PURPOSE: Omega-3 fatty acid is known for immunonutrition in that it has anti-inflammatory properties and improves the patients' immune function. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of a fish oil-based lipid emulsion for adult patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). METHODS: This was a retrospective study of 90 adult allogeneic HSCT patients from July 2011 to June 2015. The patients were divided into two groups according to the lipid type provided; fish oil group (FO group, n=55) and non-fish oil group (NFO group, n=35). The demographics, parenteral nutrition and lipid emulsion duration, length of hospital stay (LOS), weight change, 30 day mortality, survival period, incidence of acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD), neutropenic fever, sepsis, and re-hospitalization were collected from the electronic medical records. RESULTS: The patients' characteristics including age, sex, body mass index, and underlying disease were similar in the two groups. The incidence of aGVHD and infectious complications, mortality, LOS, re-hospitalization were also similar. The FO group showed weight gains, whereas the NFO group showed weight loss (FO vs. NFO=0.34% vs. -1.08%, P=0.245). CONCLUSION: The clinical outcomes were similar in the two groups but there was a tendency for gain weight in the FO group. A large, well designed study, and a dosing study will also be needed to determine the optimal dose range for HSCT patients.
Adult ; Body Mass Index ; Demography ; Electronic Health Records ; Fatty Acids ; Fever ; Fish Oils ; Graft vs Host Disease ; Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation* ; Hematopoietic Stem Cells* ; Humans ; Incidence ; Length of Stay ; Mortality ; Parenteral Nutrition* ; Retrospective Studies ; Sepsis ; Weight Gain ; Weight Loss

Recently, in Korea, the importance of preparation and use of injectable drugs has been emphasized due to successive fatal accidents caused by injection infections. Parenteral nutrition (PN) has also been identified as a cause of infection. Cases of infection due to PN have been reported not only in Korea, but also abroad, and contamination occurs mainly during the preparation of PN. Because sterile preparation and compounding of injections are very important for infection control and patient safety, this article reviews the major guidelines outlined thus far. The Korea Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in 2006 published guidelines and the KSHP (Korean Society of Health-System Pharmacists) recently issued guidelines for the aseptic preparation of injections. In addition, as US guidelines, the ASHP (American Society of Health-System Pharmacists) guidelines and United States Pharmacopeia (USP) < 797 > are also reviewed. The recent guidelines published by the KSHP have significance in that they were adopted in accordance with the domestic reality, even though they conform to foreign guidelines, and are expected to be guidelines for hospital pharmacists performing aseptic preparation work. In addition, the Korea Ministry of Health and Welfare is considering appropriate guidelines for the safe management of medications, training staff for infection prevention and strengthening staff capacity. Furthermore, the gradual expansion of aseptic compounding facilities and human resources, as well as the provision of adequate medical costs are also considered. Based on the establishment and standardization of injectable drugs compounding guidelines for Korean hospitals, it is believed that if human resources and facilities are supported and medical charges are improved, it will be possible to expect the safer preparation and use of injections.
Drug Compounding ; Humans ; Infection Control* ; Korea ; Parenteral Nutrition* ; Patient Safety ; Pharmacists ; United States

The authors revised some errors regarding Table 5 and 6 in the article as the corrigendum. Because it is not official and may be changed in the revision due out in June 2019, Table 5 and 6 should be deleted and do not refer to it.

PURPOSE: A prostate cancer prevention trial has demonstrated a higher incidence of high-grade prostate cancers(HGPC, Gleason pattern 4 or greater) among men randomized to receive treatment with finasteride. One of the hypotheses was finasteride causes a detection bias with regards to HGPC by reducing the prostate volume. We investigated the relationship between prostate volume and HGPC in prostate biopsy specimens and prostatectomy specimens(RP) from the same patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed a cohort of 173 consecutive patients that underwent a radical prostatectomy. We identified risk factors for HGPC on 12 core needle biopsies and then on RP specimens using univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis. In transrectal ultrasound(TRUS) volume quartiles, the relationship of HGPC and prostate volume was analyzed between the lowest and the highest quartile. RESULTS: By multivariate analysis, risk factors of HGPC were age and prostate-specific antigen(PSA), but TRUS volume was not associated with HGPC in both biopsy and RP specimens. In TRUS volume quartiles, the relationship of HGPC and prostate volume was not significant. In addition, in a comparison of the lowest and the highest quartile, the relationship of HGPC and prostate volume was not significant. CONCLUSIONS: Prostate volume may not be significantly associated with the grade of prostate cancers diagnosed at 12 core(or more) needle biopsies and at a radical prostatectomy.
Bias (Epidemiology) ; Biopsy ; Biopsy, Large-Core Needle ; Biopsy, Needle ; Cohort Studies ; Finasteride ; Humans ; Incidence ; Logistic Models ; Male ; Multivariate Analysis ; Needles ; Prostate* ; Prostatectomy ; Prostatic Neoplasms* ; Retrospective Studies ; Risk Factors

