Dr. Allen, the first Protestant missionary in Korea, had an opportunity of saving the life of the queen's nephew shortly after his arrival in Korea in 1884. In gratitude the King established the Royal Korean Hospital (Jejoong Won), the first hospital in Korea, and appointed Dr. Allen in charge of the medical affairs of the hospital. After Dr. Allen's resignation from the mission, the work was successively carried on by Drs. JW Heron, RA Hardie, CC Vinton and OR Avison, the last of whom arrived in 1893. In 1894 the connection of the Hospital with the Korean Government was severed and the work taken over by the Northern Presbyterian Mission. Since then, it has been a distinctly mission institute. In 1900, while attending the Ecumenical Conference of Foreign Missions in Carnegie Hall, New York, Dr. Avison made the acquaintance of a philanthropist LH Severance, who made a gift of $10,000 for a new hospital. This building, the first modern hospital in Korea, was opened and dedicated in 1904. It was named the Severance Hospital. As the new hospital was built, the old hospital building was to be returned to the Korean Government according to the agreement made in 1894. On retaking the old hospital, the Korean Government paid $30,289.99 won for the renovation of the original building and new buildings established in the site during the period of Avison's entire charge of Jejoong Won. The old hospital building was used as an official residence for a diplomatic adviser Stevens, who was assassinated for his pro-Japan activities, and as a social club for Japanese officials.
Christianity/*history ; English Abstract ; History of Medicine, 19th Cent. ; History of Medicine, 20th Cent. ; Hospitals, Public/*history ; Hospitals, Religious/*history ; Korea ; Missions and Missionaries/*history ; United States

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Adenotonsillectomy is a commonly performed surgical procedure carried out by otolaryngologists for children. Anatomical changes to the vocal tract occur after the surgery and may alter the patient's voice. This study evaluated the effects of adenotonsillectomy on the voice in Korean children.SUBJECTS AND METHOD: total of 20 children who underwent adenotonsillectomy were enrolled. The speech of patients was recorded before and at one month of the surgery and acoustic features, especially the formant frequency, were analyzed. Perceptual analysis was also carried out and the Pediatric Voice Handicap Index (PVHI) questionnaire was used to assess subjective changes in the children's voice and the effects of these changes on social functions. RESULTS: Acoustic analysis revealed significant decreases in the vowel /i/ in the second formant, compact-diffuse, and grave-acute features of the voice (p=0.026, 0.022, and 0.031, respectively). A significant decrease was also observed in the intensity of the voice for the vowel /u/ (p=0.025). Perceptual analysis revealed that 86.6% of patients' voice recordings had post-operative changes. The mean preoperative PVHI score was 2.70±3.37, which decreased to 1.65±2.21 (p=0.011) after the surgery. CONCLUSION The results suggest that adenotonsillectomy affects Korean children's voices both acoustically and perceptually.

Background and Objectives: Snoring is the most common symptom of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and is caused by turbulent airflow due to narrowing of the upper airways. In patients with positional OSA, a change in sleep posture from supine to lateral is known to reduce snoring and sleep apnea. This study was performed to compare changes in snoring sound intensity and formant frequencies according to sleep position.Subjects and Method A total of 19 patients (male: 18; female: 1) diagnosed with positional OSA by polysomnography (PSG) were enrolled in this study. The snoring sounds recorded during PSG were analyzed acoustically and compared according to sleep position (i.e., supine vs. lateral). Results: Snoring disappeared on changing sleep position in five patients, all of whom had Apnea-Hypopnea Index (AHI) <15. In other patients, the snoring sounds tended to decrease with posture change, and the degree of decrease was inversely proportional to AHI (p=0.015) and respiratory disturbance index (RDI) (p=0.013). Formant frequencies 1, 3, and 4 (F1, F3, and F4, respectively) decreased when sleeping in the lateral position (p=0.02, 0.03, and 0.01, respectively). Conclusion In patients with positional OSA, a change in sleep posture from supine to lateral during sleep reduced the intensity and frequency of snoring sound.

Although gemcitabine-based regimens are widely used as an effective treatment for pancreatic cancer, acquired resistance to gemcitabine has become an increasingly common problem. Therefore, a novel therapeutic strategy to treat gemcitabine-resistant pancreatic cancer is urgently required. Piceamycin has been reported to exhibit antiproliferative activity against various cancer cells; however, its underlying molecular mechanism for anticancer activity in pancreatic cancer cells remains unexplored. Therefore, the present study evaluated the antiproliferation activity of piceamycin in a gemcitabine-resistant pancreatic cancer cell line and patient-derived pancreatic cancer organoids. Piceamycin effectively inhibited the proliferation and suppressed the expression of alpha-actinin-4, a gene that plays a pivotal role in tumorigenesis and metastasis of various cancers, in gemcitabine-resistant cells. Long-term exposure to piceamycin induced cell cycle arrest at the G0/G1 phase and caused apoptosis. Piceamycin alsoinhibited the invasion and migration of gemcitabine-resistant cells by modulating focal adhesion and epithelial-mesenchymal transition biomarkers. Moreover, the combination of piceamycin and gemcitabine exhibited a synergistic antiproliferative activity in gemcitabine-resistant cells. Piceamycin also effectively inhibited patient-derived pancreatic cancer organoid growth and induced apoptosis in the organoids. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that piceamycin may be an effective agent for overcoming gemcitabine resistance in pancreatic cancer.

Background/Aims: Three-dimensional cultures of human pancreatic cancer tissue also known as “organoids” have largely been developed from surgical specimens. Given that most patients present with locally advanced and/or metastatic disease, such organoids are not representative of the majority of patients. Therefore, we used endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) to collect pancreatic cancer tissues from patients with advanced pancreatic cancer to create organoids, and evaluated their utility in pancreatic cancer research. Methods: Single-pass EUS-FNA samplings were employed to obtain the tissue for organoid generation. After establishment of the organoid, we compared the core biopsy tissues with organoids using hematoxylin and eosin staining, and performed whole exome sequencing (WES) to detect mutational variants. Furthermore, we compared patient outcome with the organoid drug response to determine the potential utility of the clinical application of such organoid-based assays. Results: Organoids were successfully generated in 14 of 20 tumors (70%) and were able to be passaged greater than 5 times in 12 of 20 tumors (60%). Among them, we selected eight pairs of organoid and core biopsy tissues for detailed analyses. They showed similar patterns in hematoxylin and eosin staining. WES revealed mutations in KRAS, TP53, CDKN2A, SMAD4, BRCA1, and BRCA2 which were 93% homologous, and the mean nonreference discordance rate was 5.47%. We observed moderate drug response correlations between the organoids and clinical outcomes in patients who underwent FOLFIRINOX chemotherapy. Conclusions The established organoids from EUS-FNA core biopsies can be used for a suitable model system for pancreatic cancer research