BACKGROUND: Bilirubin has been suggested as a antioxidant which protect oxidation of lipids and lipoproteins. Given that oxidized lipids and lipoproteins are known to be atherogenic, low serum concentrations of bilirubin could be associated with the high risk of coronary artery disease (CAD). But few studies have been performed for confirmation of this hypothesis. In this study, we evaluated the relationship between serum concentrations of billrubln and the angiographically documented CAD. METHODS: Eighty five CAD patients and 56 non-CAD patients, classified according to the maximum stenosis of coronary artery at angiography, were enrolled in this study. The degree of the coronary arterial stenosis were subclassified into <10% (non-CAD), 10-49% (mildly stenotic CAD) and > or =50% (severely stenotic CAD). We retro-spectively reviewed serum concentrations of total and direct bilrubin at the time of angiography, compared tine mean concentrations of bilirubin between two groups and evaluated it in relation to the severity of CAD by statistical analysis. RESULTS: The mean concentration of total bilrubin was significant1y lower in CAD group 4han non-CAD group (12.8 micromol/L vs. 15.2 micromol/L, p value=0.04) The mean concentration of direct bilirubin was lower in CAD group than non-CAD group but not statistically significant (3.3 micromol/L vs. 4.2 micromol/L, p value=0.07). Although not significant, the concentration of total bilirubin in severely stenotic group (12.8 CAD group 12.8+/-4.3 micromol/L) was lower than mildly stenotic group (13.5+/-3.8 micromol/L) and non CAD group (15.2+/-7.4 micromol/L ) (p=0.07). CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that low serum concentrations of total bilirubin were associated with the high risk of CAD and supports the hypothesis that serum bilirubin could act as an antiatherosclerotic factor. Further prospective studies are required to confirm the relationship between bilirubin and CAD and to elucidate the most associated fraction of bilirubin and pathogenic mechanism.
Angiography ; Bilirubin* ; Constriction, Pathologic ; Coronary Artery Disease* ; Coronary Vessels* ; Humans ; Lipoproteins

Pulmonary endometriosis is a rare disease which is characterized by hemoptysis during menstruation (catamenial hemoptysis). We report a case of pulmonary endometriosis in a 33-year-old housewife. She has had regular menses with moderate flow and minimal dysmenorrhea. She had undergone curettage in May 1995 for artificial abortion. In July 1995, she experienced the first episode of hemoptysis. A chest CT scan revealed a 2.0 1.0 cm sized ill-defined soft tissue density in the periphery of anterior segment of the left upper lobe with a surrounding irregular ground-glass opacity. A left upper lobectomy was done under the diagnosis of pulmonary endometriosis. Cut section of the resected lung showed a round red-brownish solid lesion, measuring 2.0x1.0cm in cross. Microscopically a focus of the endometrial tissue, which was composed of endometrial glands and stroma, was found in the lung parenchyme and many hemosiderin laden macrophages were seen in the surrounding alveoli. The postoperative course was favorable with no further episodes of hemoptysis.
Adult ; Curettage ; Diagnosis ; Dysmenorrhea ; Endometriosis* ; Female ; Hemoptysis ; Hemosiderin ; Humans ; Lung ; Macrophages ; Menstruation ; Rare Diseases ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed

