OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to describe the process of utilizing a mobile application for ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to collect data on stress and mood in daily life setting. METHODS: A mobile application for the Android operating system was developed and installed with a set of questions regarding momentary mood and stress into a smartphone of a participant. The application sets alarms at semi-random intervals in 60-minute blocks, four times a day for 7 days. After obtaining all momentary affect and stress, the questions to assess the usability of the mobile EMA application were also administered. RESULTS: The data were collected from 97 police officers working in Gyeonggi Province of South Korea. The mean completion rate was 60.0% ranging from 3.5% to 100%. The means of positive and negative affect were 18.34 of 28 and 19.09 of 63. The mean stress was 17.92 of 40. Participants responded that the mobile application correctly measured their affect (4.34 ± 0.83) and stress (4.48 ± 0.62) of 5-point Likert scale. CONCLUSIONS: Our study investigated the process of utilizing a mobile application to assess momentary affect and stress at repeated times. We found challenges regarding adherence to the research protocol, such as completion and delay of answering after alarm notification. Despite this inherent issue of adherence to the research protocol, the EMA still has advantages of reducing recall bias and assessing the actual moment of interest at multiple time points that improves ecological validity.
Bias (Epidemiology) ; Gyeonggi-do ; Humans ; Korea ; Methyltestosterone ; Mobile Applications* ; Police ; Smartphone ; Stress, Psychological

Objective: We aimed to identify the relation between perioperative cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) drain through lumbar drainage (LD) and development of postoperative (POP) remote intracerebral hemorrhage (rICH) in craniotomy to treat ruptured intracranial aneurysms. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed consecutive patients who underwent craniotomy for ruptured cerebral aneurysms at the authors’ institution between 1998 and 2004. We subsequently compared the incidence and characteristics of POP rICH between the patients who had a perioperative LD and those who did not. All statistical analyses were conducted using the software package SPSS 19.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). A p value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: We enrolled 688 patients, of which 80 patients (11.6%) received perioperative LD, and 608 did not. LD and non-LD groups were comparable because although clinical characteristics of the two groups were significantly different considering history of hypertension, timing of surgery, and closed system negative pressure suction drain (SD) placement, none of these three variables was an independent risk factor associated with POP rICH in multivariate analysis. POP rICH incidence was significantly higher in the LD goup (12.5%) than non-LD group (0.8%) (p=0.000) in univariate analysis. LD placement was the only independent risk factor associated with the development of rICH in multivariate logistic regression analysis. Conclusions POP rICH incidence was significantly higher in patients who were managed with perioperative LD than in those who did not. LD insertion in craniotomy for ruptured intracranial aneurysm, should be closely monitored to address the occurrence of POP rICH.

Purpose: Radial probe endobronchial ultrasound (RP-EBUS) accurately locates peripheral lung lesions (PLLs) during transbronchial biopsy (TBB). We performed an updated meta-analysis of the diagnostic yield of TBB for PLLs using RP-EBUS to generate recommendations for the development of the Korean Association of Lung Cancer guidelines. Materials and Methods: We systematically searched MEDLINE and EMBASE (from January 2013 to December 2022), and performed a meta-analysis using R software. The diagnostic yield was evaluated by dividing the number of successful diagnoses by the total lesion number. Subgroup analysis was performed to identify related factors. Results: Forty-one studies with a total of 13,133 PLLs were included. The pooled diagnostic yield of RP-EBUS was 0.72 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.70 to 0.75). Significant heterogeneity was observed among studies (χ2=292.38, p < 0.01, I2=86.4%). In a subgroup analysis, there was a significant difference in diagnostic yield based on RP-EBUS findings (within, adjacent to, invisible), with a risk ratio of 1.45 (95% CI, 1.23 to 1.72) between within and adjacent to, 4.20 (95% CI, 1.89 to 9.32) between within and invisible, and 2.59 (95% CI, 1.32 to 5.01) between adjacent to and invisible. There was a significant difference in diagnostic yield based on lesion size, histologic diagnosis, computed tomography (CT) bronchus sign, lesion character, and location from the hilum. The overall complication rate of TBB with RP-EBUS was 6.8% (bleeding, 4.5%; pneumothorax, 1.4%). Conclusion Our study showed that TBB with RP-EBUS is an accurate diagnostic tool for PLLs with good safety profiles, especially for PLLs with within orientation on RP-EBUS or positive CT bronchus sign.

PURPOSE: A constituent of green tea, (-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), is known to possess anti-cancer properties. In this study, the time-course of the anticancer effects of EGCG on human ovarian cancer cells were investigated to provide insights into the molecular-level understanding of the growth suppression mechanism involved in EGCG-mediated apoptosis and cell cycle arrest. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Three human ovarian cancer cell lines (p53 negative, SKOV-3 cells; mutant type p53, OVCAR-3 cells; and wild type p53, PA-1 cells) were used. The effect of EGCG treatment was studied via a cell count assay, cell cycle analysis, FACS, Western blot and macroarray assay. RESULTS: EGCG exerts a significant role in suppressing ovarian cancer cell growth, showed dose dependent growth inhibitory effects in each cell line and induced apoptosis and cell cycle arrest. The cell cycle was arrested at the G1 phase by EGCG in SKOV-3 and OVCAR-3 cells. In contrast, the cell cycle was arrested in the G1/S phase in PA-1 cells. EGCG differentially regulated the expression of genes and proteins (Bax, p21, Retinoblastoma, cyclin D1, CDK4 and Bcl-XL) more than 2 fold, showing a possible gene regulatory role for EGCG. The continual expression in p21WAF1 suggests that EGCG acts in the same way with p53 proteins to facilitate apoptosis after EGCG treatment. Bax, PCNA and Bcl-X are also important in EGCG-mediated apoptosis. In contrast, CDK4 and Rb are not important in ovarian cancer cell growth inhibition. CONCLUSION: EGCG can inhibit ovarian cancer cell growth through the induction of apoptosis and cell cycle arrest, as well as in the regulation of cell cycle related proteins. Therefore, EGCG-mediated apoptosis could be applied to an advanced strategy in the development of a potential drug against ovarian cancer.
Apoptosis ; Blotting, Western ; Cell Count ; Cell Cycle ; Cell Cycle Checkpoints ; Cell Line* ; Cyclin D1 ; G1 Phase ; Humans ; Ovarian Neoplasms ; Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen ; Retinoblastoma ; Tea*