Adult ; Bone Neoplasms ; pathology ; Humans ; Lymphoma ; pathology ; Male ; Spine ; pathology

To make a preliminary study on the mechanism of Coptidis Rhizoma(CR) and Rehmanniae Radix(RR) before and after the combined administration in treating type II diabetes mellitus. The type I diabetes animal model in rats was established by fat emulsion and intraperitoneal injection with streptozotocin, in order to compare the hpyerglycemic and hypolipidemic effects of CR, RR and their combined administration of different ratio. The urinary metabolic profiling in rats of Coptidis Rhizoma and Rehmanniae Radix before and after the combined administration was analyzed by using the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The differences among groups in metabolome were analyzed by the principal component analysis (PCA). The biochemical index results indicated that both CR and RR before and after the combined administration could lower high blood glucose, hypertriglyceride and high cholesterol. According to the analytical results of PCA of the rats' urine samples, the CR group was the most close to the normal group, with no significant difference in CR and RR group of different combination ratios. Twelve differentiated metabolites were identified to be related to type II diabetes. Compared with the normal group, the CR-treated group showed significant increase in seven differentiated metabolites. Among CR and RR drugs with different combination ratios, CR played a major role and thus acted as the monarch drug. Whereas RR served as the ministerial drug and assisted CR to show the efficacy. This study laid a foundation for the explanation of the combination mechanism of traditional Chinese medicines.
Animals ; Blood Glucose ; metabolism ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 ; blood ; drug therapy ; urine ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; pharmacology ; therapeutic use ; Male ; Rats ; Rats, Wistar ; Rehmannia ; chemistry

As the productive activities have vastly increased following industrialization and urbanization in the modem society, the resulting high mobility of people and goods have caused a sharp increase in the accidents in the work places as well as traffic accidents. In particular, deaths caused by injuries are generally concentrated in the economically active young peoples, producing incalculable losses to the society and nation as a whole. Advanced nations with superior medical care systems have succeeded in reducing incidents of such deaths by operating trauma centers. Especially noteworthy is the case of the United States where such specialized trauma centers have greatly contributed to reducing deaths from injuries in the non-urban areas with less access to medical facilities. At present Korea has no medical centers specializing in injuries. In large cities, the injuries are being treated tertiary medical facilities while in the provinces they are referred to small and medium-sized hospitals that constitute secondary medical facilities. Currently in Korea the Trauma patients are treated at general hospitals that consist of 726 secondary medical facilities and 40 tertiary medical centers nationwide. The secondary medical facilities which tend to take most responsibility for the treatment of trauma are generally deficient in medical staff and facilities (including operating and intensive care facilities). Despite such deficiency and limitations, no regulations exist regarding treatment or transportation of trauma patients. This article reports the outcome of a comparative analysis of the results of trauma treatments among different types of medical facilities based on objective data in the hope that such study would facilitate a comparison with the treatment systems of advanced countries and thereby contribute to a precise formulation of problems that must be addressed in this area.
Accidents, Traffic ; Hope ; Hospitals, General ; Humans ; Critical Care ; Korea ; Medical Staff ; Modems ; Social Control, Formal ; Transportation ; Trauma Centers ; United States ; Urbanization ; Workplace ; Industrial Development

