BACKGROUND: The measurement of nonspecific bronchial hyperreactivity is valuable for diagnosis and management of bronchial asthma. Methacholine or histamine is used for the pharmacologic provocation test. Usually a methacholine bronchial provocation test is performed by a dosing technique with counted number of breaths. A dosimeter is indispensable in the dosing technique. Recently a timed tidal breathing technique which dose not need an expensive dosimeter was introduced. We measured the degree of nonspecific bronchial hyperreactivity to histamine using a simple timed tidal breathing technique. METHOD: Forty two healthy volunteers, 12 patients with bronchial asthma(BA), 10 patients with rhinitis(RH) and 10 patients with upper respiratory infection(URI) participated in the study. The subject's nose was clipped and inhalation continued during tidal breathing for 2 minutes via a face mask. FEV1 was measured at 30 seconds, 90 seconds after inhalation and inhalation of next solution was continued until there was a fall in FEV1 of 20%. Histamine PC20 was defined as the concentration at 20% fall of FEV1 and it was obtained from the log dose-response curve by linear interpolation. RESULTS: Inhalation of serial dilution of histamine could be performed in all patients without significant side of effects. The geometric mean±standard deviation of histamine PC20 in healthy volunteers is 8.27±2.22mg/ml, BA group 0.33±3.02mg/ml, RH group 0.85 ±3.24mg/ml, and URI group 1.47±1.98mg/ml. CONCLUSION: Histamine bronchial provocation test using timed tidal breath method is a simple and suitable tool for management of patients with bronchial hyperreactivity.
Asthma ; Bronchial Hyperreactivity ; Bronchial Provocation Tests* ; Diagnosis ; Healthy Volunteers ; Histamine* ; Humans ; Inhalation ; Masks ; Methacholine Chloride ; Nose ; Respiration*

This descriptive study measured the quality of life and the sexual satisfaction for ostomates as an attempt to give nurses basic data to improve life satisfaction of ostomates. The research design was a descriptive study and the data were obtained by Quality of Life questionnaire, and Sexual Satisfaction questionnaire. These data were collected from 21 ostomates undergoing treatment in four university hospitals and one hospital and 36 ostomates depending on one medical agency by direct obtaining method and mailing method from March. 3, to March 24,1997. Data analysis was cone by the SAS computer program and Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation Coefficient, and Cronbach-alpha were used. The results of this study were as follows : 1. The item mean score for quality of life for the ostomates was 3.03. For six subscales in the quality of life scale, the mean scores of subscales were in order of the highest 3.46 for family relationship, and the second scored subscales were economic life(2.84) and physical state(2.96). 2. The item mean score of sexual satisfaction for the ostomate was 2.86. 3. The result of analysis of relationship between quality of life and sexual satisfaction was significant(r=0.21, p=0.05). The relationship between sexual satisfaction and each subscale of quality of life were significant with the self-esteem (r=0.34, p=0.01), physical state(r=0.21, p=0.01). In conclusion, it was found that the quality of life and sexual satisfaction of ostomates were low. The quality of life and sexual satisfaction was correlated. Although chronic disease affect to quality of life and sexual satisfaction, an adequate nursing intervention will improve the life satisfaction.
Chronic Disease ; Family Relations ; Hospitals, University ; Nursing ; Postal Service ; Quality of Life* ; Research Design ; Statistics as Topic ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: This study was conducted to explore the degree of depression, perceived health status, chronic disease and quality of life(QOL) among rural elderly and to determine the factors related to their QOL. METHOD: The design of this study was a correlational study. The subjects were 423 elderly consisted of 157(37.1%) men and 266(62.9%) women dwelling in a rural area of N City. Data were collected from May to December, 2003 using a structured questionnaire. A stepwise multiple regression analysis was performed to identify the factors related to the QOL. RESULT: It was found that the mean score of QOL was in total with 2.15 out of 5.00 and women elderly's score was significantly lower than men(t=2.20, p=.028). Perceived health status showed statistically significant positive relationship with QOL(r=.608, p<.05), while depression(r=-.751, p<.01) and chronic illness(r=-.336, p<.01) showed statistically significant negative relationship. Depression was found to have the highest correlation with QOL among the subjects. Depression score explained QOL at the most, accounting for 36.8% of the variability, followed by perceived health(8.2%) and the number of chronic illness(.7%). Other factors related to the QOL were economic status and absence of spouse. CONCLUSION: In order to increase the QOL of rural elderly, it is necessary to decrease the depression, to increase their perceived health status and to decrease the number of chronic illness. We suggest the implementation of a program not only to promote physical health status and self-care ability but to take care of mental health for the rural elderly.
Aged* ; Chronic Disease ; Depression ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Mental Health ; Quality of Life* ; Self Care ; Spouses ; Surveys and Questionnaires

