OBJECTIVES: Considerable variations in the contents of clinical practice are the natural consequences of the fact that so many factors can have influences on each clinical decision making processes in the psychiatric treatment, let alone the pharmacotherapy of schizophrenia. To attain the goal of rational treatment, it is needed to examine the actual contents of clinical practices and the degree of variations among diverse hospitals. In addition, it is also needed to look into the unique situations in which each hospital is situated. For this purpose, this study tried to investigate the degree of variations in several aspects of the treatment of schizophrenia with atypical antipsychotics currently practiced in Korea. METHODS: This study is based on the data from RODOS (Risperidone Olanzapine Drug Outcome Study) in Korea. This study had been designed as a multi-center naturalistic study, therefore, had many advantages for the survey study of actual clinical practices. The subjects of the study were the in-patients who had been given risperidone or olanzapine for the control of their psychotic symptoms. Clinical data had been gathered by retrospective chart review. The degree and the characteristics of the variations were examined by comparing the patient-characteristic variables and the treatment-related variables among each hospital. RESULTS: The differences in the baseline characteristics of the patients including the duration of illness and the past history of psychiatric treatment were substantial among each hospital, and these differences seemed to explain a great portion of the variations in the contents of treatment. The variations in the dosage of risperidone and olanzapine were not conspicuous among each hospital. However, the variations in other treatment-related variables, including duration of admission, proportion of combined therapy with other antipsychotics, usage of anticholinergics, detection rate of extrapyramidal symptoms, remained statistically significant after adjusting the baseline patient characteristics as covariates. Although no significant correlation among each variable was found, a couple of unique practice patterns common to several hospitals could be observed. CONCLUSIONS: Considerable variations in the diverse treatment-related variables were observed in the treatment of schizophrenic patients with risperidone and olanzapine. It seemed that the major portion of these variations could be explained by the characteristic of patient group. However, the possibility remained that the other factors including the socio-cultural environment of the community and the disposition of the clinician themselves were still the major contributing factors to these variations. It is expected that the future clinical practice surveys like this study can help the clinicians to reevaluate their current practices, and can help to accumulate the basic data needed to establish the more rational and customized treatment practices.
Antipsychotic Agents ; Cholinergic Antagonists ; Decision Making ; Drug Therapy ; Humans ; Korea ; Linear Energy Transfer ; Retrospective Studies ; Risperidone* ; Schizophrenia

OBJECTIVES: Auditory verbal hallucination (AVH) is knoun for its high prevalence and difficulty in evaluation. Authors hypothesized that it may be possible to find useful dimensions of AVH that reflect the clinical status of schizophrenic patients by assessing the multi-dimensional changes and linguistic forms' of AVH during antipsychotic treatment. METHODS: 33 schizophrenic patients with AVH were selected and periodically assessed with the 11 items of hallucinations subscale of 'The Psychotic Symptom Rating Scales (PSYRATS)'. In addition, to assess the linguistic forms observed in the AVH, the evaluations of sentence structure of AVH reported by the patients were conducted. RESULTS: PSYRATS showed the multidimensionality inherent in AVH. The changes in the quantitative dimensions did not correlate well with patients' subjective distress. However, qualitative changes in the cognitive and emotional dimensions showed more favorable correlation with clinical course of the patient. The sentence structures of AVH showed tendency to change from "sentence" to "non-sentence" type with overall improvement during treatment. CONCLUSION: Multi-dimensional approach to AVH can give us more information about the changing patterns of multi-faceted structure of AVH and clinical status of patients than one-dimensional or categorical approach.
Hallucinations* ; Humans ; Linguistics ; Prevalence ; Weights and Measures

