No Abstract available.
Infection Control*

Tono-pne and Perkins tonometer have been widely accepted to measure the intraocular pressure(IOP) of children under the general anesthesia because of their portability. We evaluated the difference of IOP between two devices and the IOP variability in 39 children(77 eyes) under age 13 who had undergone surgery for strabismus or entropin under the general anesthesia. One observer measured the IOP three times alternately, and the order of measurement was randomized. Only 5% of Tono-pens coefficient of variance was considered valuable. The range of Tono-pen IOPs was 9~22mmHg, and the average was 15.41+/-3.23mmHg. The range of Perkins IOPs was 4~20 mmHg, with the average of 12.47+/-3.31mmHg. The difference between two methods on average was 2.94mmHg. Tono-pen IOPs were significantly greater than those recorded by Perkins tonometer, but both were within normal range. The IOP variability was not significantly different between two devices. Therefore both methods can be applied effectively in a clinical setting after sedation or general anesthesia of uncooperative children.
Anesthesia, General* ; Child* ; Humans ; Intraocular Pressure* ; Reference Values ; Strabismus

The authors have been developed a menu-driven FoxBASE system for surgical pathology reporting and automatic encoding in Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine. The system requires no prior knowledge of FoxBASE and is readily installed on any IBM or it's compatible personal computer. Working sheet generation is automatically accompanied by data from previous cases on the same patient. Important data which include patient name, age, sex, surgical number, hospital unit number and encoded diagnoses, are stored on the hard disk permanently; complete reports are saved on floppy diskettes. Cases can be retrieved by patient name, surgical number, hospital unit number and SNOMED codes within 0.1 second. Daily work lists and listings of incomplete cases are easily obtained. This FoxBASE system has been in use for 1 year and 6 months and resulted in increased efficiency of retrieval and gathering of basic information for specific study, cost effectiveness, markedly diminished workload of typist and very short wasting time during complete restoration of data file for hard disk failure.

No abstract available.
Dialysis* ; Humans ; Kidney Failure, Chronic* ; Quality of Life*

No abstract available.
Dialysis* ; Humans ; Kidney Failure, Chronic* ; Quality of Life*

Tear film consists of lipid layer, aqueous layer, and mucinous layer, and it acts as protection of cornea, nutritional supply, and refraction. The assumption of this study is that the use of contact lens may induce the rapid drainage of tear film, and may make it become thin, and may affect the function of corneal epithelium, and may induce several complication. The author analysed 168 volunteers of medical students. The volunteers consisted of junior and senior grades in Ewha Womans University were classified into two groups. One group was the users of contact lenses(70), and the other group was non-users of contacts lenses who have not any other ocular problems control group(98). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of tear secretion in fitting contact lens. The results were as follows; 1. Mean value and standard deviation of Schirmer test showed; contact lens group was 20.5 +/- 8.0mm/5min, and control group was 21.2 +/- 8.2mm/5min. There was no statistical significance between two groups. 2. The author could not obtain the statistical difference the users of soft contact lenses and the users of hard contact lenses, because the number of the users of hard contact lenses was so small in contrast to that of the users of soft contact lenses. 3. There was no significant correlation between daily wearing time and the result of Schimer test. 4. The correlation between the wearing period of contact lens and the result of Schirmer test showed; the longer wearing period of contact lens was, the longer wetting length of Schirmer test paper was, but it was not statistically significant. The authors concluded that the use of contact lens does not affect the secretion of tear.
Contact Lenses ; Contact Lenses, Hydrophilic ; Cornea ; Drainage ; Epithelium, Corneal ; Female ; Humans ; Mucins ; Students, Medical ; Tears* ; Volunteers

We analysed retrospectively pharmacokinetic parameters of gentamicin and amikacin in 44 and 58 Korean pediatric patients, respectively, with normal renal function. Pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated from two concentrations in serum by method of Sawchuck. There was wide individual variation in peak serum concentrations of gentamicin and amikacin, Administration of the usually recommended doses yielded subtherapeutic concentrations in 47% and 82%, respectevely, of patients in the peak concentrations of gentamicin and amikacin. The volumes of distribution of gentamicin and amikacin in children of over 1 year of age were 0.37+/-0.13L/kg and 0.41+/-0.13L/kg which are greater than those reported from the western countries. We conclude that the wide individual variation and high frequency of subtherapeutic levels in the peak concentrations of gentamicin and amikacin obtained by usually recommended dosage as well as the narrow safety margin of these drugs necessitate monitoring of serum concentration and adjustment of individual dosage regimen early in the course of treatment with aminoglycosides.
Amikacin* ; Aminoglycosides ; Child* ; Gentamicins* ; Humans ; Pharmacokinetics* ; Retrospective Studies

