BACKGROUND: Adenocarcinoma of the esophagus has been reported to be increasing in incidence in a number of regions throughout the world, while the incidence of squamous cell carcinoma (SCCA) of the esophagus is mostly stable or decreasing. To evaluate the increasing tendency of adenocarcinoma of the esophagus. METHODS: we studied retrospectively the records of patients with histologically proven esophageal cancer between 1970 and 1999 at the Yonsei Medical Center. RESULTS: Total cases of esophageal cancer were 969 patients of which the cases of adenocarcinoma and SCCA were 27 patients and 918 patients, respectively. The ratio of esophageal adenocarcinoma to SCCA was 0.0375 in the 1970s, 0.0241 in the 1980s and 0.0292 in the 1990s. There was no statistical difference (p=0.811) in the ratios of adenocarcinoma of the esophagus between the three consecutive 10-year groups. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, unlike the US and other western countries, it seems that the ratio of esophageal adenocarcinoma compared to SCCA has not increased among patients with esophageal carcinoma at the Yonsei Medical Center.
Adenocarcinoma/*epidemiology ; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell/*epidemiology ; Chi-Square Distribution ; Esophageal Neoplasms/*epidemiology ; Human ; Korea/epidemiology ; Middle Age ; Prevalence ; Retrospective Studies

OBJECTIVES: This study was performed to assess the association between physical activity and the clustering of metabolic abnormalities among Korean children. The effect of substituting moderate to vigorous physical activity for the time spent in inactivity was examined as well. METHODS: The study subjects were comprised of 692 (354 boys, 338 girls) 4th grade elementary school students. We used a modified form of the physical activity questionnaire that was developed in the Five-City Project. The subjects with clustering of metabolic abnormalities were defined as having two or more of the following five characteristics: waist circumference > or =90 %, systolic or diastolic blood pressure > or =90 %, fasting glucose > or =110 mg/dl, triglycerides > or =110 mg/dl and HDL cholesterol < or =40 mg/dl. We calculated the odds ratios to assess the effect of substituting moderate to vigorous physical activity for time spent in inactivity. RESULTS: The risk of clustered metabolic abnormalities was inversely correlated with the increased time spent on moderate to vigorous physical activity, but the correlation was not significant. The odds ratio for clustering of metabolic abnormalities that represented the effect of substituting moderate to vigorous physical activity for 30minutes of sedentary activity was 0.87 (95% CI=0.76-1.01). CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that substituting moderate to vigorous physical activity for sedentary activity could decrease the risk of clustered metabolic abnormalities.
Blood Glucose/metabolism ; Blood Pressure ; Child ; Cholesterol, HDL ; *Exercise ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Metabolic Syndrome X/diagnosis/*epidemiology ; Questionnaires ; Risk Factors ; Triglycerides/blood ; Urban Population ; Waist Circumference

Hydatidiform moles are generally separated into two classifications. Complete hydatidiform moles are characterized by cystic swelling of all villi, often pronounced trophoblastic hyperplasia, lack of fetal parts, all 46 chromosomes of paternal origin, and a major risk for persistent trophoblastic tumor. Partial hydatidiform moles appear to be a milder version of complete moles with both normal and cystic villi, focal trophoblastic hyperplsia, a fetus or indication of previous fetal existence, 69 chromosomes with a maternal contribution, and a malignant potential less than described for complete moles. Hydatidiform mole with coexistent fetus is a very rare phenomenon, with an estimated incidence of 0.005 to 0.01 percent of all pregnancies. Due to advances in cytogenetics and ultrasonography, now permit the diagnosis of this pregnancy antenatally. However this unusual pregnancy has the risks of malignant change and severe medical complications, so it is a dilemma to decide continuation or termination of pregnancy. We experienced a case of partial hydatidiform mole with coexistent live fetus, which was diagnosed by ultrasonography at 12 gestational weeks, and confirmed normal karyotype (diploid) of the coexistent fetus. A brief reviews of related literature was done.
Classification ; Cytogenetics ; Diagnosis ; Diploidy ; Female ; Fetus* ; Hydatidiform Mole* ; Hyperplasia ; Incidence ; Karyotype ; Pregnancy ; Trophoblastic Neoplasms ; Trophoblasts ; Ultrasonography

