BACKGROUND: Nitric oxide synthase (NOS) has been suggested to have a role in renal injury of aging rats. METHODS: Renal function and histology were compared between 12 month-and 7-9 week-old rats. Proliferating activity and cell death were evaluated by PCNA index and apoptosis. Three isoforms of NOS (eNOS, iNOS, and nNOS) were stained by immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: Serum creatinine level was increased in old rats (1.0 mg/dL vs 0.5 mg/dL, p=0.000). 24 h proteinuria and urinary NO were comparable between the two groups. The percentage of global and segmental glomerulosclerosis increased in old rats. PCNA index decreased in the glomeruli (0.1 vs 0.6/glomerulus, p=0.005) and the tubulointerstitium (10.2 vs 19.2/mm2, p=0.019) of old rats compared to that of young rats. However, no difference was observed in the number of TUNEL positive cells. eNOS was not stained in young and old rat kidney, whereas iNOS was stained in the interstitial inflammatory cells of old rats (0.3 vs 0.0 of young rats/mm2, p=0.188). Macula densa nNOS staining significantly decreased in old rats compared to young rats (5.6 vs 9.5/mm2, p=0.009). CONCLUSIONS: Proliferating activity is more affected than cell death with aging. Decreased nNOS expression without alteration of eNOS and iNOS expressions may implicate nNOS as a marker of renal injury in the early stage of aging.
Aging* ; Animals ; Apoptosis ; Cell Death ; Creatinine ; Immunohistochemistry ; In Situ Nick-End Labeling ; Kidney* ; Nitric Oxide Synthase* ; Nitric Oxide* ; Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen ; Protein Isoforms ; Proteinuria ; Rats*

No abstract available.
Endometriosis* ; Female

We report a case with an isolated single coronary artery originating from the ascending aorta, which to our knowledge has never been described before. A 51-year-old man presented for evaluation of atypical chest pain, suffering from a short resting chest pain for 3 days. However, serial electrocardiogram showed no change during chest pain. Cardiac enzymes such as CK-MB, Troponin-I, and myoglobin were within normal limit. Aortography and coronary angiography revealed a single coronary artery originating from the postero-lateral wall of the ascending aorta above the left coronary siuns. However, this anomaly was not of clinical significance based on the atypical nature of the chest pain, negative exercise echocardiography and an absence of obstruction of the coronary artery.
Aorta* ; Aortography ; Chest Pain ; Coronary Angiography ; Coronary Sinus* ; Coronary Vessel Anomalies ; Coronary Vessels* ; Echocardiography ; Electrocardiography ; Humans ; Middle Aged ; Myoglobin ; Troponin I

BACKGROUND: IgA nephropathy after renal transplantation (post-transplant IgAN) may recapitulate the IgAN of native kidneys, however, little has been reported about the histologic characteristics. The aim of this study is to apply glomerular morphometry using an image analyser to examine the histologic characteristics of post-transplant IgAN. METHODS: The outer margin of the glomerulus (Bowman's area, BA) and glomerular tuft area (GA) were traced manually. The measured area were automatically calculated by KS300 image analysis system (Kontron, Munchen, Germany). The mesangial area (MA) was calculated with a summing each manually traced mesangial area. The total number of glomerular (GC) and mesangial cells (MC) were counted. Eight cases of renal section obtained by nephrectomy due to renal cell carcinoma (normal control: N-CTRL) and nineteen cases of renal section obtained from post-transplantation patients without IgAN (transplantation control: Tx-CTRL) served as controls. RESULTS: A total of 35 biopsies were finally selected for measurement. BA and GA of post-transplant IgAN were 1.6 and 1.4 times larger than the N-CTRL, respectively, and were not significantly different from Tx-CTRL. MA was 1.4 times significantly larger than that of the Tx-CTRL. As compared to that of the N-CTRL, it was 1.2 times larger, but this difference was not statistically significant. The GC and MC of post-transplant IgAN and the Tx-CTRL were significantly lower than the N-CTRL. There were no significant correlations between glomerular hypertrophy and duration after renal transplantation, mesangial changes, segmental sclerosis, or degree of renal cortical interstitial fibrosis in post-transplant IgAN. CONCLUSIONS: Prominent glomerular hypertrophy and mesangial expansion suggest a hyperfiltration injury in post-transplant IgAN and a possible way to glomerulosclerosis.
Biopsy ; Carcinoma, Renal Cell ; Fibrosis ; Glomerulonephritis ; Glomerulonephritis, IGA* ; Humans ; Hypertrophy ; Immunoglobulin A* ; Kidney ; Kidney Transplantation ; Mesangial Cells ; Nephrectomy ; Sclerosis