OBJECTIVES: We developed the Korean version of Severe Mini-Mental Status Examination (SMMSE-K) which is a brief cognitive test for the severely demented patients. METHODS: The translation was carried out keeping the basic structure of the English version Severe Mini-Mental Status Examination (SMMSE). The SMMSE-K, Korean version of Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE-KC), and Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) were administered to 84 Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and 36 cognitively normal elderly subjects. For evaluating the reliability of the SMMSE-K, Cronbach alpha coefficient, inter-rater reliability, and test-retest reliability were examined. For confirming the validity of the SMMSE-K, the correlations of the SMMSE-K with MMSE-KC and CDR were examined, and factor analysis was performed using principal component analysis with Varimax rotation. RESULTS: SMMSE-K was found to have a high internal consistency (Cronbach alpha coefficient=0.906, p<0.01), inter-rater reliability (Pearson correlation coefficient=0.980, p<0.01) and test-retest reliability (Pearson correlation coefficient=0.940, p<0.01). Performances on the SMMSE-K and MMSE-KC were found to correlate significantly in the subjects with CDR of 2 (Pearson correlation coefficient=0.827, p<0.001) and 3 (Pearson correlation coefficient=0.929, p<0.001). In the subjects with CDR of 3, the MMSE-KC showed a floor effect (2.93+/-3.21), whereas the SMMSE-K did not (11.00+/-8.48). Exploratory factor analysis yielded two factors (automatic informational processing, controlled informational processing) accounting for 76.1% of the total variance. CONCLUSION: The SMMSE-K was found to be a reliable and valid test for assessing the cognition of severely demented patients.
Accounting ; Aged ; Alzheimer Disease ; Cognition ; Dementia ; Deoxycytidine ; Floors and Floorcoverings ; Humans ; Principal Component Analysis ; Reproducibility of Results

Myiasis is a relatively common infection of animals kept as pets, although only 1 case of canine myiasis has been described so far in the Republic of Korea. In the present study, we report an additional case of canine wound myiasis with identification of its causative agent, Lucilia sericata. An 8-year-old male Siberian husky dog was referred with anorexia, vomiting, and diarrhea to the Chungbuk National University Veterinary Medical Center, Cheongju-si (city), Chungcheongbuk-do (province), Korea in July 2013. Physical examination indicated the patient had a deep wound filled with a maggot swarm as a left gluteal lesion. A total of 216 maggots were removed by forceps, and the wounded area was sponged with gauzes and disinfected with 70% alcohol and a povidone-iodine solution. After daily care and suturing the wound, the patient was discharged at day 19 after admission. Recovered worms possessed morphological characteristics similar to those of L. sericata, namely, a sub-cylindrical body with 6–8 lobed anterior spiracles, round shaped with a button surrounded by a peritremal ring with no gaps, and similar distances between dorsal, median, and outer papillae of the 12th segment. Additionally, cox1 partial sequences (528 bp) obtained in the present study showed 100% identity with those of L. sericata (GenBank no. KT272854.1). L. sericata is indicated as a pathogen of myiasis infection not only in humans, but also in animals kept as pets in Korea.
Animals ; Anorexia ; Child ; Chungcheongbuk-do ; Diarrhea ; Dogs ; Humans ; Korea* ; Larva ; Male ; Myiasis* ; Physical Examination ; Povidone-Iodine ; Republic of Korea ; Surgical Instruments ; Vomiting ; Wounds and Injuries*

