Background: Epigenetic studies, particularly research on microRNA (miRNA), have flourished. The abnormal expression of miRNA contributes to the development of hematologic malignancies.miR-765 has been reported to inhibit cell proliferation by downregulating proteolipid protein 2 (PLP2), which causes apoptosis. We investigated miR-765 dysregulation in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Methods: We compared the expression profiles of miR-765 in 65 patients with MDS and 11 controls.Cell proliferation and apoptosis assays were performed to determine the in vitro effects of miR-765 on leukemia cells transfected with the miR-765 mimic. Reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) and western blotting were performed to examine the targets of miR-765. Results: We found that miR-765 levels were upregulated 10.2-fold in patients with MDS compared to controls. In refractory cytopenia with multilineage dysplasia, the percentage of patients with elevated miR-765 levels was significantly higher than in other forms of MDS.Experiments with leukemia cells revealed that transfection with a miR-765 mimic inhibited cell proliferation and induced apoptosis. RT-qPCR and western blotting demonstrated that the target of miR-765 was PLP2. Conclusion These findings imply that upregulation of miR-765 induces apoptosis via downregulation of PLP2 and may have a role in MDS pathogenesis.

Hepatoid thymic carcinoma is an extremely rare subtype of primary thymus tumor resembling “pure” hepatoid adenocarcinomas with hepatocyte paraffin 1 (Hep-Par-1) expression. A 53-year-old man presented with voice change and a neck mass. Multiple masses involving the thyroid, cervical and mediastinal lymph nodes, and lung were detected on computed tomography. Papillary thyroid carcinoma was confirmed by biopsy, and the patient underwent neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy. However, the anterior mediastinal mass was enlarged after the treatment whereas the multiple masses in the thyroid and neck decreased in size. Microscopically, polygonal tumor cells formed solid sheets or trabeculae resembling hepatocytes and infiltrated remnant thymus. The tumor cells showed immunopositivity for cytokeratin 7, cytokeratin 19, and Hep-Par-1 and negativity for α-fetoprotein. Possibilities of germ cell tumor, squamous cell carcinoma, and metastasis of thyroid papillary carcinoma were excluded by immunohistochemistry. This report on the new subtype of thymic carcinoma is the third in English literature thus far.

Hepatoid thymic carcinoma is an extremely rare subtype of primary thymus tumor resembling “pure” hepatoid adenocarcinomas with hepatocyte paraffin 1 (Hep-Par-1) expression. A 53-year-old man presented with voice change and a neck mass. Multiple masses involving the thyroid, cervical and mediastinal lymph nodes, and lung were detected on computed tomography. Papillary thyroid carcinoma was confirmed by biopsy, and the patient underwent neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy. However, the anterior mediastinal mass was enlarged after the treatment whereas the multiple masses in the thyroid and neck decreased in size. Microscopically, polygonal tumor cells formed solid sheets or trabeculae resembling hepatocytes and infiltrated remnant thymus. The tumor cells showed immunopositivity for cytokeratin 7, cytokeratin 19, and Hep-Par-1 and negativity for α-fetoprotein. Possibilities of germ cell tumor, squamous cell carcinoma, and metastasis of thyroid papillary carcinoma were excluded by immunohistochemistry. This report on the new subtype of thymic carcinoma is the third in English literature thus far.

BACKGROUND: The smoking rate of Korean male workers is top in the world. To establish the effective smoking cessation strategy, we conducted a study to evaluate the factors associated with smoking and smoking cessation. METHODS: We surveyed 509 male workers in a university hospital about age, marital status, drinking, exercise level and checked their awareness and seriousness for diseases due to smoking, benefits from smoking cessation, motivation derived from massmedi and books and their will to quit smoking by self-administerd questionnaire. RESULTS: The significant factors associated with smoking cessation were higher education (OR=1.85, 95% CI 1.26-2.74), non-religion (OR=0.56, 95% CI 0.38-0.83), drinking (OR=0.40, 95% CI 0.27-0.61), awareness (OR=1.30, 95% CI OR=1.03-3.25) and seriousness (OR=1.29, 95% CI 1.19-1.39) for smoking related disease, benefit (OR=1.21, 95% CI 1.16-1.27), and barrier (OR=0.78, 95% CI 0.74-0.83), motivation (OR=1.21, 95% CI 1.12-1.30), and the will to quit smoking (OR=1.70, 95% CI 1.56-1.85). CONCLUSION: This study suggested that effective smoking cessation program should be based on awareness and seriousness due to smoking related diseases, health benefit and barrier to quitting smoking, company's support, the individual's will to quit and various motivation methods.
Drinking ; Education ; Humans ; Insurance Benefits ; Male* ; Marital Status ; Motivation ; Smoke* ; Smoking Cessation* ; Smoking* ; Surveys and Questionnaires

