A long nose with a drooping tip is a major aesthetic problem. It creates a negative and aged appearance and looks worse when smiling. In order to rectify this problem, the underlying anatomical causes should be understood and corrected simultaneously to optimize surgical outcomes. The causes of a drooping tip of a long nose are generally classified into two mechanisms. Static causes usually result from malposition and incorrect innate shape of the nasal structure: the nasal septum, upper and lower lateral cartilages, and the ligaments in between. The dynamic causes result from the facial expression muscles, the depressor septi nasi muscle, and the levator labii superioris alaeque nasi muscle. The depressor septi nasi depresses the nasal tip and the levator labii superioris alaeque nasi pulls the alar base upwards. Many surgical methods have been introduced, but partial approaches to correct such deformities generally do not satisfy East Asians, making the problem more challenging to surgeons. Typically, East Asians have thick nasal tip soft tissue and skin, and a depressed columella and alar bases. The authors suggest that multifactorial approaches to static and dynamic factors along with ancillary causes should be considered for correcting the drooping tip of the long noses of East Asians.
Asian Continental Ancestry Group* ; Cartilage ; Congenital Abnormalities ; Esthetics ; Facial Expression ; Humans ; Ligaments ; Muscles ; Nasal Septum ; Nose* ; Rhinoplasty ; Skin ; Smiling

Primary pulmonary amyloidosis is a rare disease, and is classified as either tracheobronchial or parenchymal ; the latter is also divided into nodular and diffuse alveolar septal forms. The alveolar form is extremely rare and usually produces reticular and nodular opacities. We describe a case of alveolar septal pulmonary amyloidosis manifested as multiple small nodules on chest radiograph and disseminated micronodules mainly in centrilobular and subpleural location without reticular opacities, on HRCT.
Amyloidosis* ; Radiography, Thoracic ; Rare Diseases

For young children with scoliosis before growth spurt, suhcutaneous lengthening without fusion was designed by Harrington and modified by Moe and Luque. However, many problems including spontaneous fusion, rod breakage, and hook disloclgement have been ohserved. CotrelDubousset(CD) instrumentation was sometimes used, but it usually resulted in failure due to soft tissue adhesion around the rough surface of ordinary CD rod. We tried to use the smooth CD rod, transvcrse-pedicle clawing on the upper part, and pedicle screw inscrtion on upper and lower part of the curve to reduce the hardware failures. Among 8 patients in whom suhcutaneous lengthening with smooth CD rod was carried out hetween October l992 and Suly 1996. 4 cases perfomed with final spinal fusion were analysed. There were I central core disease, 1 multicore disease and 2 idiopathic scoliosis(infantile and juvenile type). Mean age at the first operation was l0.0(8.8-11.8) years, and the Risser sign was all grade 0 except one with grade 1. Suhcutaneous lengthening was performed every 5 or 6 months Mean lengthening duration was 22(9-39) months and mean age at spinal fusion was 11.7(9.6-13.8) years. Mean Cobb angle decreased from 7ldegrees (55degrees-88degrees) at preoperative stage to 32 (10degrees-59degrees) at the last follow-up. There were 5 complications during 21 operations, and three hardware failures comprised 2 hook dislodgcment and 1 screw pull-out. Crankshaft phenomenon happened in I case who had had a posterior fusion in young age(9.6 years) due to laminar fracture. The suhcutaneous lengthening with smooth CD rod can he another option of treatment for young children with severe scoliosis. prescrving the powth potential of involved vertebrae with few complications.
Animals ; Child* ; Follow-Up Studies ; Hoof and Claw ; Humans ; Myopathy, Central Core ; Scoliosis* ; Spinal Fusion ; Spine ; Tissue Adhesions

No abstract available.

BACKGROUND: It was known that conventional stress-redistribution imaging was not adequate for detection of severely ischemic but viable myocardium. Albeit the gold criteria of viable myocardium is the presence of metabolism which can be detected by PET, reinjection technique was reported to be able to identify most, if not all, of viable myocardium. Because reinjection imaging is performed immediately after redistribution imaging, an additional redistribution could be happened if we follow the patient longer. To prove the guess authors performed an additional delayed imaging 24 hours after reinjection of 201T1. METHODS: Subject patients were 20 ischemic heart disease patients who showed irreversible perfusion defect(s) on standard pharmacologic(dipyridamole) stress-redistribution images. Immediately after the redistribution images were obtained, 37 MBq thallium was injected at rest, and images were reacquired at 10 minutes and 24 hours after reinjection. Four sets of images(stress, redistribution, reinjection and delayed images) were then analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Left ventricle was arbitrarily divided into 9 segments(apex, proximal and distal portions of anterior, septal, inferior and lateral walls). RESULTS: These were 45 irreversible perfusion defects in 20 subject patients, of which 21(46.7%) showed improved thallium uptake after reinjection. Among these 21 segments 2 demonstrated further improvement of uptake on 24-hour delayed images, of the 24 regions determined to have persistent defects after reinjection. 10(41.7%) showed improved uptake on delayed images. CONCLUSIONS: In addition to reinjection imaging, 24-hour delayed imaging after reinjection was also helpful to identify severely ischemic but viable myocardium.
Dipyridamole* ; Heart Ventricles ; Humans ; Metabolism ; Myocardial Ischemia ; Myocardium* ; Perfusion ; Thallium ; Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon*

