Objective: To study the chemical constituents and their anti-oxidative activities of Kadsura coccinea. Methods: The compounds were isolated and purified by column chromatography. The structures were determined by means of physicochemical properties and spectroscopic analyses. The anti-oxidative activity was studied by DPPH methods. Results: Fourteen compounds were separated and identified as micrandilactone C (1), 3, 4-dimethoxy phenyl-α-D-glucopyranoside (2), salidroside (3), schisanhenol (4), protocatechuic acid (5), ethyl shikimate (6), shikimic acid (7), 5-O-β-D-glucopyranosylgentisic acid (8), syringic acid (9), 1, 2-benzenedicarboxylic acid-dibuty ester (10), benzyl-O-β-D-glucopyranoside (11), 4-O-β-D-glucopyranosylvanillic acid (12), syringaldehyde (13), and methyl shikimate (14). Compounds 5, 6, and 14 had the anti-oxidative activities. Conclusion: Compounds 2, 4, 6, and 8-14 are firstly isolated from K. coccinea. Compounds 5, 6, and 14 have the certain prospects in the development of natural anti-oxidative agents.

Better palliative management of patients with disseminated cancer has prolonged their lives but has raised the incidence of pathologic fractures in their variable lives. The essence of treatment is to prolong life, maintain comfort, and stabilize the patient with metastatic disease. The treatment of pathologic fractures with internal fixation has long been accepted by orthopedic surgeons and the benefits afforded to the patient are well known, so adequate fixation is essential. A combination of methylmethacrylate and internal fixation devices can greatly enhance the stability of fixation, because diseased bone is a poor base on which to insert an internal fixation device. The authors have treated 19 cases of the pathologic fracture of spine, humerus and femur by use of bone cement with and without internal fixation devices. The results are as follwed. 1. All cases utilized methylmethacrylate and there was no complication in methylmethacrylate in itself. 2. All cases had received various type of ancillary treatment: radiation in 9 cases, chemotherapy in 4 cases and in 8 cases, conservative pain control. 3. In spinal pathologic fracture with paraplegia or neurologic deficiency, the patients could walk with walker at an average of two weeks after operation. 4. Among the 19 cases, the pain was relieved markedly and ambulation was possible easily and early after operation in 16 cases. 5. Among the 19 cases, two survived less than 2 months, 7 surrived from 2 month to 3 month, five survived from 3 months to 6 months, four survived from 6 months to a year and one survived more than a year.
Drug Therapy ; Femur ; Fractures, Spontaneous ; Humans ; Humerus ; Incidence ; Internal Fixators ; Methylmethacrylate ; Orthopedics ; Paraplegia ; Spine ; Surgeons ; Walkers ; Walking

A young metastatic lung cancer patient developed empyema due to an infection with carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii. Hydropneumothorax was detected and managed by a tube thoracotomy. However, persistent air leakage through the chest tube was observed due to the presence of a bronchopleural fistula (BPF). As hypercapnic respiratory failure had progressed and the large air leak did not diminish by conservative management, a pumpless extracorporeal lung assist (pECLA) device was inserted. The pECLA allowed the patient to be weaned from mechanical ventilation and the BPF to heal. The present case shows the effective application of pECLA in a patient with empyema complicated with BPF and severe hypercapnic respiratory failure. pECLA enabled us to minimize airway pressure to aid in the closure of the BPF in the mechanically ventilated patient.
Acinetobacter baumannii ; Bronchial Fistula ; Carbon Dioxide* ; Carbon* ; Chest Tubes ; Empyema* ; Fistula ; Humans ; Hydropneumothorax ; Hypercapnia ; Lung ; Lung Neoplasms ; Respiration, Artificial ; Respiratory Insufficiency ; Thoracotomy

