BACKGROUND: Antibiotics are often indiscriminately prescribed for respiratory tract infections. This study was conducted to describe the prescription pattern of family physicians for respiratory tract infections. METHODS: In each clinic of 50 representative family practitioners, about 20 consecutive patients with diagnosis of respiratory tract infection were enrolled into the study. The data were collected by questionnaire to physicians just after patient interview. RESULTS: The number of study subjects was 1020, of which 55.7% was less than 15 year old. Antibiotics were prescribed to 73.9% of total subjects. According to diagnosis, the antibiotic prescription rate was 51.5% in common cold, 86.0% in pharyngitis, 88.6% in bronchitis, 98.9% in sinusitis, and 100% in otitis media. In common cold, the factors which significantly increased the antibiotic prescription were 1)patient age less than 15 year old (OR=1.70, CI=1.06-2.73), 2)more than two visits during the same episode(OR=1.95, CI=1.27-2.99), 3)yellow and thick rhinorrhea(OR=2.22, CI=1.16-4.25), 4)yellow and thick sputum(OR=3.31, CI=1.34-8.19), and 5)throat injection(OR=2.50, CI=1.42-4.39). Among patients to whom antibiotics were prescribed, 48.7% of patients were given the antibiotics by intramuscular injection. The most frequently prescribed antibiotics were penicillin and macroride among per-oral medicine and ribostamycin and lincomycin among intramuscular medicine. The reason for antibiotic prescription were 1)posssibility of bacterial infection(43.4%), 2)prevention of bacterial complication(23.7%), and 3)definite evidence of bacterial infection(22.5%). CONCLUSION: Family practitioners prescribe antibiotics indiscriminately for the respiratory tract infection. The prescription was influence by patient's age, number of clinic-visit, and clinical symptoms and signs.
Adolescent ; Anti-Bacterial Agents* ; Bronchitis ; Common Cold ; Diagnosis ; Humans ; Injections, Intramuscular ; Lincomycin ; Otitis Media ; Penicillins ; Pharyngitis ; Physicians, Family ; Prescriptions* ; Respiratory System* ; Respiratory Tract Infections* ; Ribostamycin ; Sinusitis ; Surveys and Questionnaires

No abstract available.

PURPOSE: Following determination of the maximum standardized uptake values (SUVmax) of the mediastinal lymph nodes (SUV-LN) and of the primary tumor (SUV-T) on ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the aim of the study was to determine the value of the SUV-LN/SUV-T ratio in lymph node staging in comparison with that of SUV-LN.METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed a total of 289 mediastinal lymph node stations from 98 patients with NSCLC who were examined preoperatively for staging and subsequently underwent pathologic studies of the mediastinal lymph nodes. We determined SUV-LN and SUV-R for each lymph node station on ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT and then classified each station into one of three groups based on SUV-T (low, medium and high SUV-T groups). Diagnostic performance was assessed based on receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, and the optimal cut-off values that would best discriminate metastatic from benign lymph nodes were determined for each method.RESULTS: The average of SUV-R of malignant lymph nodes was significantly higher than that of benign lymph nodes (0.79±0.45 vs. 0.36±0.23, P<0.0001). In the ROC curve analysis, the area under the curve (AUC) of SUV-R was significantly higher than that of SUV-LN in the low SUV-T group (0.885 vs. 0.810, P= 0.019). There were no significant differences between the AUCs of SUV-LN and of SUV-R in the medium and high SUV-T groups. The optimal cut-off value for SUV-R in the low SUV-T group was 0.71 (sensitivity 87.5 %, specificity 85.9 %).CONCLUSIONS: The SUV-R performed well in distinguishing between metastatic and benign lymph nodes. In particular, SUV-R was found to have a better diagnostic performance than SUV-LN in the low SUV-T group.
Area Under Curve ; Humans ; Lung Neoplasms ; Lung ; Lymph Nodes ; Methods ; Positron-Emission Tomography and Computed Tomography ; Retrospective Studies ; ROC Curve ; Sensitivity and Specificity

