OBJECTIVES: We compared the characteristics of the pain threshold and pain experience between demented group and non-demented group. METHODS: This study was part of Gangwon projects for early detection of dementia in 2010. We recruited 8302 local resident ages over 65 years old. Of theses, 1259 people who scored low MMSE were selected and 365 of them completed CERAD-K(Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's disease). Finally, 90 in non-demented group and 57 in demented group(mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease) were analyzed. Pain threshold was experimentally measured by pressure algometer and we investigated the pain experience, by Brief pain inventory (BPI), a self-report test. RESULTS: In the demographic characteristics, there are more female, higher ages, lower education in the demented group. There was no significant difference between the two groups in the pain threshold. On the BPI results, 'shoulder pain', 'the number of pain' and 'interference of working' were significantly more prevalent in non-demented group. However, there are no significant differences between the groups in the 'pain severity', 'prevalence of pain' and 'pain treatment'. CONCLUSIONS: Demented group report less pain experience but, still perceived pain. It support previous studies that patient with dementia have increased pain tolerance but preserved pain threshold. Thus, active pain assessment and treatment for patients with dementia is needed.
Aged* ; Dementia* ; Education ; Female ; Gangwon-do ; Humans ; Pain Measurement ; Pain Threshold*

PURPOSE: To evaluate the effect of cataract surgery on subfoveal choroidal thickness (SCT) and investigate the relationship between the variation of SCT and refractive error. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 47 patients (47 eyes) who underwent uneventful phacoemulsification cataract surgery from March 2012 to February 2014. SCTs were measured using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography performed before surgery and at 1 month, 3 months and 6 months postoperatively. We investigated the differences in target refraction (TR) and postoperative spherical equivalent (SE), intraocular pressure (IOP) and central macular thickness (CMT) at all follow-ups. RESULTS: Compared with preoperative measurements, SCT showed a significant increase of 5.9 ± 13.3 µm at postoperative 1 month and 7.6 ± 18.1 µm at postoperative 3 months (p = 0.004 and p = 0.006, respectively), but no significant differences at postoperative 6 months (p = 0.104). The correlation between the variation of SCT and the differences in postoperative SE and TR were not significant at 1 month and 6 months, but were positively significant at 3 months (r = 0.310, p = 0.034). The variation of SCT showed no significant correlations with the postoperative change in IOP and CMT. CONCLUSIONS: SCT significantly increased up to 3 months after cataract surgery. The variation of SCT may affect the postoperative refractive error.
Cataract* ; Choroid* ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Intraocular Pressure ; Medical Records ; Phacoemulsification ; Refractive Errors* ; Retrospective Studies ; Tomography, Optical Coherence

No abstract available.
Adenocarcinoma* ; Cell Line*

No abstract available.
Sarcoma*

PURPOSE: We determined the clinical significance of telomerase activity and telomere length in breast cancer patients and also developed the measuring system of telomerase activity change with RNAse A pre-treatment. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We measured the telomerase activity in 71 breast cancer tissues and paired normal tissues with TRAP (Telomeric Repeat Amplification Protocol) assay. Telomerase activity was calculated by computer-assisted densitometry compared to telomerase activity of the 293 control cell line. To develop the measuring system of telomerase activity modulation, we measured the telomerase activity after the treatment with RNAse A, 150microgram/ml, which inhibited 70% of telomerase activity compared to control in the 293 control cell line. In 59 paired tissues with telomerase activity, terminal restriction fragment (TRFs) length were measured using Southern blotting. RESULTS: Sixty-three out of 71 cancer tissues showed telomerase activity (88.7%), while no telomerase activity was detected in their paired normal tissues. Telomerase activity was correlated to the node metastasis (p=0.02) and stage (p=0.005), but not to the tumor size or the hormonal receptor status. TRFs were neither specific to tumor tissues nor related to any of the clinical parameters. However, changes of TRFs of the tumor tissues from their paired normal tissues were correlated to the telomerase activities. Also the patients with different TRFs between cancer and normal tissues were in more advanced stage. After pre-treatment with the 150microgram/ml of RNAse A, telomerase activity in the tumor tissues showed variable inhibition. Relative inhibition, the ratio of inhibited telomerase activity in each tumor tissue compared to the inhibition of 293 control cell line, was proportional to the telomerase activity. CONCLUSION: In breast cancer, telomerase activity was specific to the tumor tissues and correlated to tumor progression. A combination of telomerase activity and TRFs changes can be used as a guidline in detecting a better candidate for telomerase inhibition. Semi-quantitative assay with RI system can be used in evaluating the changes of telomerase activity after treatment with a new telomerase inhibitor with TRAP assay.
Biological Therapy* ; Blotting, Southern ; Breast Neoplasms* ; Breast* ; Cell Line ; Densitometry ; Humans ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Ribonuclease, Pancreatic ; Telomerase* ; Telomere