The purpose of this study is to determine that YMCA step-test is useful method of cardiovascular fitness field-test for large scale study of epidemiology. 57 adults participated in this study. They are recruited considering subject's clinic status and gender proportion. Cardiorespiratory fitness of each participant was determined by grade exercise testing(GXT) with gas analysis and YMCA step-test. There are at least more two days an interval between the tests. Data were analyzed with a statistics program, SPSS version 14.0, by applying Spearman correlation coefficient and independent t-test and Fisher's exact test with a statistical significant level of alpha<.05. The results of this study were as followed. VO2max value exhibited significant correlation with YMCA step test scale(male : r =-.611, p=.001 ; female: r=-.656, p>.001). Our result is that validity of YMCA step-test is acceptable. YMCA step test is vary efficient as dimension of investigator's and subject's effort then the other field-test for assessment of cardiorespiratory. Therefore, Step test is useful for large scale study of epidemiology.
Adult ; Exercise Test ; Humans ; Oxygen ; Oxygen Consumption

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The choice of optimal treatment methods among various gland preserving procedures including transoral surgery, sialendoscopy and extracorporeal lithotripsy for submandibular stones is mainly determined by the size of the stone. We tried to assess the accuracy of ultrasonography (USG) and computerized tomography (CT) for the preoperative estimation of submandibular gland stone size. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 251 patients who were treated for submandibular stones from January 2008 to December 2014. Eighty patients who checked both preoperative USG and CT were included. Preoperative USG and CT measurements of the submandibular stones were compared to postoperative measurements of removed stones. Effects of stone location and presence of acute infection on preoperative measurements were also assessed. RESULTS: The mean submandibular gland stone size was 6.60+/-3.8 mm by USG, 7.23+/-4.0 mm by neck CT and 7.89+/-4.7 mm by the postoperative measurement. USG and CT showed good correlation with the postoperative measurement (correlation coefficient 0.912 and 0.940, respectively). The location of stone and presence of combined infection showed no significant impact on the accuracy of USG and CT measurement. CONCLUSION: USG and neck CT showed high accuracy for predicting submandibular gland stone size. However, it should be taken into consideration that the stone size could be greater than that shown by preoperative measurement.
Humans ; Lithotripsy ; Medical Records ; Neck ; Retrospective Studies ; Salivary Gland Calculi ; Submandibular Gland* ; Ultrasonography

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether early surgery benefits in the treatment of the patients with ruptured aneurysm by comparing the outcome in relation to the timing of surgery. The autho rs analyzed 81 patients with ruptured aneurysm who underwent operation during one year from January 1996 through December 1996. Among these, sixty patients(74%) underwent operation within 72 hours after first bleeding, and 21 patients (26%) after 72 hours following first bleeding. Thirtysix patients(82%) recovered without se rious neurological deficits in 44 patients with initial Hunt and Hess g rade I to III who were operated upon in early period, and four out of 16 patients with initial Hunt and Hess grade IV to V. Sixteen patients (84%) recovered without serious neurological deficits in 19 patients with initial Hunt and Hess grade I to III who received late operation but none in 2 patients in Hunt and Hess grade IV to V. Seven out of 60 (12%) patients died after early operation, one of 21(5%) patient died after late operation. The causes of morbidity were vasospasm (19 cases), rebleeding (5 cases), hydrocephalus (1 case) in early operation and vasospasm (2 cases), hydrocephalus (1 case) in late operation. It is concluded that early operation is mandatory even in the patients with poor clinical status prior to surgery since early aneurysmal surgery can minimize the chance of rebleeding, permit more aggressive treatment against vaso-spasm and improve the clinical outcome.
Aneurysm* ; Aneurysm, Ruptured ; Hemorrhage ; Humans ; Hydrocephalus