No abstract available.
Fatigue*

PURPOSE: Henoch-Schonlein purpura nephritis(HSPN) accompanied by nephrotic syndrome(NS) is known to have a poor prognosis and effective treatment is still controversial, even though both corticosteroids and immunosuppresant have been used for therapy. Cyclosporine A(CsA) is a well known immunosuppresant and widely used in renal transplantation and glomerular diseases especially steroid resistant. The aims of this study was to evaluate the therapeutic effect of CsA and to compare CsA with previously reported our data of rifampin(RFP) and azathioprine(AZA) in children with HSPN accompanied by NS. METHODS: 37 HSPN patients with NS confirmed by renal biopsy were selected. Of these, 17 patients were treated with CsA(5 mg/kg/day) for 6-8 months, 7 children were treated with RFP(10-20 mg/kg/day) for 9-12 months and 13 patients were treated with AZA(2 mg/kg/day) for 8 months. Along with these regimens, low dose oral prednisolone(0.5-1 mg/kg, qod) was also used. Sequential renal biopsy was done in all patients 1 month after termination of treatment. RESULTS: Complete remission rate of nephrotic syndrome was 5S.8% in CsA, 57.1% in RFP and 38.4% in AZA group after 17, 22, 11 months of mean follow-up period. Overall remission rate including partial remission was 88.2% in CsA, 85.7% in RFP and 84.6% in AZA group. Disappearance rate of hematuria was 58.8% in CsA, 57.1% in RFP and 46.2% in AZA group. Improvement of grade of clinical status was observed in 17 out of 17 CsA, 7 out of 7 RFP and 10 out of 13 AZA group. Improvement of pathologic class on sequencial renal biopsy was shown in 5 CsA(29.4%), none RFP(0%) and 2 AZA group(12.4%). Improvement on histologic immune-deposition was seen in 15 CsA(88.2%), 6 RFP(85.9%) and 4 AZA group(30.8%). CONCLUSION: In conclusion, Both CsA and RFP treated groups showed better result in complete remission rate of nephrotic syndrome and significant inprovement of histologic immune-deposition compared with AZA treated group(p=0.004). So, we recommend CsA and RFP rather than AZA for immunosuppresant treatment in HSPN with nephrotic syndrome.
Adrenal Cortex Hormones ; Biopsy ; Biopsy, Fine-Needle* ; Breast* ; Child ; Cyclosporine ; Diagnosis* ; Follow-Up Studies ; Hematuria ; Humans ; Kidney Failure, Chronic ; Kidney Transplantation ; Nephrotic Syndrome ; Prognosis ; Purpura, Schoenlein-Henoch

No abstract available.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome*

This study was carried out to investigate the development rates of human embryos co-cultured with cumulus cells to each blastocyst stage. Human zygotes were co-cultured on cumulus cell monolayer in YS medium supplemented with 20% hFF. On day 2, if patient had four or more 'good' embryos(regular blastomeres without fragmentation), embryos were further cultured for 72hrs. Blastocysts on day 5 were classified into early blastocyst (ErB), early expanding blastocyst (EEB), middle expanding Blastocyst (MEB), and expanded blastocyst (EdB) on the basis of their morphological aspects of trophectoderm cells and blastocoele. Subsequently, maximum 3 of best blastocysts were transferred in 486 cycles. The results in this study were as follows: Patients who had four or more 'good' embryos on day 2 were 498 persons, but patients whose embryos could not be transferred due to failure in development to the blastocyst stage on day 5 were 12 persons (2.4%). The development rate of embryos to the blastocyst stage was 58.2% (2,885/4,957) on day 5, and the rates that developed to the ErB, EEB, MEB, and EdB stage were 15.0% (743/4,957), 14.9% (739/4,957), 14.4% (714/4,957), and 13.9% (689/4,957), respectively. Total 1366 blastocysts were transferred in 486 cycles (mean number=2.81). The implantation rate and the ongoing implantation rate obtained by observing the number of G-sac and FHB were 29.9% (409/1,366) and 22.5% (308/1,366), respectively. The clinical pregnancy rate was 51.2% (249/486), and the ongoing pregnancy rate was 39.1% (190/486). Among women showing ongoing pregnancy, women with singleton were 50% (95/190), women with twin were 37.9% (72/190), and women with triplet were 12.1% (23/190). Although triplet pregnancy rate in this study was high such as 12.1%, because many blastocysts with high viability were produced in our co-culture system using cumulus cells on day 5, we really believe that a multiple pregnancy except twin should not occur by selecting good embryos for maximum two blastocyst transfer. These results demonstrate that autologous cumulus cells may be used for the production of blastocysts with high developmental competence, and the use of autologous cumulus cells to be collected easily, and to be treated conveniently at OPU must be an effective means for obtaining high implantation and pregnancy rate.
Blastocyst* ; Blastomeres ; Coculture Techniques* ; Cumulus Cells* ; Embryo Transfer ; Embryonic Structures* ; Female ; Humans* ; Mental Competency ; Pregnancy ; Pregnancy Rate ; Pregnancy, Multiple ; Pregnancy, Triplet ; Triplets ; Zygote

