BACKGROUND: Fixed drug eruptions(FDE) are a cutaneous reaction characterized by one or more circumscribed lesions that recur at the same site in response to a given medication. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to find the clinical and histopathological characteristics of FDE and to compare early FDE with late FDE histopathologically. METHOD: We clinically investigated 54 cases of FDE that visited the department of dermatology at the Kyunghee medical center from January 1993 to December 1996. Among them, 31 patients had skin biopsies and were evaluated histopathologically on the basis of duration. RESULTS: The results were summarized as follows: 1. Development of FDE did not show any difference according to sex and was evenly distributed over all the ages. 2. The latent periods of FDE were diverse in appearance from 30 minutes to 10 days, but mostly, the skin lesions erupted within 4S hours. 3. The most common skin lesions were erythematous macules. 4. Distribution of the lesions came out as solitary: 20.4%, multiple: 79.6%. S3.7% of the multiple lesions were localized to a part of body, and 16.3% were distributed over the whole body. 5. The areas in which the eruptions developed were (in descending order): upper extremity(37.0%), hand(31.5%), trunk(24.1%), face(24.1%). 6. In most cases(68.6%), the size and the number of lesions were greater in recurrente, rather than in first attacks. 7. The histopathological findings commonly showed perivascular mononuclear cell(MNC) infiltration (100%), pigmentary incontinence(77.4%), basal hydrophic degeneration(71.0%), eosinophil infiltration in dermis(61.3%), etc. 8. The epidermal histopathological findings such as spongiosis, exocytosis of MNC, basal hydrophic degeneration, keratinocyte necrosis and subepidermal vesicles could be seen more frequently in early lesions than in late ones. CONCLUSION: In our study, we were able to obtain meaningful results based on data from the combination of clinical and histopathological investigations. This study may give help to understand the characteristics of fixed drug eruptions and to plan future studies.
Biopsy ; Dermatology ; Drug Eruptions* ; Eosinophils ; Exocytosis ; Humans ; Keratinocytes ; Necrosis ; Skin

Developmental venous anomalies are congenital anomalies of the intracranial venous drainage and clinically asymptomatic. Cavernous hemangiomas are vascular malformations composed of dilated vascular channels lined with a single layer of endothelial cells without any intervening normal neural tissue. Although, cavernous hemangioma may be clinically silent, but frequently cause variable neurologic manifestations; intracranial hemorrhage, seizures, and focal neurologic deficits. Frequent association of these two diseases has already been reported and it has been suggested that cavernous hemangiomas not the developmental venous anomalies that cause the acute clinical symptoms. A 4 year old girl with sudden onset of headache, vomiting, gait disturbance and signs of unilateral cerebellar dysfunction 2 days before admission showed a 2.5x2.5cm sized hematoma with heterogenous signal intensity both in CT and MRI in the left cerebellar hemisphere. Four-vessel cerebral angiography revealed characteristic findings of developmental venous anomalies. Pathologic findings of the surgically removed hematoma disclosed typical feature of cavernous hemangioma. Based on the findings in this case and review of the literatures, we concluded that the possibility of other diseases such as cavernous hemangiomas must be considered in patients who has intracranial hemorrhage due to the developmental venous anomalies.
Cerebellar Diseases ; Cerebral Angiography ; Child, Preschool ; Drainage ; Endothelial Cells ; Female ; Gait ; Headache ; Hemangioma, Cavernous* ; Hematoma ; Hemorrhage* ; Humans ; Intracranial Hemorrhages ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Neurologic Manifestations ; Seizures ; Vascular Malformations ; Vomiting

