Intracranial lipoma usually occurs at or near the midline, predominantly in the callosal cistern and very rarely in the sylvian fissure. We report a case of lipoma of the sylvian fissure without association with other congenital anomaly or vascular abnormality.
Brain ; Lipoma*

Crossed aphasia refers to language disturbance induced by unilateral right hemisphere (non-language dominant) injury in right-handed people who had no previous history of brain damage. Crossed aphasia occurs in less than 2 percent who developed a aphasia. We report a case of a 49-year-old right handed man with language disturbance after right middle cerebral infarction. He showed nonfluent crossed aphasia with Gerstman syndrome such as right-left disorientation, finger agnosia, acalculia and agraphia, but not with apraxia and neglect. At 7 weeks after onset, language function indicated improvement in spontaneous speech and at 19 weeks after onset, improvement in spontaneous speech, comprehension, repetition, naming and reading.
Agnosia ; Agraphia ; Aphasia* ; Apraxias ; Brain ; Cerebral Infarction ; Comprehension ; Dyscalculia ; Hand ; Humans ; Infarction, Middle Cerebral Artery* ; Middle Aged

"Mirror-writing" is the simultaneous process of reversing individual letters and composing word strings in reverse direction. It is reported that the lesions which cause "mirror-writing" are left parietal lobe, left basal ganglia, right supplementary motor area, left supplementary motor area, left cingulate gyrus, and left angular gyrus. To explain this phenomenon, several theories have been proposed such as the motor, the visual dominance, the supplementary motor area, the visio-spatial, the visual word- form, the hemisaptial factor or directional and the reflected graphemic representation hypotheses. With reviewing some of literatures, we present a case of "mirror- writing" of posterior corpus callosum lesion which is not included in the aforementioned those.
Basal Ganglia ; Corpus Callosum* ; Functional Laterality ; Gyrus Cinguli ; Infarction, Posterior Cerebral Artery* ; Parietal Lobe ; Posterior Cerebral Artery*

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Dyspepsia is remarkably common in the general population. Although upper gastrointestinal endoscopy is the investigation of choice for dyspepsia, the selection of the patients who need endoscopy is very difficult. This study was aimed to investigate the usefulness of the various parameters for the selection of the patients who need endoscopy in Korean population. METHODS: An analysis of the endoscopic findings was carried out in 141 patients with dyspepsia according to parameters including H. pylori IgG seropositivity, age and alarm signs, such as dysphagia, weight loss, vomiting, anemia, family history of upper gastrointestinal malignancy, hematemesis or melena, abdominal mass and anorexia. RESULTS: The positive rates of stomach cancer and peptic ulcer in patients above 35 years of age were 3% (4/118) and 30% (35/118), respectively. The positive rates of stomach cancer and peptic ulcer in patients with alarm signs were 2% (2/94), 36% (34/94) and the rates in patients with H. pylori IgG seropositivity were 4% (3/70), 37% (26/70), respectively. However, no parameter was useful in the selection of patients with stomach cancer or peptic ulcer. In patients with alarm signs, the positive rates of peptic ulcer in patients with and without H. pylori IgG seropositivity were 46% (22/48) and 26% (12/46), respectively (p=0.04). In patients under 35 years of age, the positive rates of peptic ulcer in patients with and without H. pylori IgG seropositivity were 58% (7/12) and 18% (2/11), respectively (p=0.048). CONCLUSIONS: The overall positive rates of stomach cancer or peptic ulcer were significantly higher in patient group with both H. pylori IgG seropositivity and alarm signs, and that under 35 years of age with H. pylori IgG seropositivity. However, there were also considerable number of peptic ulcer in patients who were excluded from those groups. We recommend that those parameters should be used only as a decision aid in selecting the candidates for endoscopy.
Anemia ; Anorexia ; Decision Support Techniques ; Deglutition Disorders ; Dyspepsia* ; Endoscopy* ; Endoscopy, Gastrointestinal ; Helicobacter pylori ; Hematemesis ; Humans ; Immunoglobulin G ; Melena ; Peptic Ulcer ; Stomach Neoplasms ; Vomiting ; Weight Loss

Head and neck cancers have never been systematically studied for clinical purposes yet in Korea. This epidemiological survey on head and neck cancer patients was undertaken from January to December 2001 in 79 otorhinolaryngology resident-training hospitals nationwide. The number of head and neck cancer patients was 1,063 cases in the year. The largest proportion of cases arose in the larynx, as many as 488 cases, which accounted for 45.9%. It was followed by, in order of frequency, oral cavity (16.5%), oropharynx (10.0%), and hypopharynx (9.5%). The male:female ratio was 5:1, and the mean age was 60.3 yr. Surgery was the predominant treatment modality in head and neck cancers: 204 (21.5%) cases were treated with only surgery, 198 (20.8%) cases were treated with surgery and radiotherapy, 207 cases (21.8%) were treated with combined therapy of surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. Larynx and hypopharynx cancers had a stronger relationship with smoking and alcohol drinking than other primary site cancers. Of them, 21 cases were found to be metastasized at the time of diagnosis into the lung, gastrointestinal tract, bone, or brain. Coexisting second primary malignancies were found in 23 cases. At the time of diagnosis, a total of 354 cases had cervical lymph node metastasis accounting for 42.0%.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Alcohol Drinking/epidemiology ; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell/epidemiology* ; Child ; Female ; Head and Neck Neoplasms/epidemiology* ; Health Surveys ; Human ; Korea/epidemiology ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Neoplasms, Second Primary/epidemiology ; Occupations ; Registries/statistics & numerical data ; Risk Factors ; Smoking/epidemiology