Tuberculous spondylitis is a very rare disease, but it can result in bone destruction, kyphotic deformity, spinal instability, and neurologic complications unless early diagnosis and proper management are done. Because the most common symptom of tuberculous spondylitis is back pain, it can often be misdiagnosed. Atypical tuberculous spondylitis can be presented as a metastatic cancer or a primary vertebral tumor. We must make a differential diagnosis through adequate biopsy. A 30-year-old man visited our clinic due to back and chest pain after a recent traffic accident. About 1 year ago, he had successfully recovered from tuberculous pleurisy after taking anti-tuberculosis medication. We performed epidural and intercostal blocks but the pain was not relieved. For the further evaluation, several imaging and laboratory tests were done. Finally, we confirmed tuberculous spondylitis diagnosis with the biopsy results.
Accidents, Traffic ; Adult ; Back Pain ; Biopsy ; Chest Pain ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Early Diagnosis ; Humans ; Rare Diseases ; Spondylitis ; Tuberculosis, Spinal ; Tuberculosis, Pleural

BACKGROUND: The antitumor effects of herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase(HSV-tk) and ganciclovir(GCV) strategies for cancer gene therapy have a the following advantages:1) a direct cytotoxicity to HSV-tk modified cancer cells by GCV 2) a cell death by the local transfer of toxic metabolites from the HSV-tk modified cells to nearby unmodified tumor cells(bystander effect), and 3) in vivo bystander effect such as antitumor-immunity. Retroviral and adenoviral sequences can silence transgene expression in cells and mice. In this study, we investigated the above described advantages of HXV-tk/GCV strategy in Lewis lung cell and mouse lung cancer model using retroviral vector and adenoviral vector. Also, we observed whether the expression of a silenced gene can be reactivated by treating cell with butyrate. METHODS: Retrovirus-HSV-tk and adenovirus-HSV-tk vectors were used for the transduction of Lewis lung carcinoma(LLC) cells. The change of HSV-tk expression by butyrate was measured by Western blot.The antitumor activities containing bystander effect were observed in vivo(by MTT assay) and in vivo tumor models of various combinations of LLC and LLC-tk. RESULTS: 1. Butyrate induced the enhancement of HSV-tk expression from adenovirally transduced cells but not from retrovirally transduced cells. 2. Both retrovirus-HSV-tk and adenovirus-HSV-tk vectors with GCV treatment were effective for killing of tumor cell in vitro and suppression of LLC tumorigenicity. Bystander effect was responsible for killing of mixture of LLC-tk and LLC in vitro and in vivo-tumorigenicity model. CONCLUSION: Butyrate could augment adenoviral vector seems to be an effective approach for lung cancer therapy.
Adenoviridae ; Animals ; Butyrates ; Bystander Effect ; Carcinoma, Lewis Lung* ; Cell Death ; Genes, Neoplasm ; Genetic Therapy* ; Herpes Simplex* ; Homicide ; Lung ; Lung Neoplasms ; Mice* ; Phosphotransferases* ; Retroviridae ; Simplexvirus* ; Thymidine ; Transgenes ; Zidovudine*

