The insulin-like growth factor (IGF)s are believed to one of several growth factors that play an adjunctive role in ovarian follicular development. These factors circulate bound to a family of IGF-binding protein (IGFBP)s. It is known that circulating IGFBPs are involved in the transport of IGFs to tissues and modulate IGFs actions at local tissue. The purposes of this study were to evaluate changes in serum IGFBPs profiles during normal ovulatory menstrual cylce and to compare serum IGFBPs profiles in periovulatory phase of between normal ovulatory menstrual cylce and controlled hyperstimulated cycle. Fasting blood samples were obtained from 15 normal healthy women throughout normal ovulatory menstural cycle and on the day of aspiration of oocyte from 10 patients undergoing ovarian hyperstimuation for in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer. Serum IGFBP-1-IGFBP-4 were measured by western ligand blot and immunoprecipitation. Serum 17beta-estradiol was determined by radioimmunoassay. Type and molecular weight of serum IGFBP did not changed during normal ovulatory menstural cycle. No significant variation in the relative proportion and level of each IGFBP was found throughout normal ovulatory menstural cyle. Also, the relative proportion and level of each IGFBP did not correlated with serum 17beta-estradiol level. There was no significant difference in the relative proportion and level of each serum IGFBP between on the day of ovulation in normal ovulatory menstrual cylce and on the day of aspiration of oocyte in controlled hyperstimulated cycle. Our data indicate that IGFBPs have regulatory functions in ovary through an paracrine and autocrine rather than endocrine mechanism during normal ovulatory menstural cycle.
Fasting ; Female ; Humans ; Immunoprecipitation ; Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Proteins* ; Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins ; Menstrual Cycle* ; Molecular Weight ; Oocytes ; Ovary ; Ovulation ; Radioimmunoassay

Infantile acute hemorrhagic edema of the skin(IAHE) is a benign disease which affects infants between 4 months and 2 years of age and is characterized by palpable ecchymotic purpura and edema on the limb and face. We report a typical case of IAHE, which was presenting a cockade, annular, reticulated, and iris-like purpura and edema on the face and extremities in a 19-month-old male infant. We consider it to be a new disease category because its characteristics different markedly from HenochSchoenlein purpura in several clinical and histopathologic findings.
Edema* ; Extremities ; Humans ; Infant ; Male ; Purpura ; Skin*

Attention is a phenomenon hard to define, but can be conceptualized as a mental function ranging from sustaining readiness to perceive stimuli to understanding the nature and value and selecting stimuli that are most relevant to the given situation. Manifestations of attention include vigilance, and focused, directed, selective, divided, and sustained attentions. While basic attentional tone is controlled by the interaction among reticular activating system, thalamus, and prefrontal cortex, direction and selection of attention is controlled by neural circuits of prefrontal, posterior parietal, and limbic cortex. It is expected that understanding of attention and its neural could provide answers to the relationship between pathophysiology and clinical symptoms of some major psychiatric disorders. More effort are required to develop tools to assess more detailed and various aspects of attention in Korea.
Attention ; Korea ; Prefrontal Cortex ; Rabeprazole ; Thalamus

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationship among alpha 2-Heremans Schmidt glycoprotein (AHSG) polymorphism, anti-AHSG antibody and endometriosis in Korean women. METHODS: AHSG polymorphism was analyzed by restriction fragment length polymorphism and DNA sequencing in 79 women with endometriosis, and 105 women with normal pelviscopic finding. Anti-AHSG antibody was measured using enzyme linked immuosorbent assay. RESULTS: The allele frequencies of AHSG 1 and AHSG 2 were 0.69 and 0.31 respectively. The proportion of noncarrier of AHSG 2 allele was significantly higher (p<0.05) in women with endometriosis than in women without endometriosis (55.7% versus 39.0%). Women not carrying AHSG 2 allele have 2 times higher risk of endometriosis than women carrying at least one this allele. Positive rate of anti-AHSG antibody was significantly higher in women with endometriosis (20.0%) than women without endometriosis (2.7%). There were no significant differences in the distribution of AHSG allele or AHSG genotypes and in positivity of anti-AHSG antibody between early stage endometriosis and late stage endometriosis. No significant difference in positivity of anti-AHSG antibody was noted among AHSG genotypes. CONCLUSION: AHSG polymorphism and anti-AHSG antibody is associated with endometriosis, but the positivity of anti-AHSG antibody does not depend on AHSG genotypes.
Alleles ; Endometriosis* ; Female ; Gene Frequency ; Genotype ; Glycoproteins* ; Humans ; Polymorphism, Genetic* ; Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length ; Sequence Analysis, DNA

