PURPOSES: Staphylococcus epidermidis is a causative agent of bacterial keratitis and the authors performed an epidemiologic study to identify the risk factors, clinical features and treatment results. METHODS: Epidemiologic study on Staphylococcus epidermidis keratitis, which were confirmed by cultures in 6 university hospitals, was performed prospectively under the identical protocol. RESULTS: Seventeen cases of Staphylococcus epidermidis keratitis were diagnosed by culture with corneal scraping and comprised 4.1% of 401 cases of confirmed bacterial keratitis. Male patients were affected more than female patients and the highest prevalent age was in the seventies. Most of their occupation was farming. The most prevalent season was fall and it mostly occurred after corneal trauma. CONCLUSIONS: Staphylococcus epidermidis keratitis usually occurred in a relatively old age group followed by corneal trauma. Its prevention along with early and proper antimicrobial therapy based on sensitivity results is important.
Epidemiologic Studies ; Epidemiology* ; Female ; Hospitals, University ; Humans ; Keratitis* ; Male ; Occupations ; Prospective Studies ; Risk Factors ; Seasons ; Staphylococcus epidermidis* ; Staphylococcus*

Fracture of the scaphoid constitute 60% to 70% of all diagnosed carpal injury. The acute fracture will heal approximately 90% of the time if recognized early and properly immobilized. But nonunion are common since the symtoms do not alert patients to seek early medical treatment and the diagnosis is easily missed. Authors have experienced 19 cases of scaphoid nonunion and accomplished good result in all case by Russe procedure. The results were summerized as follow: 1 The cause of fratures was mainly due to fall down dinjury (36.8%). 2. The most common mechanism of the fracture was fall on the outstretched hand (52.7%). 3. Fractures were shown on the anterior-posterior, lateral and billiards view in all cases. 4. In ten cases, the fractures were found on the waist of scaphoid. 5. The cases of nonunion were probably inadequate intial treatment and delayed diagnosis. 6. The good results were obtained by bone graft according to Russe procedure.
Delayed Diagnosis ; Diagnosis ; Hand ; Humans ; Transplants

Ganglia are ubiquitous but periosteal ganglion is rare. This case is presented showing an unusual radiological picture. The radiological picture with honey combed appearance is striking. Previaus reports have stressed the concavity in the cortex. Histologically the structure is identical to that of soft tissue ganglia.
Animals ; Comb and Wattles ; Ganglia ; Ganglion Cysts ; Honey ; Strikes, Employee

Squamous cell carcinoma is a rare complication of chronic osteomyelitis. Squamous cell carcinoma of extremity campromises approximately 1 to 2% of all squamous cell carcinoma and of these 2.5 to 4.5% are secondary to chronic osteomyelitis. Biopsy of squamous cell carcinoma, which arises in the proliferating edge of the cutaneous ulcer and invades the bone, should include tissues from all portion of sites of ulcer including bone marrow spaces. But histological diagnosis may be difficult becasue of preexisiting and coexisisting metaplasia and pseudo-epitheliomatous hyperplasia. With prompt and aggressive surgical treatment, the prognosis for patient with squamous cell carcinoma secodary to chronic osteomyelitis is good. Routine regional lymphadenectomy at site of amputation seems unnecessary. This case report represets an unusual bone marrow involvement of squamous cell carcinoma which was complicated by femur fracture.
Amputation ; Biopsy ; Bone Marrow ; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell ; Diagnosis ; Epithelial Cells ; Extremities ; Femur ; Humans ; Hyperplasia ; Lymph Node Excision ; Metaplasia ; Osteomyelitis ; Prognosis ; Ulcer

PURPOSE: To measure the secretion of TNF-alpha from cultured human keratocytes after inoculation of Candida albicans, and to evaluate the change of secretion of TNF-alpha following application of dexamethasone. METHODS: Human corneal keratocytes were cultured independently in vitro. The specimens were divided into 4 groups: Group I with only pure culture as control, Group II with C. albicans, Group III with C. albicans and dexamethasone, and Group IV with only dexamethasone. RESULTS: As a whole, Group II showed the highest secretion of TNF-alpha, followed by Group III, Group I, and Group IV respectively (P< 0.05). CONCLUSION: Keratocytes with the addition of both C. albicans and dexamethasone, secreted much lower level of TNF-alpha , but showed more proliferation in comparison to keratocytes with addition of C. albicans alone. Therefore, the author may conclude that in fungal keratitis, the early administration of dexamethasone may be beneficial in reducing inflammatory responses induced by increased TNF-alpha secretion. However, because steroids may stimulate the proliferation of fungus leading to tissue damages, more cautious use might be needed.
Candida albicans* ; Candida* ; Corneal Keratocytes ; Dexamethasone* ; Fungi ; Humans* ; Keratitis ; Steroids ; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha*