OBJECTIVE: Among causes of sudden death presumed to be related with use of atypical antipsychotics, all drugs which could induce torsade de pointes had been known to prolong QTc interval. Therefore, to monitor the changes of QTc interval on EKG seemed to be an important marker for the antipsychotic-induced cardiotoxicity, further to prevent sudden death due to fatal ventricular arrythmia. There are several studies and case reports about cardiac toxicity in some patients who were administered newly developed atypical antipsychotics. The aims of this study were to know whether quetiapine causes changes in QTc interval, and to identify affecting factors. METHODS: For the 31 inpatients (21 females, 10 males) with schizophrenia (N=25) or schizoaffective disorder (N=5), schizophreniform disorder (N=1) according to DSM-IV, the EKG monitoring was successively taken on baseline and the 2nd, 4th and 6th weeks after quetiapine administration, and serial changes of every EKG parameters including QTc interval was comparatively analyzed. Furthermore, variables such as cardiovascular risk factors (weight gain, hyperlipidemia, thyroid function, etc.), dose of drugs, drug combination, severity of psychotic symptoms, changes in the activity of autonomic nervous system despite of sex and age were also successively assessed on baseline and the 2, 4, and 6 weeks after quetiapine administration. RESULTS: 1) Every EKG parameters (heart rate, PR interval, QRS and QT) including QTc interval and diastolic blood pressure were not changed significantly on the 2, 4, and 6 weeks after quetiapine administration as compared with baseline. The systolic pressure was significantly declined form the 2 weeks after quetiapine administration as compared with baseline (p<0.05). 2) Among variables affecting the EKG parameters including QTc interval, age, dose of drugs, hyperlipidemia and thyroid function were not correlated with. However, the body weight on the 6 weeks after quetiapine administration had significant negative correlation with QT (gamma=-0.427)and QTc interval (gamma=-0.406), and the drug combination on the 6 weeks after quetiapine treatment had significant positive correlation with QRS (gamma=0.393) and QT (gamma=0.415), while severity of psychotic symptoms on the 4th week had correlation with QT (gamma=0.380) (p<0.05, respectively). Otherwise, the QTc interval on the 6 weeks after was significantly prolonged in female patients (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: Even though the administration of quetiapine did not cause significant changes in the QTc interval in this study, we need to pay attention toward the possibly related factors.
Antipsychotic Agents ; Arrhythmias, Cardiac ; Autonomic Nervous System ; Blood Pressure ; Body Weight ; Death, Sudden ; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ; Electrocardiography ; Female ; Humans ; Hyperlipidemias ; Inpatients ; Psychotic Disorders ; Risk Factors ; Schizophrenia ; Thyroid Gland ; Torsades de Pointes ; Quetiapine Fumarate

A cytogenetic study was performed on 4,117 Korean patients referred for suspected chromosomal abnormalities. Chromosome aberrations were identified in 17.5% of the referred cases. The most common autosomal abnormality was Down syndrome and Turner syndrome in abnormalities of sex chromosome. The proportions of different karyotypes in Down syndrome (trisomy 21 92.5%, translocation 5.1%, mosaic 2.4%) were similar to those reported in other countries. However, it was different in Turner syndrome (45, X 28.1%, mosaic 50.8%, 46, X, del (Xq) 4.4%, 46, X, i (Xq) 16.7%), in which proportions of mosaics and isochromosome, 46, X, i(Xq), were higher than those reported in other countries. In structural chromosome aberrations of autosome, translocation was the most common (43.6%), and duplication (21.3%), deletion (14.4%), marker chromosome (7.9%) and ring chromosome (4.0%) followed in order of frequency. Rates of several normal variant karyotypes were also described. Inversion of chromosome 9 was observed in 1.7% of total referred cases.
Adolescence ; Chromosomes, Human, Pair 6 ; Down Syndrome/genetics* ; Down Syndrome/epidemiology* ; Family Health ; Female ; Gene Deletion ; Human ; Infant, Newborn ; Inversion (Genetics) ; Karyotyping ; Klinefelter's Syndrome/genetics ; Klinefelter's Syndrome/epidemiology ; Korea/epidemiology ; Male ; Mosaicism ; Prevalence ; Translocation (Genetics) ; Turner's Syndrome/genetics* ; Turner's Syndrome/epidemiology* ; X Chromosome ; Y Chromosome

OBJECTIVES: The aims of this study were to assess the morale of Korean elders, to analyze the affecting factors, and to look for the ways to raise their morale. METHODS: The structured interviews and measurements of depression (Four-Item Geriatric Depression Scale and Vulnerability Factors), cognitive function (Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire) and morale(Measurement of Morale in the Elderly Scale, MMES) were taken for the 50 Korean elders (28 females and 22 males) with age over 65 who were visiting Jong Myo during January to February in 2004. RESULTS: 1) In Korean elders, the mean scores of total MMES were 100.82+/-12.36. According to the items, mean scores of Satisfaction were 43.52+/-5.14, Equanimity 36.80+/-7.53, Will-to-live 20.00+/-4.43. 2) The total MMES scores were significantly affected by variables such as income (p<0.05), economy (p<0.005), elder abuse (p<0.01) and depression (p<0.001). While other variables including age, residence, education, number of children, sex, religion, spouse, job, illness and cognitive function were not related. CONCLUSION: To encourage morale in the Korean elders, economic support by welfarism, socio-legal prevention of elder abuse, and active involvement of geropsychiatrists into the early detection and treatment of depression must be needed.
Aged ; Child ; Depression ; Education ; Elder Abuse ; Female ; Humans ; Morale* ; Spouses