BACKGROUND: There are many evidences that inflammation is an important determinant of the development of atherosclerosis and one of the systemic markers of inflammation, C-reactive protein(CRP), is associated with extent of coronary artery disease and risk of coronary events. We assessed the time response of CRP response after coronary angioplasty and it's influence on the clinical restenosis in angina patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients included 36 angina patients undergoing single vessel angioplasty. Levels of CRP were measured before and 12, 24, 48, and 72 hours after angioplasty. Clinical restenosis was assessed at 6 months after procedure. RESULTS: Baseline CRP level was 0.30+/-0.01 mg/dL in stable and 0.46+/-0.28 mg/dL in unstable angina patients(p<0.05). After angioplasty, CRP level was increased with peak at 24 hour and persisted to 72 hours after angioplasty. At 24 hour after angioplasty, the magnitude of CRP change was 0.32+/-0.31 mg/dL in stable and 0.79+/-0.73 mg/dL in unstable angina patient(p<0.05). The change of CRP level was not associated with troponin-T after angioplasty. In unstable angina patients, clinical restenosis was developed in 8% of patients with low baseline CRP levels and in 50% of those with high baseline CRP levels more than 0.6 mg/dL(p<0.05). CONCLUSION: In unstable angina patients, inflammatory response is more increased than stable angina patients, and increased inflammatory response effects on the restenosis after coronary angioplasty.
Angina, Stable ; Angina, Unstable ; Angioplasty* ; Atherosclerosis ; C-Reactive Protein* ; Coronary Artery Disease ; Humans ; Inflammation ; Troponin T

No abstract available.
Aneurysm* ; Hydrocephalus* ; Hypothalamus* ; Subarachnoid Hemorrhage*

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The human vestibule is known to be able to induce cervical muscle potential secondary to strong acoustic stimulations. This reflex is assumed to originate in the saccule, and is called "vestibular evoked myogenic potentials" (VEMP). The responses consist of alternatively positive and negative successive waves (p13-n23). This study was designed to evaluate the clinical significance of VEMP. MATERIALS AND METHOD: We studied the difference among the latencies of p13, n23 and the amplitudes among the 10 normal volunteers, 5 patients with sudden sensorineural hearing loss and 10 patients with vestibulopathy. And we compared the result of the caloric test and VEMP in patients with vestibulopathy. RESULTS: In the normal group, VEMP was detected in all and all of the sudden sensorineural hearing loss patients showed VEMP both in the affected and unaffected side. In unilateral vestibulopathy patients, VEMP were present in the unaffected side but not in the affected side. The difference between the amplitudes and latencies were not found in those cases where VEMP was detected. In vestibulopathy patients, VEMP were well correlated with the result of the caloric tests. CONCLUSION: We confirmed that VEMP is originated from the vestibule, not from cochlea. VEMP could provide itself as an addition method for testing the vestibule.
Acoustics ; Caloric Tests ; Cochlea ; Healthy Volunteers ; Hearing Loss, Sensorineural ; Humans ; Reflex ; Saccule and Utricle

BACKGROUND: Confluent and reticulate papillomatosis(CRP) of Gougerot and Carteaud is an uncommon disorder of unknown cause for which a variety of treatments have been proposed. OBJECTIVE: We attempted to evaluate the therapeutic effect of oral minocycline for CRP. METHOD: Nine patients(age range, 14 to 38; mean age, 21years) with CRP were included in this study. They took minocycline 100mg daily. The therapeutic effect was evaluated weekly by 5 scoring systems according to the percentage clearing of the skin lesion: poor (score 1), <25% clearing; fair (score 2), 26-50%; good (score 3), 51-75%; excellent (score 4), 76-95%, clear(score 5), >95%. RESULTS: Two out of 9 patients showed complete clearing(score 5) of the skin lesions within 2 weeks. Seven patients revealed incomplete clearing(score 4) within 3 to 8 weeks. The mean scoring for 9 CRP patients was 4.2. Recurrences were noted in two patients at 24 and 26 months, respectively, but they responded to re-treatment with minocycline. The patients did not show any adverse reactions apart from two patients who developed mild pruritus. CONCLUSION: We recommend minocycline as the first choice of treatment for CRP because minocycline is safe, economic and effective.
Humans ; Minocycline* ; Papilloma* ; Pruritus ; Recurrence ; Skin