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the factors associated with symptoms from job stress among Korean dental laboratory technicians. METHODS: We collected the data of 786 technicians for life-style, job stressor, social support, self-esteem, personality, and various dimension of stress symptoms included roomatization, obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, and hostility by self-administerd questionnaire. Global severity index of dental technician (GSID) was calculated by total sum of sub-dimension. RESULTS: We used 80 percentile as a cut-off point, and got the 81.5 % of sensitivity, 86.1 % of specificity by receiver operating characteristic curve. The odds ratios of various factors in high group of GSID compared with low group were 1,49(95 % Cl 1.00-2.00) for smoker, 1,53 (1.06-2.21) for unhealthy group, 6,69 (4.74-9.44) for work overload, 8.34(5.82-11.97) for work demand, 9.89 (6.76-74.94) for work process, 8.27 (5.80-11,79) for work environment, 5.82 (4.04-8.39) for interpersonal relationship, 8.34 (5.82-11.97) for occupational conflict, 5.70 (4.04-8.04) for labor remuneration, 7.58 (5.37-10.71) for role conflict, but 0.39 (0.27-0.57) for social support, 0.41 (0.29-0.60) for self-esteem. By multiple logistic regression, factors were significantly associated with GSID were age, working area, role overload, work demand, work procedure, physical environment, occupational conflict, role conflict, social support, personality traits. CONCLUSIONS: Factors associated with symptoms from stress were role overload, work demand, work procedure, occupational conflict, interpersonal relationship, labor remuneration and role conflict in Korean dental laboratory technicians. It is suggested that health promotion program to reduce job stress and to enforce social support and self-esteem should be developed.
Anxiety ; Dental Technicians ; Depression ; Health Promotion ; Hostility ; Humans ; Laboratories, Dental* ; Logistic Models ; Odds Ratio ; Questionnaires ; Remuneration ; ROC Curve ; Sensitivity and Specificity

The cumulative incidence of breast cancer in Korea is low, being about one-fifth of that in the United States. This low incidence has been mainly explained by environmental factors, and recently, however, racial variations in the disease-causing genes should also be considered. The BRCA1 is one of the common genes involved in early-onset breast cancer and/or ovarian cancer in the United States and Northern Europe. However, the involvement of BRCA1 in Korean'breast cancer patients are still unclear. We performed germline mutation screening of the BRCA1 gene by DNA single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis. We examined 27 breast cancer patients who were diagnosed less than 35 years by age including two cases with family history of breast cancer. Our study showed no germline mutation at the exons 2, 11 and 20, which were known as the supreme susceptible regions of BRCA1 mutations. Even though our cases did not fulfilled the criteria of familial breast/ovarian cancer, the proprotion of families who inherit the mutated BRCA1 allele seems to be very small and might be negligible among Korean population. Therefore, it is considered that the BRCA1 itself cannot be a major susceptibility gene and the contributions of other genes might be important for the breast cancer.
Alleles ; Breast Neoplasms* ; Breast* ; DNA ; Europe ; Exons ; Genes, BRCA1 ; Germ-Line Mutation* ; Humans ; Incidence ; Korea ; Mass Screening ; Ovarian Neoplasms ; United States

OBJECTIVE: It has been reported that the sleep apnea syndrome in the asthmatic patients is prevalent, however, the systematic study in this field using polysomnography has rarely been performed. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) and the pulmonary function in asthmatic children. METHODS: This study enrolled 19 male and 12 female asthmatic children aged 6-13 years (average 8.2+/-1.7 years old). Complete overnight polysomnography and pulmonary function test were performed for the participants. RESULTS: Of the 31 asthmatic children, 21 (67.7%) met the diagnostic criteria of the pediatric sleep apnea and the average AHI was 1.7+/-1.5/h. The children with higher AHI showed poorer pulmonary function (FEV1/FVC ratio : p=0.002, FEV1%pred : p=0.047). CONCLUSION: These results suggest that the prevalence of the pediatric sleep apnea could be very high among the asthmatic children and the severity of the sleep apnea correlates with the pulmonary function. However, the case-control study to compare the AHI between the asthma and control groups is absolutely necessary because few normative data are available for the children.
Aged ; Asthma ; Case-Control Studies ; Child ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Polysomnography ; Prevalence ; Respiratory Function Tests ; Sleep Apnea Syndromes