The hemodynamic effects of Prazosin were evaluated in 31 cases with congestive heart failure (mitral stenosis; 15 cases, mitral insufficiency; 7 cases, hypertensive heart disease;4 cases, congestive cardiomyopathy; 5 cases) by means of echocardiographic method. Before and 90 min. after the administration of prazosin(3mg p.o.), M-mode echocardiograms of left ventricle were recorded, from which end-diastolic and end-systolic dimensions of left ventricle and left ventricular ejection time were measured. Hemodynamic parameters of left ventricular performance, i.e., mean veloity of circumferential fiber shortening, fractional fiber shortening, ejection fraction, stroke volume, and cardiac output were calculated from the measurements. Left ventricular end-diastolic and end-systolic dimensions were decreased significantly after prazosin administration and left ventricular performance was significantly increased after prazosin administration, whereas stroke volume was not. Total systemic peripheral resistance and mean arterial pressure showed no significant changes. All cases, except one of the patients showed marked symptomatic relief after prazosin administration evaluated by NYHA functional classification. There was no considerable untoward effect in the patients of congestive heart failure to whom the prazosin was administered.
Arterial Pressure ; Cardiac Output ; Cardiomyopathy, Dilated ; Classification ; Constriction, Pathologic ; Echocardiography ; Estrogens, Conjugated (USP)* ; Heart ; Heart Failure* ; Heart Ventricles ; Hemodynamics* ; Humans ; Mitral Valve Insufficiency ; Prazosin* ; Stroke Volume ; Vascular Resistance

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the pattern of developmental delay of language and to correlate the language with other developmental areas in cerebral palsy children. METHOD: Sequenced Inventory of Communication Development (SICD) was studied in 31 children with cerebral palsy of age ranging from 11 months to 48 months. Korean Denver Developmental Screening Test (DDST) was also performed in 18 children simultaneously. RESULTS: On SICD, 10 children (32.3%) showed the receptive language delay and 13 children (41.9%) showed the expressive language delay. Among 15 spastic quadriplegic children, 40% showed the delay of receptive language development, 53.3% showed the delay in expressive language development. Among 10 spastic diplegic children, 30% showed the delay of both receptive and expressive language development. One spastic right hemiplegic child showed a delay of expressive language development, but 4 left hemiplegic children showed the normal language development. One hypotonic cerebral palsy child showed a delay of both receptive and expressive language development. The expressive language was delayed more than the receptive language. SICD correlated highly with the language sector of DDST. And both SICD and DDST language sectors correlated with the other sectors of DDST (personal-social, fine motor-adaptive, gross motor), especially with the fine motor sector (r=0.912, 0.918, 0.976, p<0.001). CONCLUSION: There is a considerably high incidence of developmental delay of language in cerebral palsy children, especially among spastic quadriplegic children. The early evaluation and treatment for the developmental delay of language need to be included in a general rehabilitation program for the cerebral palsy children.
Cerebral Palsy* ; Child* ; Humans ; Incidence ; Language Development ; Language Development Disorders ; Mass Screening ; Muscle Spasticity ; Rehabilitation

No abstract available.
Echinococcosis, Hepatic*

PURPOSE: The gastric cancer is most frequent malignant disease in Korea. With increase of GNP and social welfare, lot of people pay attention to that. But many of gastric cancer patients who were diagnosed, are advanced -stage III or more- case and produces poor result of treatment. Nowadays many surgeons report that the resection of cancer mass and radical lymph node dissection, which called systematic lymph node dissection, can increase the longterm survival rate and curability of patients. For this purpose Maruyama and his colleagues made a program to predict the 5 year survival rate, cause of death, and the status of lymph node metastases. We put the basic datas of pateints in AGC into Maruyama's program and compare its result to final histologic reports. We would check sesitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive values between Maruyamas program and hitologic reports. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From Sep. 1995 to Sep. 1996, We operated 55 patients with gastric cancer with this program in GNUH. We checked the histopathologic reports and put the data into the prediction program. The datas were sex, age, maximal size of tumor, differentiation, gross type and location. We compared status of lymph node metastases, TNM stages between the reports of histopathology and that of predictive program. RESULTS: In early stages the sensitivity and specificity of the program showed poor result but in advanced stages did not. The distribution of lymph node metastasis showed a same pattern. The patterns of perigastric lymph node metastasis were somewhat different according to the location of tumor. But its significance was not confirmed. We analysed the metastaic rate between lymph node groups and compared with the results between two reports. The sensitivity, and negative predictive value were 100% in each groups, and positive predictive value was also high. CONCLUSION: The systematic lymph node dissection is an effective and safe procedure in the surgical treatment of gastric cancer. We suggest that the techniques should be standardized and popularized in Korea. This procedure will improve the survival rate of gastric cancer patients and decrease the local recurrence of gastric cancer.
Cause of Death ; Humans ; Korea ; Lymph Node Excision ; Lymph Nodes* ; Neoplasm Metastasis* ; Recurrence ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Social Welfare ; Stomach Neoplasms* ; Survival Rate

Diabetic nephropathy is a common and serious complication in diabetic patients. Renal diseases other than diabetic nephropathy (non-diabetic nephropathy) can occur in diabetic patients with nephrosis. The presence of non-diabetic nephropathy is noted in type 2 diabetes patients, but no data exists for type 1 diabetes. In this report we describe the case of a 15-year-old girl with type 1 diabetes mellitus, who presented with an acute elevation of urinary microalbumin excretion, general edema, and liver enzyme elevation. She had shown microalbuminuria about 3 years earlier, as well as an uncontrolled hemoglobin A1c level, but she had no diabetic retinopathy and neuropathy. A renal biopsy was conducted, and she was diagnosed with primary focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. She was treated with corticosteroids and an angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor.
Adolescent ; Adrenal Cortex Hormones ; Biopsy ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1 ; Diabetic Nephropathies ; Diabetic Retinopathy ; Edema ; Glomerulosclerosis, Focal Segmental ; Hemoglobins ; Humans ; Liver ; Nephrosis ; Peptidyl-Dipeptidase A

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*