No abstract available.

No abstract available.
Spinal Cord Injuries* ; Spinal Cord*

A 74-year-old man presented with recurrent vomiting and aspiration pneumonia in the left lower lobe. He entered the intensive care unit to manage the pneumonia and septic shock. Although a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube was implanted for recurrent vomiting, vomiting and aspiration recurred frequently during admission. Subsequently, he complained of neck pain when in an upright position. A videofluoroscopic swallowing study showed compression of the esophagus by cervical osteophytes and tracheal aspiration caused by an abnormality at the laryngeal inlet. Cervical spine X-rays and computed tomography showed anterior cervical osteophytes at the C3-6 levels. Surgical decompression was scheduled, but was cancelled due to his frailty. Unfortunately, further recurrent vomiting and aspiration resulted in respiratory arrest leading to hypoxic brain damage and death. Physicians should consider cervical spine disease, such as diffuse skeletal hyperostosis as an uncommon cause of recurrent aspiration pneumonia.
Aged ; Bays ; Decompression, Surgical ; Deglutition ; Esophagus ; Gastrostomy ; Humans ; Hyperostosis ; Hypoxia, Brain ; Intensive Care Units ; Neck Pain ; Osteophyte* ; Pneumonia ; Pneumonia, Aspiration* ; Shock, Septic ; Spine ; Vomiting

Prenatally diagnosed neuroblastomas have been reported in increasing numbers over the past several years. The vast majority are in favorable stages of the disease (stage I, II, IV-S). The authors experienced one case of stage IV-S neuroblastoma of the adrenal gland with liver metastasis, which regressed spontaneously after removal by adrenalectomy. This patient was noticed to have an abdominal mass at prenatal ultrasonography performed at 36weeks of gestation. This tumor was a neuroblastoma of the left adrenal gland with multiple liver metastases. Left adrenalectomy and liver biopsy were performed at 3 months of age. Thirty-eight months after surgery, an MRI demonstrated that the hepatic metastatic lesions had completely regressed without chemotherapy or radiation.
Adrenal Glands ; Adrenalectomy* ; Biopsy ; Drug Therapy ; Humans ; Liver* ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Neoplasm Metastasis* ; Neuroblastoma* ; Pregnancy ; Prenatal Diagnosis ; Ultrasonography, Prenatal

No abstract available.
Joints* ; Range of Motion, Articular* ; Spine*

Angiosarcoma is rare disease not only in Korea but throughout the world; it is all the more so on the skin. We made an observation on a case of angiosarcoma on the scalp of a 57 year-old man. Noteworthy in this case are: (1) the patient was suffered from a head trauma 6 years prior to onset of the disease, (2) the progress of the disease showed an extreme rapidity accompanied by severe headache intolerable by any medication, (3) no effect was resulted from X-ray irradiation, and (4) the patient survived for 7 months with the disease.
Craniocerebral Trauma ; Headache ; Hemangiosarcoma* ; Humans ; Korea ; Middle Aged ; Rare Diseases ; Scalp ; Skin

No abstract available.
Female ; Meigs Syndrome*

PURPOSE: To assess the effect of the remnants after lens extraction on posterior capsular opacification with lens epithelial cell culture through in vitro capsular bag model. METHODS: After isolating porcine lens capsules, sterile non-toxic PMMA (polymethyl- mathacrylate) tension ring was inserted into the capsule. These were placed in organ culture medium up to 6 weeks. The grade of cell coverage of the posterior lens capsule was recorded to check the proliferative activity. RESULTS: In the process of cell culture, outgrowth of the epithelial cells was observed across the posterior capsule after a lag period. The rate of cell coverage was dependent upon the added factors. The proliferative activity was the greatest in the group where lens cortical and nuclear materials were added, and other groups showed no difference from a control group. CONCLUSIONS: To reduce posterior capsular opacification, it is important that we should not leave the lens cortical material behind during cataract surgery.
Capsules ; Cataract Extraction* ; Cataract* ; Cell Culture Techniques ; Epithelial Cells* ; Organ Culture Techniques ; Polymethyl Methacrylate

Various remedies have been developed for broad damage to soft tissue in limbs by traffic accidents and mechanical mishaps that have greatly increased in modern society. If the damaged part is trivial, it may be generally treated with local flap or skin graft. However, this has been limited by the ability to choose the flap available depending on the condition of the wounded part, so that, if it is rather large or severly inflamed, or if it occurred with a bone-fracture, it is inevitable to practice the free flap. In the past, the focus was on whether the free flap would survive or not. However, the function of donor the and recipient, as well as the problem of aesthetic appearance, gas become a matter of increqsing interest and concern as the survival rate of the flap has greatly improved due to the development of precise operations. In thes study, therefore, some complications were analyzed which may develop in a donor by a variety of free flaps. Preoperative plans, as well as intraoperative and postoperati-ve treatment were also studied to minimize the cause of complications. To investigate these questions, we undertook a clinical analysis of 91 followed patients from 1990 to 1997. There were 68 male and 23 female patients ranging in age from 6 to 67 years, with an average of 34.7 years. The length of follow-up ranged from 8 months to 6 years. The results of this study were as follows: Sufficient plans must be made on the donor before operation, single textures like muscle or fascia should be used if possible, and incision should be arranged along Langer`s line. Some measures to reduce wound tension should be pursued, and plans must be made to immobilize the site for an ample period after the operation. Some precautious should also be considered during the operation, such as avoiding traction surrounding nerves and vessels, preserving paratenon, practicing osteotomy with great care and properly stopping any bleeding. In addition, formation of a hematoma or seroma should be preventcd and the donor must be sutur-ed as soon as possible to reduce infection. With the application of the basic operational principles on the treatment of donors, the complications which might be caused by each free flap can be reduced, and furthermore, be protected against.
Accidents, Traffic ; Extremities ; Fascia ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Free Tissue Flaps* ; Hematoma ; Hemorrhage ; Humans ; Male ; Osteotomy ; Seroma ; Skin ; Survival Rate ; Tissue Donors* ; Traction ; Transplants ; Wounds and Injuries

The traditional light microscopy has limitations for precise growth assays of malaria parasites in culture or for assessment of new compounds for antimalarial activity; the speed and high reproducibility of flow cytometry can overcome these limitations. A flow cytometric method using PicoGreen, a DNA-binding fluorochrome, was developed with optimal precision suitable for performing growth assays of low-parasitemia field isolates. In addition, intra- and inter-person reproducibility of the flow cytometric and the microscopic method were compared in order to quantitatively demonstrate the improved precision. RNase treatment contributed to the precision of the flow cytometric measurements by enhancing the signal-to-noise ratios. Coefficients of variation of the method were smaller than 10% for 0.1% or higher parasitemia samples. The intra- and inter-person coefficients of variation of the flow cytometric method were three to six times smaller than those of the microscopic method. The flow cytometric method developed in this study yielded substantially more precise results than the microscopic method, allowing determination of parasitemia levels of 0.1% or higher, with coefficients of variation smaller than 10%. Thus, the PicoGreen method could be a reliable high sensitivity assay for analysis of low parasitemia samples and might be applied to a high throughput system testing antimalarial drug activity.
*Flow Cytometry ; Fluorescent Dyes/chemistry ; Humans ; *Microscopy ; Organic Chemicals/chemistry ; Parasitemia/*diagnosis ; Plasmodium falciparum/*isolation & purification ; Reproducibility of Results ; Ribonucleases/metabolism ; Signal-To-Noise Ratio