Purpose: Since accurate lung cancer segmentation is required to determine the functional volume of a tumor in [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT, we propose a two-stage U-Net architecture to enhance the performance of lung cancer segmentation using [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT. Methods: The whole-body [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT scan data of 887 patients with lung cancer were retrospectively used for network training and evaluation. The ground-truth tumor volume of interest was drawn using the LifeX software. The dataset was randomly partitioned into training, validation, and test sets. Among the 887 PET/CT and VOI datasets, 730 were used to train the proposed models, 81 were used as the validation set, and the remaining 76 were used to evaluate the model. In Stage 1, the global U-net receives 3D PET/CT volume as input and extracts the preliminary tumor area, generating a 3D binary volume as output. In Stage 2, the regional U-net receives eight consecutive PET/CT slices around the slice selected by the Global U-net in Stage 1 and generates a 2D binary image as the output. Results: The proposed two-stage U-Net architecture outperformed the conventional one-stage 3D U-Net in primary lung cancer segmentation. The two-stage U-Net model successfully predicted the detailed margin of the tumors, which was determined by manually drawing spherical VOIs and applying an adaptive threshold. Quantitative analysis using the Dice similarity coefficient confirmed the advantages of the two-stage U-Net. Conclusion The proposed method will be useful for reducing the time and effort required for accurate lung cancer segmentation in [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT.

PURPOSE: Although computed tomography (CT) is widely used for diagnosing liver metastasis from colorectal cancer, diagnostic accuracy of CT is not satisfactory. Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and F-18 FDG PET has been reported to be superior to CT. However, studies on direct comparison of PET and MR are scarce. We compared the diagnostic accuracy of FDG PET and MR in detecting liver metastasis from colorectal cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Among 363 colorectcal cancer patients who underwent F-18 FDG PET (ECAT, Siemens-CTI, Knoxville; Gemini, Philips, Milpitas, U.S.), 26 patients (M:F=17:9, age=62+/-11) underwent MR to evaluate suspicious metastatic liver lesions. Finally, 35 liver lesions detected by CT from 26 patients were enrolled for analysis. PET and MR results were compared with pathologic reports, clinical findings or follow-up results. RESULTS: Of the 35 lesions, 18 lesions (51.4%) were diagnosed as liver metastases, while remaining 17 (48.6%) as benign. The sensitivity and the specificity of PET were 94.4% and 94.1%, respectively, compared to 100% and 82.4% for MR. MR and PET was concordant in 30 lesions (85.7%): 17 metastatic (94.4%) and 13 benign (76.5%) lesions. ROC curve analysis revealed maximal SUV of 3.1 as the optimum standard in differentiating metastatic from benign liver lesions (AUC=0.897, p<0.001, sensitivity 83.3%, specificity 94.1%). For small lesions less than 1cm in diameter (n=20), diagnostic accuracy of PET was comparable to that of MR. CONCLUSION: F-18 FDG PET showed good diagnostic performance in detecting liver metastasis from colorectal cancer, which was comparable to MR.
Colonic Neoplasms ; Colorectal Neoplasms* ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Liver* ; Neoplasm Metastasis* ; Positron-Emission Tomography ; ROC Curve ; Sensitivity and Specificity

