A Prospective study was done about incidence and treatment of hemodynamically significant' patent ductus arteriosus in premature infants admitted to neonatal intensive care unit of Ewha University Hospital from Feb. 1984 for one year. The results were as follows; 1) Among 46 infants with birth weight less than 2,000gm and gestational period 36 wks, 15(32.6%) developed a hemodynamically significant PDA. 2) The incidence of respiratory distress syndrome was six times higher in PDA group than that of non-PDA group(73.3% vs 12.9%). 3) The need for ventilatory assistance was five times higher in PDA group than that of non-PDA group(80% vs 16.1%). 4) The mortality rate was 40% in PDA group, 15% in non-PDA group. 5) The ratio of left atrium to aorta(LA/AO) in M-mode echocardiography was significantly higher in PDA group than that of non-PDA group(1.21+/-0.18 vs 0.93+/-0.23). 6) Indomethacin treated with usual medical therapy resulted in ductal closure in 80%, 20% with usual medical therapy only. 7) The mean LA/AO ratio was significantly decreased after indomethacin treatment(1.15+/-0.13 vs 1.21+/-0.18). 8) The change of the value of plasma sodium and potassium was not significant during indomethacin therapy, whereas BUN, creatinine value was increased during treatment, but that was reversible.
Birth Weight ; Creatinine ; Ductus Arteriosus, Patent* ; Echocardiography ; Heart Atria ; Humans ; Incidence ; Indomethacin ; Infant ; Infant, Newborn ; Infant, Premature* ; Intensive Care, Neonatal ; Mortality ; Plasma ; Potassium ; Prospective Studies ; Sodium

OBJECTIVES: Acrylamide is a neurotoxin inducing central-peripheral distal axonopathy. The authors evaluated several neurologic tests to screen the early effect of occupational acrylamide exposure. METHODS: Fifty-two males working either in the production of acrylamide monomer or in the handling of acrylamide in Ulsan, Korea, were selected and subcategorized into the high-exposure group (n=10, mean age of 30. 4 years) and the low-exposure group (n=42, mean age of 28.9 years). Twenty-three males (mean age 29.4 years) from medical professionals and students were chosen as a non-exposed reference group. Symptom questionnaire, neurologic examination, electrodiagnostic test, vibrotactile threshold test, and Lanthony desaturated 15 panel test (LD-15D) were done. RESULTS: The high-exposure group showed more number of specific symptoms on questionnaire and more abnormal two point discrimination test. High-exposure group showed a significant difference in the median motor conduction velocity, peroneal nerve motor latency, sensory amplitude of median nerve action potential, and sensory latency of sural nerve. The vibrotactile threshold of the high-exposure group was significantly higher in both hands and feet than that of the low-exposure group and the reference group. Average color confusion index on the LD-15D was significantly higher in the high-exposure group (median 22.7, range 0-135.7) than in the reference group (median 2.4, range 0-33.2). CONCLUSIONS: The symptom questionnaire, vibrotactile threshold test, and color discrimination test are sensitive in detection of the early acrylamide-induced neuropathy, and the combination of these tests would further facilitate the effectiveness of the screening.
Acrylamide* ; Action Potentials ; Discrimination (Psychology) ; Foot ; Hand ; Humans ; Korea ; Male ; Mass Screening ; Median Nerve ; Neurologic Examination ; Peroneal Nerve ; Questionnaires ; Sural Nerve ; Ulsan

