BACKGROUND: Irradiation of the skin with ultraviolet rays result in alterations of immune response as well as melanogenesis and melanocarcinogenensis. These effects are largely mediated by soluble mediators released from epidermal cells in response to ultraviolet rays. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of ultraviolet B (UVB) irradiation on the normal human melanocyte gene expression. METHODS: We demonstrated genes modulated by UVB irradiation among over 300 genes coding CDs, cytokins, growth factors, and growth factor receptors in normal human melanocytes by cDNA microarray technique. RESULTS: Two genes out of 384 genes in cultured normal human melanocytes were found up-regulated following UVB irradiation. They are the genes coding lactotransferrin and CD160. Forty one genes out of 384 genes were found down-regulated by UVB irradiation. They included the genes coding IL-9, IL-5, TNF-alpha, TNF-beta, IL-6 receptor and CD20. CONCLUSION: These results provide the basis for future studies on the immunologic role in modulated genes by UV-stressed human melanocytes.
Clinical Coding ; Gene Expression ; Humans* ; Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins ; Interleukin-5 ; Interleukin-9 ; Lactoferrin ; Lymphotoxin-alpha ; Melanocytes* ; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis ; Receptors, Growth Factor ; Receptors, Interleukin-6 ; Skin ; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha ; Ultraviolet Rays

No abstract available.
Amiodarone/*adverse effects ; Anti-Arrhythmia Agents/*adverse effects ; Female ; Humans ; Male

Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) are an effective treatment strategy for patients with aborted sudden cardiac death (SCD) and ventricular tachyarrhythmias. rimary prevention of SCD is a strategy involving the use of ICDs in patients who are at high risk for, but have not had, any previous events of ventricular arrhythmias or cardiac arrest. Several randomized clinical trials have demonstrated the efficacy of ICDs in the primary prevention of SCD. Therefore, ICD implantation is recommended as a standard of care by the guidelines in patients who have ischemic or nonischemic cardiomyopathy and a low left ventricular ejection fraction. However, the rates of ICD implantation as a primary prevention in Korea is quite low compared to western countries. In this review, we will summarize the results and efficacy of ICDs in the clinical trials about primary prevention of SCD, the current treatment guidelines, and the reimbursement policy of Korean health insurance. We hope that this review will help broaden the recognition of importance of ICD implantation for the primary prevention of SCD.
Arrhythmias, Cardiac ; Cardiomyopathies ; Death, Sudden, Cardiac* ; Defibrillators, Implantable* ; Heart Arrest ; Hope ; Humans ; Insurance, Health ; Korea ; Primary Prevention* ; Standard of Care ; Stroke Volume ; Tachycardia

A coronary pseudostenosis is a characteristic angiographic image, which may appear as coronary winkles, or intussusceptions, due to a stiff guidewire during coronary interventions. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) plays a role in ruling out severe coronary stenosis, coronary dissections, thrombus or coronary spasm. We report a case of coronary pseudostenosis, which occurred during coronary interventions, diagnosed by intravascular ultrasound.
Coronary Stenosis ; Intussusception ; Spasm ; Thrombosis ; Ultrasonography*

The use of an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) is an effective treatment strategy for patients with aborted sudden cardiac death (SCD) and ventricular tachyarrhythmias. Primary prevention of SCD is a strategy involving the use of ICDs in patients who are at high risk for but who have not had any previous events of ventricular arrhythmias or cardiac arrest. Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) improves symptoms of heart failure and left ventricular systolic function when used in patients with severe heart failure symptoms, reduced left ventricular ejection, and a wide QRS complex. CRT has also been proven to reduce the rate of hospitalization due to heart failure as well as the rate of death from any cause. In this review, we discuss the clinical trials and current clinical indications for the ICD and CRT.
Arrhythmias, Cardiac ; Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy* ; Death, Sudden, Cardiac ; Defibrillators, Implantable* ; Heart Arrest ; Heart Failure ; Hospitalization ; Humans ; Primary Prevention ; Tachycardia

No abstract available.
Brain* ; Krukenberg Tumor* ; Neoplasm Metastasis*

OBJECTIVE: In processing high dimensional clinical data, choosing the optimal subset of features is important, not only for reduce the computational complexity but also to improve the value of the model constructed from the given data. This study proposes an efficient feature selection method with a variable threshold. METHODS: In the proposed method, the spatial distribution of labeled data, which has non-redundant attribute values in the overlapping regions, was used to evaluate the degree of intra-class separation, and the weighted average of the redundant attribute values were used to select the cut-off value of each feature. RESULTS: The effectiveness of the proposed method was demonstrated by comparing the experimental results for the dyspnea patients' dataset with 11 features selected from 55 features by clinical experts with those obtained using seven other classification methods. CONCLUSION: The proposed method can work well for clinical data mining and pattern classification applications.
Data Mining ; Dyspnea

OBJECTIVES: Congenital muscular torticollis, a common disorder that refers to the shortening of the sternocleidomastoid in infants, is sensitive to correction through physical therapy when treated early. If physical therapy is unsuccessful, surgery is required. In this study, we developed a support vector regression model for congenital muscular torticollis to investigate the prognosis of the physical therapy treatent in infants. METHODS: Fifty-nine infants with congenital muscular torticollis received physical therapy until the degree of neck tilt was less than 5degrees. After treatment, the mass diameter was reevaluated. Based on the data, a support vector regression model was applied to predict the prognoses. RESULTS: 10-, 20-, and 50-fold cross-tabulation analyses for the proposed model were conducted based on support vector regression and conventional multi-regression method based on least squares. The proposed methodbased on support vector regression was robust and enabled the effective analysis of even a small amount of data containing outliers. CONCLUSIONS: The developed support vector regression model is an effective prognostic tool for infants with congenital muscular torticollis who receive physical therapy.
Humans ; Infant ; Least-Squares Analysis ; Neck ; Prognosis ; Torticollis

Neuroendocrine tumors are heterogeneous and potentially aggressive, and they must be distinguished from classic carcinoid tumors as the tumors share histologic features with their counterparts that occur in the lung, such as oat cell and intermediate cell carcinomas. Histopathologically, the oat cell neuroendocrine carcinoma displays itself in sheets, cord and rib-bons of small hyperchromatic, undifferentiated cells with very scanty cytoplasm. The intermediate cell is slightly larger than the oat cell and has more abundant cytoplasm. The authors report a case of a 52-year old patient with neuroendocrine carcinoma that occurred at the anterior cranial fossa extending into the nasal cavity. The patient presented with recurrent meningitis and seizure. Histological examination of the nasal biopsy tumor specimen confirmed neuroendocrine carcinoma, afterwhich the patient treated with a 4300 rad radiation therapy. Magnetic resonance imaging taken 2 years later showed an enlargement of the tumor mass at the anterior cranial fossa, and the patient was operated for removal of the intracranial tumor. The nasal cavity defect was reconstructed using rotation galeal flap technique.
Avena ; Biopsy ; Carcinoid Tumor ; Carcinoma, Neuroendocrine* ; Cranial Fossa, Anterior* ; Cytoplasm ; Humans ; Lung ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Meningitis ; Middle Aged ; Nasal Cavity ; Neuroendocrine Tumors ; Seizures