Lymphatic vessels are routes for leukocyte migration and fluid drainage. In addition to their passive roles in migration of leukocytes, increasing evidence indicates their active roles in immune regulation. Tissue inflammation rapidly induces lymphatic endothelial cell proliferation and chemokine production, thereby resulting in lymphangiogenesis. Furthermore, lymphatic endothelial cells induce T cell tolerance through various mechanisms. In this review, we focus on the current knowledge on how inflammatory cytokines affect lymphangiogenesis and the roles of lymphatic vessels in modulating immune responses.
Cytokines ; Drainage ; Emigration and Immigration ; Endothelial Cells ; Inflammation ; Leukocytes ; Lymphangiogenesis ; Lymphatic Vessels*

Macular hemorrhage which result from breaks of Bruch's membrane or from choroidal neovascularization can develop in high degenerative myopia, but its occurrence after photorefractive surgery has rarely been reported. We experienced a case of macular hemorrhage after laser in situ keratomileusis[LASIK]:A 28-year-old female patient with high myopia of -16.5 diopters, who had received successful LASIK operation on her left eye.complained of a sudden drop in vision 20 days postoperatively.On fundus examination, macular hemorrhages were detected on her left eye.Eventually the hemorrhages resolved, but more than 2 lines of her best corrected visual acuity were lost.During follow-up, a new hemorrhagic lesion was incidently found on the other eye. This case demonstrates that macular hemorrhages may develop after LASIK in eyes with high degenerative myopia, and lead to a permanent reduction in visual acuity.We should be alert to any potential retinal pathology in patients having refractive surgery.
Adult ; Bruch Membrane ; Choroidal Neovascularization ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Hemorrhage* ; Humans ; Keratomileusis, Laser In Situ* ; Myopia ; Myopia, Degenerative ; Pathology ; Refractive Surgical Procedures ; Retinaldehyde ; Visual Acuity

PURPOSE: To evaluate the MR findings of knee injuries in skiing and to explain the mechanism of injury with MR findings. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We reviewed MR findings of 18 patients with history of knee injuries in skiing. The MR images were evaluated retrospectively to identify the ligament injuries, bone lesions and meniscal injuries. RESULTS: Ligament injuries were seen in 16 patients, bone contusions in 16 patients, meniscal lesions in two patients. The most common group of injury was anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and roedial collateral ligament (MCL) injuries with bone contusion on posterior lip of the lateral tibial plateau (LTP). The second common group of injury was isolated ACL injury with bone contusions on the lateral fernoral condyle (LFC) and posterior lip of the LTP. We considered that the mechanism of injury of the former group may be correlated with the valgus torque with secondary anterior displacement of the tibia and the latter group may be correlated with the pivot shift phenomenon. CONCLUSION: MR may play an important role in the diagnosis of knee injuries in skiing and its findings may explain the mechanism of injury.
Anterior Cruciate Ligament ; Collateral Ligaments ; Contusions ; Diagnosis ; Humans ; Knee Injuries* ; Knee* ; Ligaments ; Lip ; Retrospective Studies ; Skiing* ; Tibia ; Torque

No abstract available.
Erythema* ; Flushing* ; Rosacea*

The objective evaluation of velopharyngeal closure function is the key to diagnosis and therapy control of velopharyngeal incompetency. The aim of this study is to evaluate the aerodynamic and acoustic characteristics of the velopharyngeal closure function of patients who have developed velopharyngeal incompetency after management with speech aids. The test words were composed of sustained vowels /a/, /i/, /e/, /u/, /ja/, /je/, /wi/ and polysyllabic words /p'ap'i/, /siso/, /mami/ for measuring nasalance, The data was collected before the placement of the speech aids and one to three months after. The results were as follows:The nasalance score of the velopharyngeal incompetency speakers was higher than that of the normal control group, except for nasal sounds, and was decreased after placement of the speech aids, especially in high vowels /i/ (P<.01) and /wi/ (P<.05).
Acoustics ; Diagnosis ; Humans

We report a case of neuroblastoma with multiple skin metastases as a chief complaint in a 2-month-old girl. the skin lesions were rnultiple, pea-sized, bluish, nontender, moable subcutaneous nodules on abdomen, back and scalp. Histopathology showed small round or poly gonal tumor cells which have deeply stained, basophilic, hyperchromatic nuclei with some mitoses. Th.se tumor cells showed clumping tendency which is one of early menifestations of rosette formation. Immunohistochemically positive reaction was demonstrated by anti-NSE(neuron specific enolase) antilody but negative reaction by anti-NFP (neurofilament proteiin ) antibody. She has been succesfully treated with combined chemotherapy for 10 months without relapse.
Abdomen ; Basophils ; Drug Therapy ; Female ; Humans ; Infant ; Mitosis ; Neoplasm Metastasis* ; Neuroblastoma* ; Phosphopyruvate Hydratase ; Recurrence ; Rosette Formation ; Scalp ; Skin*