No abstract available.
Female ; Humans ; Pregnancy ; Pregnancy Trimester, Second*

No abstract available.
Leukemia ; Mucormycosis*

No abstract available.
Leukemia, Hairy Cell*

No abstract available.

This study was done to evaluate the quality of clinical nursing care using the variables of structure, process, and outcome and to analyze the relationship between the variables. This study also explored which variables are validating indicators to evaluate the quality of nursing care. The results analyzed by multiple regression showed that, generally structural variables did not contribute to the variance in outcome scores, but process variables of nursing care contributed significantly to the outcome variable of patient satisfaction. A combination of structure and process variables more than structural variables alone. Also, patient satisfaction and hospital preference were significantly related to each other. Therefore, if nursing quality evaluation relies solely upon on structural variables such as number of available nurses and workload, it would be inaccurate because process variables of nursing care are strongly related to outcome variables and the two categories of structure and process variables helped to strengthen the relationships. Thus, it is important to focus on variables of structure, process, and outcome together in evaluating nursing care quality.
Nursing Care* ; Nursing* ; Patient Satisfaction

A total of 53 gastric adenomas from endoscopically biopsied gastric mucosa were examined histopathologically. The average age at the time of endoscopic biopsy was 59 years, and gastric adenomas were found to be more frequent in the aged, particularly above the age of 50. The majority of adenomas occurred at the antrum. Concerning the shape of the adenomas, Yamada type II was more frequent (55%). All adenomas were accompanied by varying degree of intestinal metaplasia, and this findings suggest that gastric adenoma develops from intestinal metaplasia. In adenomas with severe atypia (grade III), endocrine cells (argyrophil and argentaffin cells) were markedly decreased or absent. Gastric adenocarcinomas coexistent with adenoma were seen in 5 (9.4%) out of 53 cases, and were more frequent in male than female patients (sex ratio, 4:1) and the average age was 61.4 years. It is suggested that there is a necessity of thorough follow-up study for definitive correlation between gastric adenoma and adenocarcinoma.
Adenocarcinoma ; Adenoma* ; Biopsy ; Endocrine Cells ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Gastric Mucosa ; Humans ; Male ; Metaplasia ; Stomach

PURPOSE: This study was undertaken to determine the incidence of chromosome 22q11 deletion in patients with infundibular ventricular septal defect(VSD). METHODS: Sixty-two children with infundibular VSD were included in this study from January 1999 to December 2000. Chromosome 22q11 deletion was confirmed by FISH, using LSI DiGeorge/VCFS region dual color probe(Vysis, USA). RESULTS: Thirty-two patients had conotruncal cardiac defects:tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) in 15; TOF with absent pulmonary valve in 1; VSD with pulmonary atresia in 7; truncus arteriosus in 3; double outlet right ventricle in 2; interrupted aortic arch in 2; transposition of the great arteries in 2. Thirty patients had isolated infundibular VSD without conotruncal cardiac defect:perimembranous infundibular VSD in 15; subarterial infundibular VSD in 9; muscular infundibular VSD in 6. Chromosome 22q11 deletion was observed in 8 patients(male 5, female 3):TOF 2; VSD with pulmonary atresia 4; truncus arteriosus 1; perimembranous infundibular VSD 1. All of the patients with chromosome 21q11 deletion showed typical facial appearance. Low incidence was found of chromosome 22q11 deletion in patients with infundibular VSD without conotruncal cardiac defect than in those with conotruncal cardiac defect(3.3% vs 21.9%). CONCLUSION: These data indicate that a small proportion of isolated infundibular VSD is pathogenetically related to deletion of chromosome region 22q11.
Aorta, Thoracic ; Arteries ; Child ; Double Outlet Right Ventricle ; Female ; Heart Septal Defects, Ventricular* ; Humans ; Incidence ; Pulmonary Atresia ; Pulmonary Valve ; Truncus Arteriosus