The purpose of this study was to investigate the dietary behavior of people with type 2 diabetes mellitus and to improve their quality of life through medical nutrition therapy. The subjects were 38 persons with type 2 diabetes mellitus visiting a public health center to participate in a dietary education program from Jun, 2003 to Nov. 2003 in Daegu, Korea. The interviews were tape-recorded and analyzed attitude, knowledge, and awareness of patients by focus group interview. Most of the patients were mainly dependent on drug therapy and had little experience of diet education. Barriers to dietary practice adherences were limitations in food selection, lack of will and feel of burden. Barriers to follow guidelines were lack of self-control, confliction with food habits of their family, accessibility, economical problems, fear for the change after dietary practice, food difficulties in meal distribution and difficulties for eating out. After 4 weeks of intensive nutrition education, fasting blood sugar levels were decreased and postprandial and waist circumference were significantly decreased in all patients and 26.9% of patients were under decreased oral hypoglycemic agent dosage due to improved blood sugar level. dietary knowledge of subjects were greatly improved in such items as dietary intake, saturated fat, HbA1C, ideal body weight, and waist circumference.
Blood Glucose ; Daegu ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 ; Diet ; Drug Therapy ; Eating ; Education ; Fasting ; Focus Groups ; Food Habits ; Food Preferences ; Humans ; Ideal Body Weight ; Korea ; Meals ; Nutrition Therapy ; Public Health* ; Quality of Life ; Waist Circumference

OBJECTIVE: Since IVF program was first established, various types of media and culture systems have been developed either in-house or commercially. The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of in-house Maria Research Center (MRC) media to that of commercially available Sydney IVF media in human day 3 embryo transfer cycles. METHODS: Three hundred sixty nine couples were included in this prospective, randomized, and comparative study. All couples undergoing IVF treatment at the Maria Fertility Hospital were randomly assigned to either Sydney IVF (n=178) or MRC (n=191) media. RESULTS: No difference was observed between the MRC media and Sydney IVF media groups with respect to fertilization rate (74.4% vs. 75.5%). The clinical pregnancy and implantation rates of MRC media (47.1% and 20.0%, respectively) were also similar to those of Sydney IVF media (44.4% and 19.4%, respectively). However, the proportion of embryos with good quality on day 3 was significantly higher in the MRC media group than the Sydney IVF media group (50.2% vs. 43.2%) (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: MRC media were as effective as Sydney IVF media for sustaining embryo development and pregnancy rates. The present study implies that MRC media can be a suitable alternative to commercially available media for human IVF-ET program.
Embryo Transfer ; Embryonic Development ; Embryonic Structures ; Family Characteristics ; Female ; Fertility ; Fertilization ; Humans ; Pregnancy ; Pregnancy Rate ; Prospective Studies

No abstract available.
Animals ; Guinea Pigs* ; Guinea* ; Perilymph*

Staphylococcus epidermidis is a normal inhabitant of skin, throat, mouth, vagina, and urethra. It is not usually pathogenic, particularly in immunocompetent hosts. This report describes a case of a pyogenic liver abscess caused by Staphylococcus epidermidis in a healthy 12-year-old boy. He was admitted to Seoul St. Mary's Hospital with intermittent fever for 6 days. Findings on abdominal computed tomography (CT) showed a mass measuring 7.0x6.5 cm in the right hepatic lobe. Culture of the abscess resulted in growth of Staphylococcus epidermidis as a causative organism. The patient was successfully treated with intravenous administration of antibiotics and percutaneous drainage of the abscess.
Abscess ; Administration, Intravenous ; Anti-Bacterial Agents ; Child ; Drainage ; Fever ; Humans ; Liver Abscess ; Liver Abscess, Pyogenic ; Mouth ; Pharynx ; Skin ; Staphylococcus ; Staphylococcus epidermidis ; Urethra ; Vagina