Torsion of a mucocele of the vermiform appendix is an extremely rare condition and also a rare cause of an acute abdomen with a clinical presentation that is indistinguishable from acute appendicitis, and thus, the condition is diagnosed during operation. Here, the authors describe the case of a 78-year-old female, who presented with intermittent abdominal pain. The appendix had a pelvic position and the torsion was counterclockwise. In addition, the torsion was associated with mucocele of the appendix, which was considered a secondary factor of torsion. Appendectomy and drainage were performed.
Abdomen, Acute ; Abdominal Pain ; Aged ; Appendectomy ; Appendicitis ; Appendix ; Drainage ; Female ; Humans ; Mucocele ; Torsion Abnormality

Congenital anomaly of IVC is rare, but understanding of this anomaly is important in radiological diagnosis,angiographic procedures and major retroperitoneal and thoracic surgery. We analysed 23 cases of IVC interruptiondiagnosed by cardiac angiography at Seoul National University Hospital. The results were as follows: 1. Theincidence of infrahepatic interruption of IVC was 0.45% of the patients having cardiac angiography and mostpatients showed cyanosis(91%). 2. The most common associated cardiac anomaly was right ventricular outflow tractobstruction (60%). Other associated cardiac defects were VSD, ASD, valvular anomaliesin 9 cases(39%) respectively;double outlet right bentricle, bilateral superior vena cava, single ventricle in 6 cases(26%) respectively; singleatrim, PDA in 5 cases(22%) respectively. 6 cases of situs inversus, 3 cases of situs ambiguus,2 cases of visceralheterotaxia and one case of asplenia were observed also. 7 cases of left-sided IVC were associated with IVCinterruption in normal situs.
Angiography ; Humans ; Seoul ; Situs Inversus ; Thoracic Surgery ; Vena Cava, Inferior ; Vena Cava, Superior

PURPOSE: The purposes of this study were to analyze the MR findings of medulloblastoma, and to evaluate the subarachnoid dissemination and the significance of contrast enhanced MR of brain and spine for tumor.. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The preoperative brain MR studies of 18 patients (9 males, 9 females;mean age, 9.4 years) with surgically proved medulloblastomas were retrospectively reviewed to characterize these neoplasms with regard to their location, size, MR signal intensity, appearance after contrast enhancement, presence of cyst and necrosis, subarachnoid dissemination, and other associated findings. In 14 patients postoperative spine MR studies were evaluated for staging and therapeutic planning. RESULTS: The most frequent location of medulloblastoma was the inferior vermis and the mean tumor size was 4.1 x 3.6 x 3.9 cm. On Tl-weighted image, medulloblastomas generally had low to intermediate signal, predominantly hypointense relative to white matter. On T2-weighted image, medulloblastomas showed modetately high signal, hyperintense relative to white matter. Inhomogeneous contrast enhancement was demonstrated in 13 patients(72.2%) after injection of gadopentetate dimeglumine(Gadolinium). Cyst and necrosis within the tumor were visualized in 15 patients(83.3%). Subarachnoid disseminations of medulloblastomas were noted in 11 patients(61.1%), of which 6 demonstrated intracranial and 2 intraspinal dissemination. Three had both intracranial and intraspinal dissemination. In nine cases with intracranial lesions, there were intraparenchymal mass formation(7), subarachnoid nodules(5), infundibular lesions(2) and diffuse gyral enhancement(I). In five cases with intraspinal lesions, there were extramedullary intradural small nodules(3), central canal nodules(2), intradural masses(I)and fine nodular and sheet-like leptomeningeal enhancement(1). Other associated findings included intratumoral hemorrhage(11.1%), per/tumoral edema(44.4%), tonsillar herniation(44.4%), hydrocephalus(88.9%) and calcification(44.4%). CONCLUSION: Medulloblastomas revealed low to intermediate signal intensity on Tl-weighted image and intermediate to moderately high signal intensity on T2-weighted image, relative to cerebellar white matter. Medulloblastomas were solid tumors with cystic necrosis, which showed inhomogeneous enhancement and subarachnoid disseminations to the intracranial and intraspinal spaces after Gd-DTPA enhancement. Gd-enhanced MR of brain and spine was an useful diagnostic modality in preoperative diagnosis and in staging of postoperative cases of medulloblastomas, which was superior to postcontrast CT or precontrast MR.
Brain* ; Diagnosis ; Gadolinium DTPA ; Humans ; Male ; Medulloblastoma ; Necrosis ; Retrospective Studies ; Spine*