This study was designed to provide a evidence that adenosine-mediated activation of protein kinase C and K(ATP) channel was a important step on the cardioprotection mechanism of ischemic preconditioning (IP). Isolated Langendorff-perfused New Zealand White rabbit hearts were subjected to 45 min of global ischemia (I) and 120 min reperfusion (R) with or without IP. IP was induced by a single dose of 5 min I and 10 min R. Part of the IP hearts was treated with non-specific adenosine receptor blocker 8-sulfophenyltheophylline (SPT; 100 micromol) and K(ATP) channel blocker glibenclamide (10 micromol) 5min before IP, respectively. To determine the effect of IP, we measured the left ventricular function, infarct size, adenosine concentration in the coronary flow and total protein kinase C activity. PKC activity was determined by (32)P-gamma-ATP incorporation into PKC specific peptide. IP enhanced improvement of functional recovery and caused a decrease in the infarct size from 19.9+/-0.05% in the ischemic-control group to 5.5+/-1.39% in the IP group (p<0.05). In the SPT- and glibenclamid-treated hearts, however, these anti-ischemic effect was disappeared. Adenosine release from the cardiac tissue was abruptly increased to 10~20 folds baseline just after IP. Cytosolic PKC activity decreased significantly in the IP hearts, while in the membrane fraction, activity was increased (45 min I, p<0.05; 120 min R, p<0.01). In the SPT-treated hearts, IP did not make those activity changes of PKC. These data suggest that adenosine induced the anti-ischemic effect via PKC activation. And it also show that K(ATP) channel may work on the protection as a final effector.
Adenosine* ; Cytosol ; Glyburide ; Heart* ; Ischemia ; Ischemic Preconditioning* ; Membranes ; New Zealand ; Protein Kinase C ; Receptors, Purinergic P1 ; Reperfusion ; Ventricular Function, Left

No abstract available.
Adenosine Deaminase* ; Adenosine* ; Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid* ; Bronchoalveolar Lavage* ; Humans ; Tuberculosis, Pulmonary*

The National Agricultural Biotechnology Information Center (NABIC) constructed an agricultural biology-based infrastructure and developed a biological information-based database. The major functions of the NABIC are focused on biotechnological developments for agricultural bioinformatics and providing a web-based service to construct bioinformatics workflows easily, such as protein function prediction and genome systems biology programs. The NABIC has concentrated on the functional genomics of major crops, building an integrated biotechnology database for agro-biotech information that focuses on the proteomics of major agricultural resources, such as rice, Chinese cabbage, rice Ds-tagging lines, and microorganisms.
Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Biotechnology ; Brassica ; Computational Biology ; Genome ; Genomics ; Humans ; Information Centers ; Proteomics ; Systems Biology

BACKGROUND: When patients return to the emergency department shortly after being seen, it is generally assumed that their initial evaluation or treatment was inadequate. But in other aspects many short term revisits may be unnecessary in the aspect of emergency care because it is known that substantial numbers of patients use emergency department for nonemergency problems. So we analysed the tendency and the cause of short term revisit patients, determined the rates and the associated demographic, clinical, disease variables as a tool of quality assurance. METHODS: We carried out a chart review of patients seen in the emergency department, who revisited within 72 hours, of Young Dong Severance Hospital retrospectively between January 1, 1998 and September 30, 1999 (period 2), and compared with result between April 1, 1990 and March 31, 1991 (period 1) respectively. RESULTS: In the period 1, the total revisits patients were 204/21,025(0.97%), in that period scheduled revisits were 15.2%, the unscheduled were 84.8%, and the frequent revisits (more than 3 times) were 6.4%. In the period 2, the total revisit patients were 4,722/72,802 (6.49%), in that period scheduled revisits were 86.3%, the unscheduled were 13.7%, and the frequent revisits were 24.8%. The most common cause of revisit during the period 2 is a drug addictor (31.2%) that frequently used the emergency room for seeking drug. CONCLUSIONS : The scheduled revisit patients for dressing, medication, re-evaluation were increased enormously, so the medical care of these patients might be a part of job that performed in emergency department. And if the health care system could support the adequate nursing care facility, the portion of avoidable revisits of emergency department can be decreased. We also found that the emergency department is an important points for the early identification and referral for the treatment of patients who revisited emergency room for seeking drug, and the analysis of physician related factor in revisits patients may be used as a tool of quality assurance in the emergency department.
Bandages ; Delivery of Health Care ; Emergencies* ; Emergency Medical Services ; Emergency Service, Hospital* ; Humans ; Nursing Care ; Referral and Consultation ; Retrospective Studies

We have constructed the Rice Genome Information Service System (RGISS), which is an information service system of the Oryza sativa L. ssp. japonica (rice) genome, using the released version of rice Build 3.0 pseudomolecules based on the Ensembl architecture. The nonredundant library, composed of 3,360 clones of BACs, PACs, and fosmids, was used to construct supercontigs. RGISS contains 50,717 annotated genes from GenBank, 56,161 predicted genes from FgeneSH, and information on 9,587 markers, which includes STS, SSR, and EST-based RFLP. The 20,180 ESTs sequenced by the Korea National Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology (NIAB) were aligned and mapped into 168,792 exons. By gene ontology analysis, the classified protein numbers in the rice genome were 6158, 4531, and 12,364 proteins, which were mapped to molecular function, cellular component, and biological process, respectively.
Biological Processes ; Biotechnology ; Clone Cells ; Databases, Nucleic Acid ; Exons ; Expressed Sequence Tags ; Gene Ontology ; Genome* ; Information Services* ; Korea ; Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length ; Oryza