BACKGROUND: Assessment of body fluid cytology is a useful means of evaluating a metastatic tumor. Liquid-based cytology (LBC) has been developed as a replacement for the conventional Papanicolaou (CP) test. This study was performed to compare CellprepPlus(R) LBC with CP in cytologic diagnosis. METHODS: Body fluid samples (n=188, including 72 peritoneal fluid and 116 pleural fluid samples) were divided equally and analyzed by both CellprepPlus(R) and CP. RESULTS: CellprepPlus(R) revealed distributed thin layers of non-overlapping cells. All CellprepPlus(R) preparations were adequate, while 18 (9.57%) CP preparations were inadequate. The respective diagnostic rates of CellprepPlus(R) and CP were 75.0% and 76.1% negative, 10.6% and 6.38% atypical, 5.85% and 2.66% suspicious, and 8.51% and 5.32% malignant. Of the 58 confirmed cases, the sensitivity of CellprepPlus(R) and CP was 94.4% and 73.3%, respectively, and the negative predictive value was 97.2% and 87.9%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: CellprepPlus(R) LBC has better sensitivity and negative predictive value, and produces higher quality slide preparations than than CP, making it suitable as in screening of body fluid as a cytologic diagnostic tool.
Ascitic Fluid ; Body Fluids ; Mass Screening ; Neoplasm Metastasis

PURPOSE: We investigated the biocompatibility of n-butyl-2-cyanoacrylate (NBCA) in the cervical deep tissues of rats to assess its biocompatibility. METHODS: A total of 30 Sprague-Dawley rats were injected with NBCA. After 30, 90, 180, and 360 days, cubes of tissue (1 cm × 1 cm × 1 cm) surrounding the NBCA and normal tissue from the other side of the neck were excised from each rat. The adhesion of NBCA to adjacent structures was examined histologically. Cells were counted per high-power field (HPF), and fibrosis was graded with the measurement of fibrotic thickening. RESULTS: All animals displayed normal behavior without any symptoms of distress throughout the study. There was no recognizable inflammatory reaction, foreign body reaction, or fibrosis in the 30 control samples. The analyses of experimental samples showed significantly decreased inflammatory cell counts over time (lymphoplasma cell count decreased from 100 (range, 70–100) to 30 (range, 30–50) per HPF, P = 0.010; neutrophil count decreased from 2 (range, 2–30) to 0 (range, 0–2) per HPF, P = 0.017). However, there was no significant difference in the number of multinuclear giant cells throughout the study period (a decrease from 22 [range, 16–34] to 16 [range, 12–22] per HPF, P = 0.287). The level of fibrosis was Common Toxicity Criteria ver. 4.0 Grade 1 without further thickening (P = 0.600). However, maturation of fibrosis progressed gradually. CONCLUSION: NBCA was biologically tolerable in the cervical deep tissues of rats. However, precautions are needed with respect to preventing a sustained foreign body reaction and fibrosis.
Animals ; Biocompatible Materials ; Cell Count ; Chyle ; Cyanoacrylates ; Enbucrilate ; Fibrosis ; Foreign-Body Reaction ; Giant Cells ; Neck ; Neck Dissection ; Neutrophils ; Prospective Studies ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley

PURPOSE: Gleason score(GS) 7 tumors contain patterns 3 and 4 in various proportions. The clinical and pathological characteristics of patients with GS 3+4 and GS 4+3 found during a radical prostatectomy(RP) were retrospectively evaluated. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 124 cases of GS 7 prostate cancer were identified between April 2004 and February 2006. None of these patients had received either preoperative hormonal therapy, including 5alpha-reductase inhibitors, or radiation therapy. After classifying patients with GS 7 tumors into those with GS 4+3 and GS 3+4 tumors, the two groups were compared according to various clinicopathological parameters. RESULTS: In total, 84(67.7%) and 40(32.3%) of patients had final GS of 3+4 and 4+3, respectively. A final GS of 4+3 was associated with a higher pre-biopsy level of prostate-specific antigen(p<0.001) and a higher biopsy Gleason sum(p<0.001). Also, a higher pathological T stage(p=0.005), tertiary Gleason pattern 5(p<0.001), seminal vesicle invasion(p=0.008), bladder neck invasion(p=0.002), angiolymphatic invasion(p=0.008), perineural invasion(p=0.045), positive surgical margins(p=0.038) and larger tumor volumes(p<0.001) were associated with GS of 4+3. CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrated that the statistically significant differences exist between GS 3+4 and 4+3 prostate cancers. Thus, GS 7 prostate cancers may be considered heterogeneous in their biological behaviors, and GS 7 prostate cancers with a GS of 4+3 may be considered more aggressive tumors compared to those with a GS of 3+4.
Biopsy ; Humans ; Neck ; Neoplasm Grading* ; Prostate* ; Prostatectomy ; Prostatic Neoplasms* ; Retrospective Studies ; Seminal Vesicles ; Urinary Bladder