No abstract available.
Multiple Organ Failure* ; Sepsis*

PURPOSE: Ischemia-reperfusion injury (I/R injury) is known not only to induce hypoxic and oxidative stress, but also to cause retinal degeneration in rats. Crystallins, known to inhibit the formation of reactive oxygen species, reduce apoptotic cell death. Our goal was to clarify not only the role of I/R injury-mediated crystallins, but also to evaluate the correlation of these compounds to anti-inflammation in the vitreous body. METHODS: Twenty-four Sprague-Dawley rats were used in this study. We induced I/R injury by clamping the optic nerve for 30 minutes and then releasing it. The vitreous bodies were obtained from the experimental and control subjects 24, 48, and 72 hours after I/R injury. Two-dimensional electrophoresis was performed, and the targeted spots were further investigated using matrix-assisted laser desorption-ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry, spectrophotometry, Western blotting, and histological examination. RESULTS: After I/R injury, 23 spots were identified as crystallins. The betaB2 crystallins were transcriptionally and post-translationally regulated, whereas the alphaB crystallins were controlled by post-translational modifications in the vitreous bodies of the rats. The total amounts of alphaA and beta crystallins (including isotypes of beta crystalline) had increased 48 hours after injury. The phosphorylation of alphaB crystallin (at serine residues 19, 45, and 59) was significantly increased 48 hours later, whereas phosphorylation of ERK1/2 showed the greatest decrease. CONCLUSIONS: During hypoxic and oxidation stress, our results suggest that phosphorylated alphaB crystalline inhibits RAS, resulting in the inactivation of ERK1/2. The phosphorylation of alphaB crystallin may be associated with the inflammatory suppression in the vitreous body via the I/R injury model system.
Animals ; Blotting, Western ; Oxidative Stress ; Phosphorylation ; Protein Processing, Post-Translational ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Reperfusion Injury/*metabolism/pathology ; Spectrometry, Mass, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization ; Vitreous Body/*metabolism/pathology ; beta-Crystallins/*metabolism

STUDY OBJECT: To date, the study of critical illness in the emergency department has been limited. The purpose of this study was to determine the length of stay and procedures performed on critical care patient in ED, and to be help to establish Emergency physicians' education program. METHOD: We reviewed patient's medical record, who visited ED, Korea Univ. Hospital from Jan. 1996 to Jun. 1996 and admitted to ICU. We analyzed data to age, sex, clinical diagnosis, length of stay, and critical procedures in ED. RESULTS: The 12,721 patients visited ED during the study period, the 441 of 12,721 (3.50%) patients admitted to ICU. 56 patients were excluded whose medical re cords were incomplete. The study populations consisted of 165 women and 220 men. The mean age were 52 year old (median,58 year old). The mean length of stays were 606.1 (1445.9 minutes (median, 180 minutes)). One hundred sixty one of these patients (41.8 %) received one or more critical procedures. The medical critical patients were 252 cases, and surgical critical patients were 133 cases. The mean length of stay of medical critical patients was 738.8 (1748.9 minutes (median, 177.5 minutes)) in medical department,44.0% of them received critical procedures in ED. The surgical critical patients averaged 354.9 (410.7 minutes (median, 190 minutes)) and 37.6% received critical procedures. CONCLUSION: Critical ill patients stay in the ED with a substantial amount of time, before addition to the ICU. Critical ill patients who have hemodynamiccal unstable conditions, compromised cardiopulmonary functions, and neurologic deficities, were managed in ED frequently. Typical critical care procedures are commonly performed by emergency physicians. Therefore, it is important for emergency physician to prepare to critical ill patients.
Critical Care* ; Critical Illness ; Diagnosis ; Education ; Emergencies* ; Emergency Service, Hospital* ; Female ; Humans ; Korea ; Length of Stay ; Male ; Medical Records ; Middle Aged