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to investigate the differences in the facial emotion recognition and discrimination ability between children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). METHODS: Fifty-three children aged 7 to 11 years participated in this study. Among them, 43 were diagnosed with ADHD and 10 with ASD. The parents of the participants completed the Korean version of the Child Behavior Checklist, ADHD Rating Scale and Conner's scale. The participants completed the Korean Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-fourth edition and Advanced Test of Attention (ATA), Penn Emotion Recognition Task and Penn Emotion Discrimination Task. The group differences in the facial emotion recognition and discrimination ability were analyzed by using analysis of covariance for the purpose of controlling the visual omission error index of ATA. RESULTS: The children with ADHD showed better recognition of happy and sad faces and less false positive neutral responses than those with ASD. Also, the children with ADHD recognized emotions better than those with ASD on female faces and in extreme facial expressions, but not on male faces or in mild facial expressions. We found no differences in the facial emotion discrimination between the children with ADHD and ASD. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that children with ADHD recognize facial emotions better than children with ASD, but they still have deficits. Interventions which consider their different emotion recognition and discrimination abilities are needed.
Autism Spectrum Disorder ; Autistic Disorder* ; Checklist ; Child Behavior ; Child* ; Discrimination (Psychology)* ; Facial Expression ; Female ; Humans ; Intelligence ; Male ; Parents

OBJECTIVES: This study investigated the effect of social skills training (SST) on facial emotion recognition and discrimination in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). METHODS: Twenty-three children aged 7 to 10 years participated in our SST. They included 15 children diagnosed with ADHD and 8 with ASD. The participants' parents completed the Korean version of the Child Behavior Checklist (K-CBCL), the ADHD Rating Scale, and Conner's Scale at baseline and post-treatment. The participants completed the Korean Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV (K-WISC-IV) and the Advanced Test of Attention at baseline and the Penn Emotion Recognition and Discrimination Task at baseline and post-treatment. RESULTS: No significant changes in facial emotion recognition and discrimination occurred in either group before and after SST. However, when controlling for the processing speed of K-WISC and the social subscale of K-CBCL, the ADHD group showed more improvement in total (p=0.049), female (p=0.039), sad (p=0.002), mild (p=0.015), female extreme (p=0.005), male mild (p=0.038), and Caucasian (p=0.004) facial expressions than did the ASD group. CONCLUSION: SST improved facial expression recognition for children with ADHD more effectively than it did for children with ASD, in whom additional training to help emotion recognition and discrimination is needed.
Autism Spectrum Disorder* ; Autistic Disorder* ; Checklist ; Child Behavior ; Child* ; Discrimination (Psychology) ; Facial Expression ; Facial Recognition ; Female ; Humans ; Intelligence ; Male ; Parents ; Social Skills*

A ‘collision’ tumor refers to the existence of two different neoplasms within the same tumor. Sometimes, the term ‘biphasic tumor’ is also used. However, a ‘collision’ tumor is defined as the occurrence of two neoplasms within proximity of each other yet maintaining distinctly defined, separate boundaries. In contrast, a ‘biphasic’ tumor demonstrates two or more phenotypically distinct neoplastic cell populations merging within the same space. Here, we report a case of collision tumor associated with sarcomatoid eccrine porocarcinoma and basal cell carcinoma arising in a 57-year-old male patient.
Carcinoma, Basal Cell* ; Eccrine Porocarcinoma* ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged