Neurilemmomas of the trachea are extremely rare. The most common site of them is the distal third of the trachea and the age of the patients at presentation varied from 6 to 78 years old. They usually have a freqeuntly very long natural history, causing symptoms only after they have attained a considerable size. We experienced a case of near-total obstruction of the trachea by an intraluminal sessile neurilemmoma. The patient was a 66-year-old man with 2-year history of progressive exertional dyspnea and had several episodes of pneumonitis associated with productive cough. Grossly, the tumor was a well-circumscribed mass. Microscopically, typical cellular Antoni A and myxoid Antoni B areas were revealed.
Aged ; Cough ; Dyspnea ; Humans ; Natural History ; Neurilemmoma* ; Pneumonia ; Trachea

No abstract available.
Mediastinum*

To evaluate the clinical and histopathological significance of the proliferative activity in neoplastic and non-neoplastic thyroid lesions, we analyzed the mitotic count and the proliferating cell nuclear antigen labeling index (PCNA-LI) by immunohistochemistry as the proliferation- related markers. In this study included were surgically removed normal thyroid tissue (27 cases), adenomatous goiter (15 cases), Hashimoto's thyroiditis (5 cases), follicular adenoma (13 cases), follicular carcinoma (7 cases), papillary carcinoma (44 cases), poorly differentiated carcinoma (2 cases) and undifferentiated carcinoma (3 cases). The median PCNA-LI was 0 in normal thyroid tissue, 0.5 in adenomatous goiter, 6.2 in Hashimoto's thyroiditis, 1.2 in follicular adenoma, 4.8 in follicular carcinoma, 8.5 in papillary carcinoma, 60.8 in poorly differentiated carcinoma, and 55.2 in undifferentiated carcinoma (p=0.0001). Although PCNA-LI was exceptionally high in Hashimoto's thyroiditis, it was suggested that PCNA-LI could be used as a marker differentiating benign lesions from malignant neoplasm. Also, it could differentiate follicular adenoma from follicular carcinoma. Except clinical stage (p=0.0397), PCNA-LI was not related with sex, size, histologic subtype, and lymph node metastasis in papillary carcinoma. The presence of mitosis differentiated the neoplastic thyroid lesions from the non-neoplastic lesions (p<0.05), however, it could not divide benign and malignant neoplasm. These results suggest that an evaluation of the proliferative activity can help to differentiate the thyroid lesions. In addition, there was no significant correlation between the value of PCNA-LI and the presence of mitosis. It can be recommended to evaluate both the mitotic count and the PCNA-LI for determining the proliferative activity of the thyroid lesions.
Adenoma ; Carcinoma ; Carcinoma, Papillary ; Goiter ; Immunohistochemistry ; Lymph Nodes ; Mitosis ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen* ; Thyroid Gland* ; Thyroiditis

No abstract available.
Animals ; Mucous Membrane* ; Rats*

BACKGROUND: Pulmonary thromboembolism is relatively frequent and potentially fatal. However, it is commonly misdiagnosed. The incidence of pulmonary thromboembolism is not decreasing despite advances in diagnosis and effective prophylatic measures. Its potential for significant sequela necessitates a prompt diagnosis and treatment. Unfortunately, there are many difficulties and problems regarding accurate diagnosis. There is a low prevalence of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary thromboembolism in Korea and only few reports on this subject are available. METHOD: The clinical features of 36 patients, who were diagnosed with pulmonary thromboembolism at the Korea University medical center, were reviewed. RESULTS: 1) There was no significant difference in prevalence between men an women, and the mean age was 50.9 years in men 59.2 years in women. 2) The frequent causes of pulmonary thromboembolism were malignancies (22.2%), surgery (22.2%), and heart disease(8.2%). Specific causes were not identified in 33.3%. 3) The most common symptom was dyspnea(72.2%), and the most common sign was tachypnea(61.1%). 4) The EKG findings were normal in 28.6%, and S1Q3T3 pulmonale pattern in 25.7%, ST or QRS changes in others. 5) The chest X-ray findings indicated pulmonary infiltation in 37.5%, cardiomegaly in 15.6%, pleural effusion in 12.5%, and normal in 27.8%. The perfusion lung scan showed a high probability in 66.7%, and intermediate or low probability in 33.3%. 6) The pulmonary arterial pressure(PAP) in the high probability groups was 57.9mmHg with a higher mortality rate(35%). CONCLUSION: Pulmonary thromboembolism is not uncommon in Korea and its clinical features do not differ greatly from those reported in the literature. When pulmonary thromboemblism of unknown causes are diagnosed, a search for an occult malignancy is recommended. Rapid diagnosis and treatment are achieved when thromboemblism is suspected.
Academic Medical Centers ; Cardiomegaly ; Diagnosis ; Electrocardiography ; Female ; Heart ; Humans ; Incidence ; Korea ; Lung ; Male ; Mortality ; Perfusion ; Pleural Effusion ; Prevalence ; Pulmonary Embolism* ; Thorax ; Tomography, Spiral Computed ; Venous Thrombosis

Bunazosin is a alpha-1 blocker that is more selective and effective than other alpha-1 receptor blockers. Bunazosin has been shown to lower intraocular pressure but it's mechanism is uncertain. The purpose of this study is to know the morphological changes in the ciliary epithelium by bunazosin. 0.1% Bunazosin was instilled on the eye of the rabbits and the eyes were enucleated on 1, 2, 6 and 24 hours after instillation to find out the tissue response under the electronmicroscopy. As a result, widening of the cell membranes and swelling of the mitochondria were observed in the pigmented and non-pigmented epithelium and these changes were recovered with time and seem to be the morphological changes of bunazosin against aqueous formation in the ciliary body.
Cell Membrane ; Ciliary Body ; Epithelium* ; Intraocular Pressure ; Mitochondria ; Rabbits*

PURPOSE: Many young children suffer from wheezing illness during infancy, and some of them experience wheezing frequently and develop bronchial asthma ultimately. It is not clear whether the level of exposure to allergens in the environment is a significant risk factor for asthma in this clinical setting. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of level of exposure to house dust mites on the development of asthma after early childhood wheezing. METHODS: Asthmatic children(n=21) and nonasthmatic children(n=19) with the past history of wheezing illness during the first three years of age were recruited. Samples of house dusts were collected from the bedclothes in their bedrooms. We measured the amount of group I allergens from Dermatophagoides spp., Der f I and Der p I in house dusts by ELISA using monoclonal antibodies. RESULTS: In asthmatic and nonasthmatic groups, the level of Der f I was higher than that of Der p I, although the difference was not statistically significant. The level of Der f I was 4.32 microgram/gm of dust(geometric mean; range of 1 SD : 0.61-30.48) in asthmatic group and 3.72 microgram/gm(0.50-27.42) in nonasthmatic group. The level of Der p I was 2.22 microgram/gm(0.33-14.96) in asthmatic group and 2.07 microgram/gm(0.31-13.77) in nonasthmatic group. The difference between the two groups was not significant for both allergens. When the total subjects were divided into atopic(n=21) and nonatopic(n=19) groups, there was significant difference in neither Der f I nor Der p I level between atopic and nonatopic groups. CONCLUSION: Although personal atopy is important in the development of asthma after early childhood wheezing, the level of exposure to allergens in the environment may not be a significant risk factor for the development of asthma in this clinical setting.
Allergens ; Antibodies, Monoclonal ; Asthma* ; Child ; Dust* ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay ; Humans ; Pyroglyphidae* ; Respiratory Sounds* ; Risk Factors

A 5-year-old boy developed painful erythematous indurated patch at vertex that rapidly progressed to central necrotic ulceration with peripheral granulation after chemotherapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Cultures at the lesion sites demonstrated a fungus, Aspergillus niger, as the etiologic agent. No evidence of involvement of other organs or of systemic dissemination by Aspergillus niger was found. Surgical debridement was performed and the patient received treatment with intravenous Amphotericine B followed by oral itraconazole. No evidence of recurrent fungal infection was noted during several months of follow-up.
Amphotericin B ; Aspergillosis* ; Aspergillus niger ; Child* ; Child, Preschool ; Debridement ; Drug Therapy ; Follow-Up Studies ; Fungi ; Humans ; Itraconazole ; Male ; Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma ; Skin ; Ulcer

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The stacked auditory brainstem response (SABR) was introduced to collect the low frequency information using the conventional ABR. The cochlear hydrops analysis masking procedure (CHAMP) was developed to discriminate an active Meniere's disease from others. This investigation was aimed to provide data through analyzing age and gender effects of SABR and CHAMP in Korean normal adults. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: Normal hearing Korean adults (34), aged 30 to 67 participated in this study. The number of subjects for different age groups of 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s were 10, 9, 8, and 7, respectively. SABRs were tested at 60 dB nHL stimuli level of constant noise and masking clicks of high pass noise ranging at 8, 4, 2, 1 and 0.5 kHz. CHAMP responses were simply obtained for further analysis of SABR measurements. SABR amplitude, SABR interaural difference (IAD), CHAMP latency delay, and CHAMP complex amplitude ratio were analyzed and compared. RESULTS: The mean SABR amplitude was 683 nV showing statistical difference for age but not for gender effects. The mean SABR IAD was 6.4% with no statistical significances for both age and gender effects. The mean CHAMP latency delay and complex amplitude ratio were 4.47 ms and 0.97 with statistical significance for the effects of age but not for gender. CONCLUSION: The results agreed with the foreign data in SABR and CHAMP except for the age effect of complex amplitude ratio. In order to improve clinical efficacy, investigations should be performed with more and diverse participants.
Adult ; Aged ; Edema ; Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem ; Hearing ; Humans ; Masks ; Meniere Disease ; Noise

BACKGROUND: Rescently, the immunotherapy against infectious disease and cancer is being actively studied, and high yield of pure CD14+ monocytes is a key of concern. In this study, we optimized the percoll gradient method to increase the purity and yield of monocytes from peripheral mononuclear cells. METHODS: We separated mononuclear cells (MNC) from healthy donors, and monocytes from MNC were separated with the various density of percoll gradient. After centrifugation, we determined the most efficient density of the percoll gradient to get the highest yield and purity of monocytes. We also obtained monocytes by the plastic absorption method. Monocytes were differentiated into dendritic cells (DC) and the efficacy of differentiation to DC is confirmed and compared by morphological characteristics and using a flowcytometer. RESULTS: The purity of monocytes was 51.3+/-8.3% by the 35% percoll gradient method and the purity was improved to 82.9+/-4.2% with 100% of yield by repeating the same method. Therefore, the yield of mature dendritic cells was 3.6+/-0.9% of the total input MNC by the 35% percoll repetition method, which was 1.7 times higher than the plastic adherent method (2.1+/-0.5%). CONCLUSION: This study shows a cost-effective method to isolate CD14+ monocytes and these cells demonstrate high differentiation rate to DC. This process will be valuable for obtaining a sufficient number of DC.
Absorption ; Centrifugation ; Communicable Diseases ; Dendritic Cells ; Humans ; Immunotherapy ; Monocytes ; Plastics ; Povidone ; Silicon Dioxide ; Tissue Donors