Velopharyngeal function refers to the combined activity of the soft palate and pharynx in closing and opening the velopharyngeal port to the required degree. In normal speech, various muscles of palate & pharynx function as sphincter and occlude the oropharynx from the nasopharynx during the production of oral consonant sounds. Inadequate velopharyngeal function caused by neurologic disorder-cerebral apoplexy, regressive diseases-disseminated sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, congenital deformity-cleft palate, cerebral palsy and etc. may result in abnormal speech characterized by hypernasality, nasal emission and decreased intelligibility of speech due to weak consonant production. In our study, we constructed speech aids prosthesis-Palatal lift in acquired idiophathic VPI patient and assessed velopharyngeal function with various diagnostic instruments which can evaluate the speech characteristics objectively.
Cerebral Palsy ; Humans ; Muscles ; Nasopharynx ; Oropharynx ; Palate ; Palate, Soft ; Parkinson Disease ; Pharynx ; Sclerosis ; Stroke

BACKGROUND: Experimental data indicate that low-flow reperfusion following prolonged cardiocirculatory arrest may aggravate early cerebral microcirculatory repefusion disorders. We investigated the influence of cerebral repefusion flow change to the ischemic histopathologic damage of brain tissue after incomplete forebrain ischemia in rats. MATERIALS AND METHOD: Anesthetized Sprague-Dawley rats were undergone ligation of both infernal carotid artery by microvascular clamp for 10 minutes. After release of the clamp, reperfusion was started with several different flow levels (0, 10, 20, 30, 50, and 100%) of infernal carotid artery comparing to pre-clamping phase using flowmeter. After 15minutes of reperfusion, rat brains were prepared by perfusion-fixation with 3% formaldehyde. Under light microscopic examination of Hematoxylin-Eosin stained tissue slide, histopathologic damage was examined at cortex, putamen, and hippocampus regions. Categorical hisotopathologic damage scores were derived in each regions by manual counts of ischemic neurons. RESULT: The histopathologic damage scores were 0, 10. 2+/-0.5, 7.6+/-1.5, 5.9+/-1.4, 5.0+/- 2.8, 3.5+/-0.7, and 1.0+/-0.0 in control, 0, 10, 20, 30, 50, and 100% reperfusion groups, respectively(p<0.05). CONCLUSION: Our insults showed significant increment of brain histopathologic damage scores along with decreasing amount of cerebral reperfusion know after incomplete forebrain ischemia. We believe restoration of repefusion flow to pre-ischemic level would be a critical component in attenuation of brain ischemic damage.
Animals ; Brain ; Carotid Arteries ; Flowmeters ; Formaldehyde ; Hippocampus ; Ischemia* ; Ligation ; Models, Animal* ; Neurons ; Prosencephalon* ; Putamen ; Rats* ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Reperfusion*

rcinoma (SCC) is the second most common skin cancer. In particular, invasive SCC has a high risk of metastasis and sometimes, this can be fatal. At present, the treatment of choice for invasive SCC is complete excision with a proper surgical margin, but most cases of SCC develop on cosmetically-sensitive areas, so sometimes significant scarring or deformities can lead to an unhappy result. An 80 year-old female presented with a 4x1.5cm sized SCC on her lower lip. Although surgery was the first line therapy for this invasive SCC, a cosmetically poor outcome was expected. Thus the patient did not want to undergo a surgical operation, so we had to explore other treatment options. Recently there have been many reports that show imiquimod 5% cream is effective in the treatment of invasive SCC. Therefore we started topical therapy with imiquimod 5% cream five times a week. After 6 months, the lesion size was reduced to 2x1.5cm and we could remove the remnant tumor by wedge resection with cosmetically acceptable result. We suggest this neo-adjuvant immunotherapy can be an alternative for the treatment of cosmetically-critical SCC and present this case as a good example that has shown successful size-reductive neoadjuvant immunotherapy using imiquimod in invasive SCC.
Aged, 80 and over ; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell* ; Cicatrix ; Congenital Abnormalities ; Female ; Humans ; Immunotherapy* ; Lip* ; Neoadjuvant Therapy ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Skin Neoplasms

No abstract available.
Chancre* ; Eczema* ; Nipples*