PURPOSE: The prognosis of non-Hodgkins lymphoma (NHL) in elderly patients seems to be poorer than that in patients aged less than 60 years. This may be due to the lower tolerance for combination chemotherapy in the elderly. Aggressive combination chemo-therapy, which is the treatment of choice in intermediate and high grade NHL of adulthood, may be associated with unpredictab1y severe and lethal toxicity and worsened quality of life in the elderly. We investigated the treatment responses, toxicities and prognostic factors of NHL in elderly patients treated with combination chemotherapy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We treated 116 elderly (>60 yrs) patients with NHL between January 1986 and June 1996 with adriamycin-containing regimens, such as CHOP (cyclo- phosphamide, adriamycin, vincristine, prednisolone), BACOP (bleomycin, adriamycin, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, prednisolone), and mBACOP (methotrexate, bleomycin, adriamycin, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, prednisolone). Patients in this study ranged from 60 to 81 (median 67) years of age. Fifty-five percent of patients were in stage I or II and the rest (45%) were in stage III or IV. The histologic grade was predominantly (91%) of intermediate and high grade type. RESULTS: The treatment responses were complete (CR) in 55% and partial (PR) in 25%. The median durstion of CR was 32 (3-132) months. The CR rate was significantly higher in patients treated with RDI (relative dose intensity) > 75% than that in the patients treated with RDI < 75% (p 0.003), but there was no significant difference in CR rate between treatment regimens (p-0.38). At a median follow up of 48-months (range, 12 to 132 months), the estimated 5-year ovetall survival was 46%. Ann Arbor Stage (I, II vs III, IV), ECOG performance (0-1 vs 2-3), RDI (>75% vs <75%) and the treatment response were important prognostic factors in the univariate analysis, and the treament response (CR vs non-CR) was the only independent prognostic parameter in the multivariate analysis. The most frequent and severe toxicity associated with chemotherapy was infection with or without neutropenia. The rate of severe infection was significantly decreased in the patients supported with G/GM-CSF but not in the dose-reduction group (RDI<75% vs >75%). CONCLUSION: Our data suggests that achievement of the CR after combination chemotherpy is the most important prognostic factor in the elderly patients with NHL. Suboptimal chemotherapy (RDI<75%) reduced the complete remission rate without reducing the likelihood of developing severe toxicities. Optimal chemotherapy with supportive cares involving the use of hematopoietic growth factors may be needed to improve the treatment response and the survival in the elderly patients with aggressive NHL.
Aged ; Bleomycin ; Cyclophosphamide ; Dimethoate ; Doxorubicin ; Drug Therapy ; Drug Therapy, Combination ; Follow-Up Studies ; Hodgkin Disease* ; Humans ; Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins ; Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin ; Multivariate Analysis ; Neutropenia ; Prognosis* ; Quality of Life ; Vincristine

PURPOSE: Conventional intravenous nutrition has been given as a solution of amino acids combined with dextrose and a separate line delivering a lipid emulsion. This technique was unsatisfactory, however, because of difficulties in managing technical and metabolic complications. Since the first clinical use of a single solution containing all the necessary nutrients was introduced in 1976, the total nutrient admixture (TNA) system has been used. However, despite the numerous advantages of this TNA system, it has not been used worldwide because of an assumption about unstability of this admixture. This study was conducted to compare the physical stability of TNA systems using two different 2 commercially available amino acid solutions and fat emulsions. METHODS: Each group contained 600 ml of 20% dextrose, 250 ml of 10% amino acid solution, 250 ml of 10% fat emulsion, 0.2 ml of heparin, and 20 ml of electrolyte solution was investigated for 7 days while being stored 4oC and at ambient temperature. The stabilities of these admixtures were compared by noting changes in macroscopic appearance, pH, osmolarity, Zeta-potential, peroxide value, particle size and distribution, and fat composition. RESULTS: When an amino acid solution containing P 2 was used, a supernatant yellow band was observed from the 3rd day at ambient temperature. The pH and peroxide value also showed significant changes, but these changes did not exceed the product-specifications. When an amino acid solution without P 2 was used, no significant change was observed. CONCLUSION: TNA systems are physically stable at 4oC temperature for at least 7 days, but TNA systems prepared with amino acid solution containing P 2 are not stable at ambient temperature from the 3rd day. On the other hand, TNA systems prepared with an amino acid solution without P 2 are stable at ambient temperature for 7 days. Various commercially available fat emulsions containing 10% soybean oil did not affect the stability of TNA systems.
Amino Acids ; Emulsions ; Glucose ; Hand ; Heparin ; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration ; Osmolar Concentration ; Parenteral Nutrition ; Particle Size ; Soybean Oil

No abstract available.
Follow-Up Studies* ; Lung Neoplasms* ; Lung*