Tuberculosis of the skull bone tuberculosis is a very rare disease. We report a case occurring in a 52 year-old male was referred to us because of headache and painful swelling in the right frontal area. Plain chest x-ray revealed fibrous, streaky, nodular, patchy opacities in the LUL together with pleural effusion. Plain skull x-ray and CT scan demonstrated osteolytic lesion in the right frontal bone; scanning showed hot uptake by the right frontal area, and this corresponding to skll findings revealed by plain film. After frontal craniotomy the involved bone flap and epidural abscess were removed. Pafthologically, typical granulomatous inflammation was seens; this was composed of caseation necrosis, epithelioid cells and surrounding lymphocytes and plasma cells.
Craniotomy ; Epidural Abscess ; Epithelioid Cells ; Frontal Bone ; Headache ; Humans ; Inflammation ; Lymphocytes ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Necrosis ; Plasma Cells ; Pleural Effusion ; Rare Diseases ; Skull* ; Thorax ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; Tuberculosis* ; Tuberculosis, Osteoarticular

Sister-chromatic exchanges measured in the peripheral lymphocytes of 15 non-smoking medical students after exposure to formaldehyde during a 24-week anatomy class showed a small but significant (p=0.0468) increase when compared with samples obtained from the same individuals immediately before exposure. Mean frequencies of sister-chromatic exchange of cultured peripheral lymphocytes were 5.40+/-0.24 from the samples before exposure and 5.87+/-0.22 from the same samples after exposure. Breathing-zone air samples collected by formaldehyde monitoring kit with digital colorimeter (SKC) showed a mean concentration of 0.72+/-0.02 ppm formaldehyde.
Formaldehyde* ; Humans ; Lymphocytes* ; Students, Medical*

(E)-3-Phenyl-1-(2-pyrrolyl)-2-propenone (PPP) is a pyrrole derivative of chalcone, in which the B-ring of chalcone linked to β-carbon is replaced by pyrrole group. While pyrrole has been studied for possible Src inhibition activity, chalcone, especially the substituents on the B-ring, has shown pharmaceutical, anti-inflammatory, and anti-oxidant properties via inhibition of NF-κB activity. Our study is aimed to investigate whether this novel synthetic compound retains or enhances the pharmaceutically beneficial activities from the both structures. For this purpose, inflammatory responses of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-treated RAW264.7 cells were analyzed. Nitric oxide (NO) production, inducible NO synthase (iNOS) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) mRNA expression, and the intracellular inflammatory signaling cascade were measured. Interestingly, PPP strongly inhibited NO release in a dose-dependent manner. To further investigate this anti-inflammatory activity, we identified molecular pathways by immunoblot analyses of nuclear fractions and whole cell lysates prepared from LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 cells with or without PPP pretreatment. The nuclear levels of p50, c-Jun, and c-Fos were significantly inhibited when cells were exposed to PPP. Moreover, according to the luciferase reporter gene assay after cotransfection with either TRIF or MyD88 in HEK293 cells, NF-κB-mediated luciferase activity dose-dependently diminished. Additionally, it was confirmed that PPP dampens the upstream signaling cascade of NF-κB and AP-1 activation. Thus, PPP inhibited Syk, Src, and TAK1 activities induced by LPS or induced by overexpression of these genes. Therefore, our results suggest that PPP displays anti-inflammatory activity via inhibition of Syk, Src, and TAK1 activity, which may be developed as a novel anti-inflammatory drug.
Chalcone* ; Genes, Reporter ; HEK293 Cells ; Luciferases ; Macrophages ; Necrosis ; Nitric Oxide ; Nitric Oxide Synthase ; Phosphotransferases* ; RNA, Messenger ; Transcription Factor AP-1

We found two errors, title and author affiliation in our published article.