Renal cell carcinoma is an uncommon tumor in children and only 3-5 percent of the renal cell carcinoma occur under age of twenty. Interestingly, some of the patients had a history of trauma occurring shortly before the onset of symptom calling attention to the tumor. In histology of renal cell carcinoma, clear cell type is most common and papillary type is 10-15 percent. The papillary type of renal cell carcinoma is characterized by better prognosis than non-papillary types. We report a case of papillary type of renal cell carcinoma which was detected incidentally after trauma in 13-year-old male patient.
Adolescent ; Carcinoma, Renal Cell* ; Child* ; Humans ; Male ; Prognosis

The lack of sufficient oral mucosa available for intra-oral reconstruction has been dealt with by the use of skin or oral mucosa grafts harvested from donor sites but grafts requires more than one surgical procedures and could cause donor site morbidity. Many investigators have attempted to increase available soft tissue by tissue engineered skin or oral mucosa replacements for clinical applications. But, reconstructed mucosa by several methods have low physical properties such as rolling and contraction. The aims of this study were to develope an in vitro experimental model that maintains an epithelial-mesenchymal interaction by organotypic raft culture, and to characterize biologic properties of three-dimensionally cultured oral mucosa embedded with Polydioxanone mesh by histological and immunohistochemical analysis. The results were as follows; 1. Oral mucosa reconstructed by three-dimensional organotypic culture revealed similar morphologic characteristics to equvalent normal oral mucosa in the point that they show stratification and differentiation. 2. The expression of cytokeratin 10/13 and involucrin in the cultured tissue showed the same pattern with normal oral mucosa suggesting that organotypic co-culture condition is able to induce cellular differentiation. 3. After insertion of polydioxanone mesh, increased tensile strength were observed. These results suggest that three-dimensional organotypic co-culture of the oral mucosa cell lines with the dermal equvalent consisting type I collagen and fibroblasts reproduce the morphologic and immunohistochemical characteristics similar to those in vivo condition. And increased physical properties by use of polydioxanone mesh will helpful for clinical applications.
Cell Line ; Coculture Techniques ; Collagen Type I ; Fibroblasts ; Humans ; Keratins ; Models, Theoretical ; Mouth Mucosa* ; Mucous Membrane ; Polydioxanone* ; Research Personnel ; Skin ; Tensile Strength ; Tissue Donors ; Transplants

General information is summarized, that is necessary to introduce a scientific assessment of the human health and exposure issue concerning dioxin and dioxin-like compound. Scientific literatures were reviewed to assess the background exposures to the dioxin-like compounds for normal residents. Epidemiologic studies were also reviewed to assess malignant and nonmalignant effects of dioxins. In 1997, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified 2, 3, 7, 8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) as a human carcinogen, primarily based on occupational cohort studies. The US Environmental Protection Agency made the same decision in it's Draft Dioxin Reassessment. Epidemiologic evidences point to a generalized excess of all cancers, without any pronounced excess at specific sites. Reported non-cancer effects included a range of conditions affecting most systems. Among them, chloracne, elevation in gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT), and alterations in reproductive hormones are related to TCDD. Other adverse outcomes, such as lipid concentrations, diabetes, circulatory and heart diseases, immunologic disorders, neurobehavioral effects, and developmental outcomes require further study before their respective relationships to TCDD can be more definitively assessed.
Chloracne ; Cohort Studies ; Dioxins* ; Epidemiologic Studies ; Heart Diseases ; Humans* ; International Agencies ; Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin ; Transferases ; United States Environmental Protection Agency

No abstract available.
Dimethylformamide* ; Liver Diseases* ; Liver*