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the discriminating nature of 123I-FP-CIT SPECT in patients with parkinsonism. METHODS: 123I-FP-CIT SPECT images acquired from the 18 normal controls; NC (60.4+/-10.0 yr) and 237 patients with parkinsonism (65.9+/-9.2 yr) were analyzed. From spatially normalized images, regional counts of the caudate, putamen, and occipital lobe were obtained using region of interest method. Binding potential (BP) was calculated with the ratio of specific to nonspecific binding activity at equilibrium. Additionally, the BP ratio of putamen to caudate (PCR) and asymmetric index (ASI) were measured. RESULTS: BPs of NC (3.37+/-0.57, 3.10+/-0.41, 3.23+/-0.48 for caudate, putamen, whole striatum, respectively) had no significant difference with those of essential tremor; ET (3.31+/-0.64, 3.06+/-0.61, 3.14+/-0.63) and Alzheimer's disease; AD (3.33+/-0.60, 3.29+/-0.79, 3.31+/-0.70), but were higher than those of Parkinson's disease; PD (1.92+/-0.74,1.39+/-0.68, 1.64+/-0.68), multiple system atrophy; MSA (2.36+/-1.07, 2.16+/-0.91, 2.26+/-0.96), and dementia with Lewy body; DLB (1.95+/-0.72, 1.64+/-0.65, 1.79+/-0.66)(p<0.005). PD had statistically lower values of PCR and higher values of ASI than those of NC (p<0.005). And PD had significantly lower value of PCR, higher ASI and lower BP in the putamen and whole striatum than MSA (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: Dopamine transporter image of 123I-FP-CIT SPECT was a good value in differential diagnosis of parkinsonism.
Alzheimer Disease ; Dementia ; Diagnosis, Differential* ; Dopamine Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins* ; Dopamine* ; Essential Tremor ; Humans ; Lewy Bodies ; Multiple System Atrophy ; Occipital Lobe ; Parkinson Disease ; Parkinsonian Disorders* ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Putamen ; Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon*

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the discriminating nature of 123I-FP-CIT SPECT in patients with parkinsonism. METHODS: 123I-FP-CIT SPECT images acquired from the 18 normal controls; NC (60.4+/-10.0 yr) and 237 patients with parkinsonism (65.9+/-9.2 yr) were analyzed. From spatially normalized images, regional counts of the caudate, putamen, and occipital lobe were obtained using region of interest method. Binding potential (BP) was calculated with the ratio of specific to nonspecific binding activity at equilibrium. Additionally, the BP ratio of putamen to caudate (PCR) and asymmetric index (ASI) were measured. RESULTS: BPs of NC (3.37+/-0.57, 3.10+/-0.41, 3.23+/-0.48 for caudate, putamen, whole striatum, respectively) had no significant difference with those of essential tremor; ET (3.31+/-0.64, 3.06+/-0.61, 3.14+/-0.63) and Alzheimer's disease; AD (3.33+/-0.60, 3.29+/-0.79, 3.31+/-0.70), but were higher than those of Parkinson's disease; PD (1.92+/-0.74,1.39+/-0.68, 1.64+/-0.68), multiple system atrophy; MSA (2.36+/-1.07, 2.16+/-0.91, 2.26+/-0.96), and dementia with Lewy body; DLB (1.95+/-0.72, 1.64+/-0.65, 1.79+/-0.66)(p<0.005). PD had statistically lower values of PCR and higher values of ASI than those of NC (p<0.005). And PD had significantly lower value of PCR, higher ASI and lower BP in the putamen and whole striatum than MSA (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: Dopamine transporter image of 123I-FP-CIT SPECT was a good value in differential diagnosis of parkinsonism.
Alzheimer Disease ; Dementia ; Diagnosis, Differential* ; Dopamine Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins* ; Dopamine* ; Essential Tremor ; Humans ; Lewy Bodies ; Multiple System Atrophy ; Occipital Lobe ; Parkinson Disease ; Parkinsonian Disorders* ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Putamen ; Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon*