BACKGROUND: In case of tuberculous pneumonia, differentiation from bacterial lobar pneumonia is sometimes very difficult because clinical symptoms, signs and radiological images are very similar. So we investigated the usefulness of CA125, which is known to increase in tuberculous diseases, in differential diagnosis between tuberculous pneumonia (TBPN) and community acquired bacterial lobar pneumonia (LP). METHODS: Serum CA125 level was measured in 20 patients with TBPN (female 12 male 8: mean age 36.1 years) and 14 patients with LP (female 5 male 9: mean age 45.1 years) by radioimmunoassay (Centocor(R) CA125 RIA kit). RESULTS: 1) The serum CA125 level in TBPN (333.7 283.5 u/ml) was higher than in LP (60.9 66.2 u/ml). (P < 0.05) 2) If we took cut-off value as 195 u/ml in differential diagnosis between TBPN and LP, the sensitivity and specificity of CA125 level in the diagnosis of TBPN were 70% and 93%, respectively. 3) There was no significant difference in serum CA125 level between noncavitary TBPN (242.1 +/- 16.6 u/ml,n=10) and cavitary TBPN (399.6 +/- 318.4 u/ml,n=10). (P > 0.05) 4) Following up of serum CA125 level after initiation of antituberculosis treatment showed rapid decline and approach to near normal range in 6 months. CONCLUSION: High serum CA125 level (> 195 u/ml) was useful in differential diagnosis of TBPN from LP.
Diagnosis ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Humans ; Male ; Pneumonia* ; Radioimmunoassay ; Reference Values ; Sensitivity and Specificity

The correlation between serum anti-tuberculosis (TB) drug levels and the drug-induced hepatotoxicity (DIH) remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether anti-TB DIH is associated with basal serum drug levels. Serum peak levels of isoniazid (INH), rifampicin (RMP), pyrazinamide (PZA), and ethambutol (EMB) were analyzed in blood samples 2 hr after the administration of anti-TB medication. Anti-TB DIH and mild liver function test abnormality were diagnosed on the basis of laboratory and clinical criteria. Serum anti-TB drug levels and other clinical factors were compared between the hepatotoxicity and non-hepatotoxicity groups. A total of 195 TB patients were included in the study, and the data were analyzed retrospectively. Seventeen (8.7%) of the 195 patients showed hepatotoxicity, and the mean aspartate aminotransferase/alanine aminotransferase levels in the hepatotoxicity group were 249/249 IU/L, respectively. Among the 17 patients with hepatotoxicity, 12 showed anti-TB DIH. Ten patients showed PZA-related hepatotoxicity and 2 showed INH- or RMP-related hepatotoxicity. However, intergroup differences in the serum levels of the 4 anti-TB drugs were not statistically significant. Basal serum drug concentration was not associated with the risk anti-TB DIH in patients being treated with the currently recommended doses of first-line anti-TB treatment drugs.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Alanine Transaminase/blood ; Antitubercular Agents/adverse effects/*blood/therapeutic use ; Aspartate Aminotransferases/blood ; Drug-Induced Liver Injury/*blood ; Ethambutol/adverse effects/blood/therapeutic use ; Female ; Humans ; Isoniazid/adverse effects/blood/therapeutic use ; Liver/*pathology ; Liver Function Tests ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Pyrazinamide/adverse effects/blood/therapeutic use ; Retrospective Studies ; Rifampin/adverse effects/blood/therapeutic use ; Tuberculosis, Pulmonary/drug therapy ; Young Adult

The correlation between serum anti-tuberculosis (TB) drug levels and the drug-induced hepatotoxicity (DIH) remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether anti-TB DIH is associated with basal serum drug levels. Serum peak levels of isoniazid (INH), rifampicin (RMP), pyrazinamide (PZA), and ethambutol (EMB) were analyzed in blood samples 2 hr after the administration of anti-TB medication. Anti-TB DIH and mild liver function test abnormality were diagnosed on the basis of laboratory and clinical criteria. Serum anti-TB drug levels and other clinical factors were compared between the hepatotoxicity and non-hepatotoxicity groups. A total of 195 TB patients were included in the study, and the data were analyzed retrospectively. Seventeen (8.7%) of the 195 patients showed hepatotoxicity, and the mean aspartate aminotransferase/alanine aminotransferase levels in the hepatotoxicity group were 249/249 IU/L, respectively. Among the 17 patients with hepatotoxicity, 12 showed anti-TB DIH. Ten patients showed PZA-related hepatotoxicity and 2 showed INH- or RMP-related hepatotoxicity. However, intergroup differences in the serum levels of the 4 anti-TB drugs were not statistically significant. Basal serum drug concentration was not associated with the risk anti-TB DIH in patients being treated with the currently recommended doses of first-line anti-TB treatment drugs.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Alanine Transaminase/blood ; Antitubercular Agents/adverse effects/*blood/therapeutic use ; Aspartate Aminotransferases/blood ; Drug-Induced Liver Injury/*blood ; Ethambutol/adverse effects/blood/therapeutic use ; Female ; Humans ; Isoniazid/adverse effects/blood/therapeutic use ; Liver/*pathology ; Liver Function Tests ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Pyrazinamide/adverse effects/blood/therapeutic use ; Retrospective Studies ; Rifampin/adverse effects/blood/therapeutic use ; Tuberculosis, Pulmonary/drug therapy ; Young Adult