Further understanding of male human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is necessary to prevent infection in men, as well as transmission to women. In our current study, we investigated patterns of HPV infection and genotype distributions in male genital warts using the Anyplex II HPV28 Detection kit. We reviewed the medical records of 80 male patients who presented to 5 neighborhood clinics in Ulsan, Korea, for the treatment of genital warts between April 2014 and January 2015. All patients underwent HPV genotyping. The prevalence and characteristics of HPV infection were analyzed, and the patterns of HPV infection according to age were assessed. Among the study patients, 13 (16.3%) were negative for HPV infection, 46 (57.3%) were infected with low-risk HPV, and 21 (26.3%) were infected with high-risk HPV. Patients with multiple HPV infection were more likely to have high-risk HPV infection (P = 0.001). The prevalence of HPV infection was much higher in samples obtained by tissue excision due to a definite lesion (P = 0.001). There were no differences in high-risk HPV infection (P = 0.459), multiple HPV infection (P = 0.185), and recurrence at diagnosis (P = 0.178) according to age. HPV-6 and HPV-11 were the most common type overall (39.7% and 13.8%, respectively). HPV-16 and HPV-18 were the most common high-risk infections (both 3.4%). HPV infection is not only commonly encountered in male genital warts, but is also accompanied by high-risk HPV and multiple infections.
Adult ; Condylomata Acuminata/epidemiology/*pathology/virology ; DNA, Viral/genetics/metabolism ; Genotype ; Human papillomavirus 11/*genetics/isolation & purification ; Human papillomavirus 16/genetics/isolation & purification ; Human papillomavirus 18/genetics/isolation & purification ; Human papillomavirus 6/*genetics/isolation & purification ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Prevalence ; Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Republic of Korea/epidemiology ; Retrospective Studies ; Risk Factors

No abstract available.
Gastrointestinal Tract* ; Leiomyosarcoma*

No abstract available.
Colorectal Neoplasms* ; Fluorouracil* ; Leucovorin*

No abstract available.
Cisplatin* ; Humans ; Nausea* ; Vomiting*

Intestinal epithelial cells are known to up-regulate the expression of several chemokines in response to bacterial toxins. Since there has been little understanding on the cellular mechanisms of C. difficile toxin A-induced mucosal inflammation, we investigated whether nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kappaB) could regulate chemokine gene expression in HT-29 intestinal epithelial cells stimulated with C. difficile toxin A. C. difficile toxin A rapidly increased signals of NF-kappaB composed with p65 and p50 subunits in HT-29 cells, whereas it decreased the signals of IkappaBalpha. Blocking the NF-kB activation by transfection with dominant negative I kappa B alpha-containing retrovirus attenuated the upregulated expression of IL-8, GRO-alpha, and MCP-1 induced by C. difficile toxin A. These results suggest that NF-kappaB is a major regulator of chemokine gene expression in C. difficile toxin A-stimulated intestinal epithelial cells.
Bacterial Toxins ; Chemokines ; Clostridium difficile* ; Clostridium* ; Epithelial Cells* ; Gene Expression ; HT29 Cells ; Humans ; I-kappa B Proteins ; Inflammation ; Interleukin-8 ; NF-kappa B ; Retroviridae ; Transfection