PURPOSE: The aim of the study was to evaluate the hemodynamic changes after successful bypass surgery in patients with atherosclerotic stenosis in ICA using (99m)Tc-ECD SPECT. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fourteen patients (M:F=8:6, mean age; 60+/-9 years) who underwent STA-MCA anastomosis for unilateral atherosclerotic cerebrovascular disease were enrolled. (99m)Tc-ECD basal/acetazolamide perfusion SPECT studies were performed before, 10 days and 6 months after bypass surgery. Perfusion reserve was defined as the % changes after acetazolamide over rest image. Regional cerebral blood flow and perfusion reserve were compared preoperative, early-postoperative and late-postoperative scans. RESULTS: The mean resting perfusion and decrease in perfusion reserve in affected ICA territory on preoperative scan was 52.4+/-3.5 and -7.9+/-4.7%, respectively. The resting perfusion was significantly improved after surgery on early-postoperative scan (mean 53.7+/-2.7) and late-postoperative scan (mean 53.3+/-2.5) compared with preoperative images (p<0.05, respectively). Resting perfusion did not showed further improvement on late-postoperative scan compared with early-postoperative scan. The perfusion reserve was -3.7+/-2.6% on early-postoperative scan, and -1.6+/-2.3% on late-postoperative scan, which was significantly improved after surgery. Additionally, further improvement of perfusion reserved as observed on late-postoperative scan (p<0.05). While, in the unaffected ICA territory, no significant changes in the resting perfusion and perfusion reserve was observed. CONCLUSION: The improvement of resting perfusion and perfusion reserve in early-postoperative scan reflects the immediate restoration of the cerebral blood flow by bypass surgery. In contrasts, further improvement of perfusion reserve showing on late-postoperative scan may indicate a good collateral development after surgery, which may indicate good surgical outcome after surgery.
Acetazolamide* ; Constriction, Pathologic ; Hemodynamics* ; Humans ; Perfusion ; Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon*

Purpose: Partial breast reconstruction is challenging in medially located breast cancer, particularly in terms of achieving satisfactory aesthetic coverage. Thus, we aimed to investigate surgical strategies for filling medial defects resulting from breast-conserving surgery to improve patient satisfaction and aesthetic outcomes. Methods: We retrospectively evaluated 113 patients (114 cases) with medially located breast cancer between 2007 and 2018. We analysed the patient data, such as breast size, specimen weight, complications, and aesthetic results obtained using a questionnaire. Results: The mean body mass index and specimen weight were 23.43 kg/m2 (range, 18.5–26.8) and 83.29 g (range, 15–290 g), respectively. The tennis racket and round-block techniques were chosen for small defects (< 10%–15%) in small- and medium-sized breasts.The rotational and perforator flap techniques were used for medium-sized defects. The latissimus dorsi (LD) flap technique was used for large defects (> 30%). Hematoma was found in 1 case (0.96%), linear skin necrosis was found in 1 case (0.96%), seroma in the LD flaps was found in 8 cases (7.69%); fat necrosis in the rotational flaps was found in 2 cases (1.92%); and fat necrosis in an anterior intercostal artery perforator flap was found in 1 case (0.96%). 91 patients (87.5%) were satisfied with the aesthetic results. Conclusion The techniques used in this study for medially located breast cancer can produce fine aesthetic outcomes with regard to breast size and resection volume, with few complications.

Purpose: This study aimed to construct a database of the effective doses (ED) from F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) torso positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in Korea to provide data that supports the reduction of the CT dose of PET/CT and optimization of PET/CT protocols in Korea. Methods: We investigated data of ED and CT parameters of FDG PET/CT. The data were analyzed by body weight groups. Results: A total of 31 hospitals participated in the survey (99 adults). The mean total EDs (± SD) were 8.77 ± 2.76, 10.93 ± 3.14, and 12.57 ± 3.79 mSv for the 55-, 70-, and 85-kg groups, respectively. The FDG EDs were 4.80 ± 0.98, 6.05 ± 1.15, and 6.89 ± 1.52 mSv, and the CT EDs were 4.00 ± 2.12, 4.88 ± 2.51, and 5.68 ± 2.89 mSv, respectively. Of the enrolled hospitals, 54.5% used ultra-low-dose CT protocols, and their CT ED was significantly lower than low-dose CT group in all groups (2.9 ± 1.0, 3.2 ± 1.1, and 3.3 ± 1.0 mSv vs. 6.6 ± 1.6, 7.2 ± 2.1, and 7.9 ± 2.2 mSv, all p < 0.001, respectively). In the ultra-low-dose CT group, the CT ED with the iterative reconstruction was significantly lower than that of CT without iterative reconstruction in the 55-kg group (2.4 ± 0.9 vs. 3.3 ± 0.9, p = 0.04). Conclusions These results and current recommendations can be helpful for optimizing PET/CT diagnostic reference level (DRL) and reducing unnecessary PET/CT radiation exposure.