BACKGROUND: Nitric Oxide (NO) has been discovered to be an important endothelium-derived relaxing factor. The exogenous inhaled NO may diffuse from the alveoli to pulmonary vascular smooth muscle and produce pulmonary vasodilation, but any NO that diffuses into blood will be inactivated before it can produce systemic effects. To examine the effects of NO on pulmonary and systemic hemodynamics, NO was inhaled by experimental dogs in an attempt to reduce the increase in pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) and pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) induced by hypoxia in dogs. METHODS: Eight mongrel dogs were studied while inhaling 1)50% O2 (baseline), 2)12% O2 in N2 (hypoxia), 3)followed by the same hypoxic gas mixture of O2 and N2 containing 20, 40 and 80 ppm of NO, respectively. RESULTS: Breathing at FIO2 0.12 nearly doubled the pulmonary vascular resistance from 173 56dyn sec cm-5 to 407 139dyn sec cm-5 and significantly increased the mean pulmonary artery pressure from 16 3mmHg to 22 4mmHg. After adding 20~80 ppm NO to the inspired gas while maintaining the FIO2 at 0.12, the mean pulmonary artery pressure decreased (p<0.05) to the level when breathing oxygen at FIO2 0.5 while the PaO2 and PaCO2 were unchanged. The pulmonary vascular resistance decreased significantly and the right ventricular stroke work index returned to a level similar to breathing at FIO2 0.5 by addition of NO into the breathing circuit. Pulmonary hypertension resumed within 3~5 minutes of ceasing NO inhalation. In none of our studies did inhaling NO produce systemic hypotension and elevate methemoglobin levels. CONCLUSIONS: Inhalation of 20~80 ppm NO selectively induced pulmonary vasodilation and reversed hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction without causing systemic vasodilation and bronchodilation. Methemoglobin and NO2 were within normal limit during the study.
Animals ; Anoxia ; Dogs ; Endothelium-Dependent Relaxing Factors ; Hemodynamics* ; Hypertension, Pulmonary ; Hypotension ; Inhalation* ; Methemoglobin ; Muscle, Smooth, Vascular ; Nitric Oxide* ; Oxygen ; Pulmonary Artery ; Respiration ; Stroke ; Vascular Resistance ; Vasoconstriction* ; Vasodilation

OBJECTIVE: Mammalian follicle cells are the most important somatic cells which help oocytes grow, mature and ovulate and thus are believed to provide oocytes with various functional and structural components. In the present study we have examined whether cumulus or granulosa cells might play a role in establishing the plasma membrane structure of mouse oocytes during meiotic maturation. DESIGN: In particular the differential resistances of mouse oocytes against chymotrypsin treatment were examined following culture with or without cumulus or granulosa cells, or in these cell-conditioned media. RESULTS: When mouse denuded oocytes, freed from their surrounding cumulus cells, were cultured in vitro for 17~18 hr and then treated with 1% chymotrypsin, half of the oocytes underwent degeneration within 37.5 min (t50=37.5+/-7.5 min) after the treatment. In contrast cumulus-enclosed oocytes showed t50=207.0. Similarly, when oocytes were co-cultured with cumulus cells which were not associated with the oocytes but present in the same medium, the t50 of co-cultured oocytes was 177.5+/-13.1 min. Furthermore, when oocytes were cultured in the cumulus cell-conditioned medium, t50 of these oocytes was 190.0+/-10.8 min whereas t50 of the oocytes cultured in M16 alone was 25.5+/-2.9 min. Granulosa cell-conditioned medium also increased the resistance of oocytes against chymotrypsin treatment such that t50 of oocytes cultured in granulosa cell-conditioned medium was 152.5+/-19.0 min while that of oocytes cultured in M16 alone was 70.0+/-8.2 min. To see what molecular components of follicle cell-conditioned medium are involved in the above effects, the granulosa cell-conditioned medium was separated into two factions by using Microcon-10 membrane filter having a 10 kDa cut-off range. When denuded oocytes were cultured in medium containing the retentate, t50 of the oocytes was 70.0+/-10.5 min. In contrast, t50 of the denuded oocytes cultured in medium containing the filtrate was 142.0+/-26.5 min. T50 of denuded oocytes cultured in medium containing both retentate and filtrate was 188.0+/- 13.6 min. However, t50 of denuded oocytes cultured in M16 alone was 70.0 +/-11.0 min and that of oocytes cultured in whole granulosa cell-conditioned medium was 156.0+/-27.9 min. When surface membrane proteins of oocytes were electrophoretically analyzed, no difference was found between the protein profiles of oocytes cultured in M16 alone and of those cultured in the filtrate. CONCLUSIONS: Based upon these results, it is concluded that mouse follicle cells secrete a factor(s) which enhance the resistance of mouse oocytes against a proteolytic enzyme treatment. The factor appears to be a small molecules having a molecular weight less than 10 kDa.
Animals ; Cell Membrane ; Chymotrypsin* ; Cumulus Cells ; Female ; Granulosa Cells ; Membrane Proteins ; Membranes ; Mice* ; Molecular Weight ; Oocytes*