Thirty eyes of thirty patients with coexisting cataract and vitreoretinal disease underwent combined cataract extraction, pars plana vitrectomy and posterior chamber intraocular lens implantaion.Surgical procedures of cataract extraction included phacoemulsification(14 eyes), pars plana lensectomy(11 eyes) and extracapsular lens placed in the capsular bag in 19 eyes following phacoemulsification or extracapsular cataract extraction. Eleven eyes had sulcus fixation of posterior chamber lens following lensectomy.Postoperatviely visual acuity improved in 26 eyes(86.7%), unchanged in 3 eyes(10%) and decreased in 1 eye(3.3%). Final visual acuity was 20/200 or better in 26 eyes(86.75), and 20/40 or better in 11 eyes(36.7%). Postoperative complications included rhegmatogenous retinal detachment with proliferative vitreoretinopathy, neovascular glaucoma and endophthalmitis.Pars plana vitrectomy combined with cataract extraction with posterior chamber intraocular lens implantation maybe useful in reducing cost and providing rapid visual rehabilitation.
Cataract Extraction* ; Cataract* ; Glaucoma, Neovascular ; Humans ; Lens Implantation, Intraocular* ; Lenses, Intraocular* ; Phacoemulsification ; Postoperative Complications ; Rehabilitation ; Retinal Detachment ; Visual Acuity ; Vitrectomy* ; Vitreoretinopathy, Proliferative

BACKGROUND: To study the prognosis of patients with lung cancer, many investigators have reported the methods to detect cell proliferation in tissues including PCNA, thymidine autoradiography, flow cytometry and Ki-67. PCNA, also known as cyclin, is a cell related nuclear protein with 36KD intranuclear polypeptide that is maximally elevated in S phase of proliferating cells. In this study, PCNA was identified by paraffin-embedding tissue using immunohistochemistry which has an advantage of simplicity and maintenance of tissue architecture. The variation of PCNA expression is known to be related with proliferating fraction, histologic type, anatomic(TNM) stage, degree of cell differentiation, S-phase fraction and survival rate. We analyzed the correlation between PCNA expression and S-phase fraction, survival. METHODS: To investigate expression of PCNA in primary lung cancer, we used immunohistochemical stain to paraffin-embedded sections of 57 resected primary non-small cell lung cancer specimen and the results were analyzed according to the cell type, cell differentiation, TNM stage, S-phase fraction and survival. RESULTS: PCNA expression was dMded into five group according to degree of staging(-, +, ++, +++,++++). Squamous cell type showed high positivity than in adenocarcinoma. Nonsignificant difference related to TNM stage was noticed. Nonsignificant difference related to degree of cell differentiation was noticed. S-phase fraction was increased wit advance of PCNA positivity, but t could not reach the statistic significance. The 2 year survival rate and median survival time were -50% 13 months, +75% 41.3 months, ++73% 33.6 months, +++67% 29.0 months, ++++25% 9 months with statistic significance (P<0.05, Kaplan-Meier, generalized Wilcox). CONCLUSION: From this study. PCNA expression was high positive n squamous cell cancer. And, there was no relationship between PCNA positivity and TNM stage, cellular differentiation or S-phase fraction. But, the patients with high positive PCNA staining showed poor survival rate than the patients with lower positive PCNA. It was concluded that PCNA immunostaining is a simple and useful method for survival prediction in paraffin embedded tissue of non-small cell lung cancer.
Adenocarcinoma ; Autoradiography ; Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung* ; Cell Differentiation ; Cell Proliferation ; Cyclins ; Flow Cytometry ; Humans ; Immunohistochemistry ; Lung Neoplasms ; Neoplasms, Squamous Cell ; Nuclear Proteins ; Paraffin ; Prognosis ; Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen* ; Research Personnel ; S Phase ; Survival Rate* ; Thymidine