Microsatellite Repeats ; Polymerase Chain Reaction

The corrected transposition of the great arteries is a rare congenital heart anomaly consisting of the discordant connections of both the atria to ventricles and the ventricles to the great arteries. But its circulation is physiologically corrected and therefore it is compatible with life unless there are associated lesions. Our case was associated with VSD, COA, and PDA. He was slightly cyanotic and irritable. Despite of oxygen supply, his symptoms were not improved and he eventually died in 52 hours after delivery. Medical record revealed severe respiratory and metabolic acidosis.
Acidosis ; Arteries* ; Heart ; Medical Records ; Oxygen

Pena-Shokeir I syndrome is a multiple malformation syndrome displaying characteristics of camptodactyly, multiple ankylosis, severe muscle weakness, facial anomalies (low set ears, hypertelorism, depressed tip of nose), polyhydramnios, fetal growth retardation & pulmonary hypoplasia which are inherited by autosomal recessive trait. We experienced 1 case of Pena-Shokeir I syndrome in a neonate (41 weeks, 2.08Kg). This patient suffered from dyspnea. Respiratory destress was not relieved after ventilatory care. He died aged 10 days. We report this case with brief review of literature.
Ankylosis ; Dyspnea ; Ear ; Fetal Growth Retardation ; Humans ; Hypertelorism ; Infant* ; Infant, Newborn ; Muscle Weakness ; Polyhydramnios

The p53 gene product has been detected in various human tumors. To investigate the overexpression of the p53 protein in bladder tumor as a marker of tumor progression, the correlation between the overexpression of the p53 protein in bladder and the pathologic grade, stage and survival rate was studied. Among specimens of 47 patients, 19 were from patients of superficial bladder tumor, 28 were from invasive bladder tumor according to pathologic stage, while 15 were from low grade and 32 were from high grade tumors according to Ash grade p53 overexpression was determined by immunohistochemistry using DO-7 primary antibody on paraffin embedded sections and flow cytometry was performed on cell suspensions derived from the same blocks. Histologically normal bladder tissue was used as a control group Conclusions were made as follows: 1. p53 protein overexpression was observed in 31 of 47 cases(65.9%). 2. Seven of 15 specimens from well differentiated tumor(Ash grade I, II) showed positive p53 staining while 24 of 32 cases from poorly differentiated tumor (Ash grade III,IV) showed positive staining. There is a significant correlation between p53 expression and poor pathological grade(p=0.05). 3. Nine of 19 cases with superficial bladder tumor showed positive staining while 22 of28 cases of invasive tumor showed positive staining. There is a significant correlation between p53 protein overexpression and invasive tumor(p=0.027). 4. Flow cytometric examination revealed that 24 of 30 cases with aneuploid group showed positive staining while 7 of 17 cases with diploid group showed positive staining. Aneuploid group showed high correlation with p53 protein overexpression(p=0.007). 5. The survival rates of patients, exhibiting p53 protein overexpression, were slightly worse than those with p53 negative tumor(p=0.08, Wilcoxon test) but this difference was not significant enough to count. 6. p53 protein overexpression was well correlated with grade, stage and flow cytometric analysis in bladder tumor. 7. Multiple linear regression study to survival rate showed the overexpression of p53 protein had little prognostic significance in bladder tumor compared with tumor grade and stage.
Aneuploidy ; Carcinoma, Transitional Cell* ; Diploidy ; Flow Cytometry ; Genes, p53 ; Humans ; Immunohistochemistry ; Linear Models ; Paraffin ; Ploidies* ; Survival Rate ; Suspensions ; Urinary Bladder Neoplasms ; Urinary Bladder*

For 6 months, we experienced 3 cases of unexpected sudden cardiac death unrelated with coronary disease, from 43 cases of forensic autopsy. Diagnosis of each case is aneurysm of Valsalva sinus, dissecting aneurysm of aorta and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, respectively. All of them are young adult male under 30 years old. They had never recognized their disease before their death and they were found dead in the morning. These are very rare cardiovascular disease and are related with sudden death. So we report 3 cases of sudden cardiac death with review of articles.
Adult ; Aneurysm ; Aneurysm, Dissecting ; Aorta ; Autopsy ; Cardiomyopathy, Hypertrophic ; Cardiovascular Diseases ; Coronary Disease ; Death, Sudden ; Death, Sudden, Cardiac* ; Diagnosis ; Humans ; Male ; Sinus of Valsalva ; Young Adult*

Hereditary anhidrotic ectodermal Dysplasia is a congenital disease displaying characteristics of anhidrosis, hypotrichosis and dental defect which are caused by developmental anomaly of ectodermal epidermis and its appendages. We experienced two cases of hereditary anhidrotic ectodermal dysplasia in two-year and four-month old twin brothers. These patients suffered from intermittent high fever early in life which brought them to our clinical attention. However the diagnosis of anhidrotic ectodermal dysplasia was not suspected by means physicians who cared the patients previously. The diagnosis was made on the basis of clinical features, and confirmed by starch iodine sweat test and skin biopsy on the palm and axilla. We report the two cases in a twin brothers with brief review of related literatures.
Axilla ; Biopsy ; Diagnosis ; Ectoderm ; Ectodermal Dysplasia* ; Epidermis ; Fever ; Humans ; Hypohidrosis ; Hypotrichosis ; Iodine ; Siblings ; Skin ; Starch ; Sweat ; Twins*

This paper describes the successful DNA extraction and amplification, and analysis of mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal DNA from an approximately 350-year-old mummy exhumed from Gyunggi-do, South Korea in 2001. Sample tissue was obtained from internal organs such as lung, liver, and muscle of the mummy. Mummy tissue was rehydrated in trisodium phosphate solution, and protein was digested by proteinase K. Sample DNA was extracted using phenol-chloroform-isoamyl alcohol and silica column. Every step of DNA extraction and PCR was cautiously carried out according to general guideline to prevent contamination of the sample DNA. PCR products of mitochondial DNA (mtDNA) were observed with good yield, and sequence analysis of the mtDNA was successfully accomplished in the control regions (HV1, HV2, and HV3). In addition, minimal haplotype Y-STRs were tried to analysis. However, DYS19, DYS389l, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392 and DYS393 were only amplified and clearly genotyped. Sequence analysis of mtDNA and YSTR genotyping were performed more than twice with time intervals, and the results were accepted only when they showed the even profile for authenticating mummy DNA. There are some difficulties in the analysis of DNA from ancient mummified human remains has wellknown problems, such as low template quantity, poor quality of DNA, and the presence of PCR inhibitors. This implies that the most critical factor for ancient DNA analysis is extraction of DNA. In order to overcome these troubles, we used DNA extraction using phenol-chloroform-isoamyl alcohol and silica column and optimized PCR condition. Therefore, the analysis of mtDNA and Y-STRs from mummy was successfully performed.
DNA* ; DNA, Mitochondrial ; Endopeptidase K ; Gyeonggi-do ; Haplotypes ; Humans* ; Korea ; Liver ; Lung ; Mummies ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Sequence Analysis ; Silicon Dioxide