OBJECTIVES: Auditory verbal hallucination (AVH) is knoun for its high prevalence and difficulty in evaluation. Authors hypothesized that it may be possible to find useful dimensions of AVH that reflect the clinical status of schizophrenic patients by assessing the multi-dimensional changes and linguistic forms' of AVH during antipsychotic treatment. METHODS: 33 schizophrenic patients with AVH were selected and periodically assessed with the 11 items of hallucinations subscale of 'The Psychotic Symptom Rating Scales (PSYRATS)'. In addition, to assess the linguistic forms observed in the AVH, the evaluations of sentence structure of AVH reported by the patients were conducted. RESULTS: PSYRATS showed the multidimensionality inherent in AVH. The changes in the quantitative dimensions did not correlate well with patients' subjective distress. However, qualitative changes in the cognitive and emotional dimensions showed more favorable correlation with clinical course of the patient. The sentence structures of AVH showed tendency to change from "sentence" to "non-sentence" type with overall improvement during treatment. CONCLUSION: Multi-dimensional approach to AVH can give us more information about the changing patterns of multi-faceted structure of AVH and clinical status of patients than one-dimensional or categorical approach.
Hallucinations* ; Humans ; Linguistics ; Prevalence ; Weights and Measures

No abstract available.
Anemia* ; Child* ; Hospitalization* ; Humans

No abstract available.
Lymphangioleiomyomatosis* ; Tuberous Sclerosis*

We report a medullary carcinoma of the thyroid gland with a coexisting occult sclerosing papillary carcinoma. This rare case, in that the two types of carcinoma are completely separated and not intermixed together, is different from the previously reported mixed follicular and parafollicular cell carcinomas of the thyroid gland, so-called "differentiated thyroid carcinoma, intermediate type". The two separate tumors of the present case are undoubtedly of coincidental double primaries, and it can be a assumed that at least some of the mixed follicular and parafollicular cell carcinomas are results of collision of carcinomas derived from two embryogenetically different cell types.

Antimicrobial resistance is a growing problem in the eradication of Helicobacter pylori. A combination therapy with proton pump inhibitor, clarithromycin, and amoxicillin is recommended as the first-line treatment regimen in Korea. However, the eradication rate with a standard triple therapy has been unsatisfactory in the last decade, and one of the main reasons for treatment failure is the increasing prevalence of strains resistant to antimicrobials. Therefore, comprehensive and detailed information on antimicrobial resistance is mandatory to optimize the strategy of eradication treatment. The antimicrobial resistance of H. pylori is reported to vary according to study population, geographical region, and test methods. In this review, the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance of H. pylori isolates in Korea is summarized on the basis of recent studies.
Amoxicillin ; Clarithromycin ; Drug Resistance, Microbial ; Helicobacter pylori* ; Helicobacter* ; Korea* ; Prevalence ; Proton Pumps ; Treatment Failure

The Ankle joint is a modified complex hinge joint which plays an importnat role in weight bearing, walking and standing. Injuries about the ankle joint cause destruction of not only bony architecture but also the ligament and soft tissue components. We performed arthrography in 52 cases of ankle fracture. The Result obtained from this study was as follow; The ligament & interosseous membrane injuries were more severe, when fracture of lateral malleolus was occured higher level than ankle joint.
Ankle Fractures ; Ankle Joint ; Ankle ; Arthrography ; Clinical Study ; Joints ; Ligaments ; Membranes ; Walking ; Weight-Bearing

In the unusual manifestation of right upper lobe collapse confusing with mediastinal or parenchymal mass, both alteration of the pulmonary vessels and shifting pattern of the collapsed lobe to the periphery on supine positionare the key to the diagnosis of it rather than mediastinal or parenchymal mass. The mechanisms of these unusual manifestation s are obscure, however lobar torsion and gravity factor are considered to be a main process. Authors have experienced 2 cases of unusual manifestations of right upper lobe collapse due to bronchogenic carcinomaduring resent 2 years in Kyung Hee University hospital, and prsent radiologic findings.
Carcinoma, Bronchogenic ; Diagnosis ; Gravitation

The correction is being published to correct the grant number in above article.