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the characteristics of the young Korean obese but metabolically healthy subjects and to identify the factors associated with metabolic health status among them. METHODS: We reviewed the medical record of South-Korea Navy soldiers at 1st marine division with routine medical examination. Within this population, we selected obese subjects whose body mass index (BMI) were more than 25 kg/m². The clinical characteristics between obese subjects with metabolically healthy and unhealthy factors were retrospectively compared. RESULTS: Of the 1,522 subjects with medical record, 319 (20.9%) subjects were identified as obese. Among them, 60 subjects (18.8%) were classified as metabolically unhealthy, whereas 259 (81.2%) subjects were metabolically healthy. Multivariate analysis revealed that higher BMI (odds ratio, OR 1.26, 95% confidence interval, CI, 1.07-1.49), higher alanine transaminase (ALT) (OR 1.03, 95% CI 1.01-1.06), and drinking alcohol (OR 3.65, 95% CI 1.02-13.02) were associated with metabolically unhealthy status in obese subjects. Meanwhile, regular physical activity was associated with metabolically healthy status in obese subjects. (OR 0.33, 95% CI 0.17-0.62) CONCLUSION: This study found that higher BMI, higher ALT, and drinking alcohol were related to metabolically unhealthy status in young Korean obese subjects; meanwhile, regular physical activity was related to metabolically healthy status.
Alanine Transaminase ; Body Mass Index ; Drinking ; Healthy Volunteers ; Humans ; Medical Records ; Metabolic Diseases ; Military Personnel ; Motor Activity ; Multivariate Analysis ; Obesity ; Republic of Korea* ; Retrospective Studies*

No abstract available.
Humans ; Infant* ; Infant, Very Low Birth Weight*

No abstract available.
Graves Disease* ; Insulin*

Immunohistochemical staining on paraffin sections for S-100 protein improved diagnostic accuracy for melanocytic tumor. But specificity of S-100 protein in the diagnosis of melanocytic tumor is very low, because S-100 protein was also expressed in neurogenic tumor and salivary gland tumor. To investigate a specific tumor marker for the malignant melanoma, immunohistochemical staining for HMB-45 and S-100 protein was performed on the paraffin sections of 25 cases of malignant melanoma and 46 cases of nevi. Positive reaction for HMB-45 and S-100 protein was diffusely identified in the cytoplasm of tumor cells. Positive ratio for HMB-45 was 100% in malignant melanoma, 92% in junctional component of compound nevus and 0% in intradermal nevus. Positive ratio for S-100 protein was 92% in malignant melanoma, 100% in compound nevus and 100% in intradermal nevus. The sensitivity and specificity for HMB-45 in malignant melanoma were 100%, but those for S-100 protein were 92% in sensitivity and 86.7% in specificity. These results indicate that HMB-45 has a high sensitivity and specificity for malignant melanoma cells and it can be quite useful for the histopathological diagnosis of malignant melanoma.
Sensitivity and Specificity ; Tumor Markers, Biological

BACKGROUND: One of the main disadvantages of caudal block is the long latent period before a satisfactory blockade is obtained. Many investigators have used various preparations of local anesthetic solutions to improve the speed of onset. This study was performed to evaluate the effectiveness of prewarming of lidocaine HCl for caudal block. METHODS: Fifty healthy young patients (ASA I) were allocated into two groups, A and B. In group A, the local anesthetic solution were injected at room temperature (25 degrees C), while in group B, they were injected at 37oC. All the caudal block were performed using 2% lidocaine HCl 20 ml with fentanyl 100ug and epinephrine 1:200,000. The onset time was defined as the period from completion of injection until the patient first noticed loss of sensation to pin-prick on perianal region. Assessment of sensory loss was made at 15 seconds interval. We have compared the onset of sensory blockade between groups. The duration of analgesia and any significant side effects were also recorded. RESULTS: The onset of sensory blockade was significantly faster in group B (3.5 +/- 0.5 minutes) than group A (6.2 +/- 0.9 minutes). The duration of analgesia were not significantly changed between groups. Side effects of urinary retention, pruritus and nausea were noted between both groups but the difference was not significant. CONCLUSIONS: We have found that the onset time was 44% faster with warm lidocaine-fentanyl mixture (37 degrees C) than with the room temperature (25 degrees C). The improved clinical usefulness was achieved with no increase in side effects. The technique is a safe and effective method to reduce the latency of onset.
Analgesia ; Epinephrine ; Fentanyl ; Humans ; Lidocaine ; Nausea ; Pruritus ; Research Personnel ; Sensation ; Urinary Retention