No abstract available.
Animals ; Dogs* ; Lactic Acid*

No abstract available.
Genes, Viral* ; Hepatitis B virus* ; Hepatitis B* ; Hepatitis*

No abstract available.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis* ; Mycobacterium* ; Polymerase Chain Reaction* ; Sputum*

AO bilirubinometer is a direct reading spectrophotometer specifically designed to measure total bilirubin using sera from newborn infantsl A study was performed to compare the bilirubin values obtained using the AO bilirubibometer and modified Diazo method(Rappaport method). The results were as follows : 1. The average percentage of recovery of AO bilirubinometer was 98.7%, while modified Diazo method was represented as 95.3%. 2. In comparison of two bilirubin techniques, the regression is linear, expressed by Y=1.16X-2.42, where values obtained as the bilirubinometer was on X axis and those from the modified Diazo mt\ethod on Y axis. The correlation coefficient was 0.95. 3. The variability of bilirubin values by cuvette was negligible, average percentage of variation coefficient being 0.1%. 4. The variability of bilirubin values by examiner was also negligible, the evarage percentage of bilirubin variation coefficient being 0.67%.
Axis, Cervical Vertebra ; Bilirubin ; Humans ; Hyperbilirubinemia, Neonatal* ; Infant, Newborn

Leiomyosarcoma of the rectum is a extremely rare disease without well documented report on its management and prognosis. The most complicated problem lies on the correct diagnosis. Many pathologic and histologic criteria have been proposed to make it clear. The treatment of rectal leiomyosarcoma is controversial. Some authors recommand wide local excison for low-grade tumors as much as 2 cm in diameter. However, radical abdominoperineal resection is the procedure of choice. Leiomyosarcoma of the rectum is resistant to radiotherapy, and no single effective chemotherapeutic drug has been found yet, although adriamycin is effective in one third of all cases. The local recurrence rate was much higher in patients receiving wide local excision and the overall 5-year or 10-year survival rate is similar. We report a case of rectal leiomyosarcoma and review the literature.
Diagnosis ; Doxorubicin ; Humans ; Leiomyosarcoma* ; Prognosis ; Radiotherapy ; Rare Diseases ; Rectum* ; Recurrence ; Survival Rate

Clinical studies were performed that the patient with angina pectoris having no responses to Ca++ antagonist and beta-blocker had been taken nicorandil 5mg bid daily with, beta-blokade and Ca++ antagonists for 3 weeks. The results after the use of nicorandil were as follows; 1) The clinical symptoms after the use of nicorandil were improved in 20(80%) of 25 patients, specially marked improved in 16 of 25 patients. There was no significant changes of BP and heart rate after the use of nicorandil. 2) The results of CBC, urinalysis, serum chemistry exa. and chest P-A were within normal range before and after the use of nicorandil. 3) After the use of nicorandil, ST segments depressed in 13 of 25 patients before use of nicorandil was elevated in 8(61.6%) of 13 cases after the use of that. QT interval, P-R interval and T wave in 25 cases were within normal range before and after the use of that. The M mode echocardiography showed the decreased movement of ventricular septum in 19 of 25 patients before the use of Nicorandil, and there was no changes after the use of that. 4) The adverse effects after the use of nicorandil to 25 patients were as follows: headache in 3(12%), nausea and vomiting 2(8%), palpitation 1(4%), upper abdominal discomfort 1(4%), and facial flushing 1(4%).
Angina Pectoris* ; Chemistry ; Echocardiography ; Flushing ; Headache ; Heart Rate ; Humans ; Nausea ; Nicorandil* ; Reference Values ; Thorax ; Urinalysis ; Ventricular Septum ; Vomiting