No abstract available.
Darier Disease*

PURPOSE: This study compared climacteric symptoms, knowledge of menopause and menopausal management of middle aged women living in urban and rural areas. METHOD: The study subjects included 287 women aged 40-64 years in P city and G town. The instruments used in this study were a climacteric symptoms scale and knowledge of menopause and a menopausal management scale. Data was analyzed with SPSS Win 10.0. RESULT: The mean age of middle-aged women living in urban areas was 47.9 years and that of women in rural areas was 48.0 years. The mean score of the climacteric symptoms of middle-aged women living in urban and rural areas was 48.8 and 50.4 respectively, and was not significantly different. The mean score of the knowledge of menopause of middle-aged women living in urban areas was higher than that of women in rural areas (p=.017). In addition, the mean score of the menopausal management of middle-aged women living in rural areas was higher than that of women in urban areas. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that not only general characteristics but also living areas should be considered in developing nursing interventions to manage the climacteric symptoms of middle aged women.
Climacteric* ; Female ; Humans ; Menopause* ; Middle Aged* ; Nursing

OBJECTIVE: Promoting mental health and preventing mental health problems are important tasks for international organizations and nations. Such goals entail the establishment of active information networks and effective systems and indicators to assess the mental health of populations. This being said, there is a need in Korea develop ways to measure the state of mental health in Korea. METHODS: This paper reviews the mental health indicator development policies and practices of seven organizations, countries, and regions: WHO, OECD, EU, United States, Australia, UK, and Scotland. Using Delphi method, we conducted two surveys of mental health indicators for experts in the field of mental health. The survey questionnaire included 5 domains: mental health status, mental health factor, mental health system, mental health service, and quality of mental health services. We considered 124 potential mental health indicators out of more than 600 from indicators of international organizations and foreign countries. RESULTS: We obtained the top 30 mental health indicators from the surveys. Among them, 10 indicators belong to the mental health system. The most important five mental health indicators are suicide rate, rate of increase in mental disorder treatment, burden caused by mental disorders, adequacy of identifying problems of mental health projects and deriving solutions, and annual prevalence of mental disorders. CONCLUSION: Our study provides information about the process for indicator development and the use of survey results to measure the mental health status of the Korean population. The aim of mental health indicator development is to improve the mental health system by better grasping the current situation. We suggest these mental health indicators can monitor progress in efforts to implement reform policies, provide community services, and involve users, families and other stakeholders in mental health promotion, prevention, care and rehabilitation.
Australia ; Hand Strength ; Humans ; Information Services ; Korea ; Mental Disorders ; Mental Health ; Mental Health Services ; Organothiophosphorus Compounds ; Prevalence ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Scotland ; Social Welfare ; Suicide ; United States

BACKGROUND: Sputum decontamination with NALC-NaOH (N-acetyl-L-cysteine-sodium hydroxide) is known to better detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb) by culture than that with using NaOH, which is widely used in Korean hospitals. In this report, sputum samples collected from pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) patients were treated with either NaOH or NALC-NaOH, and we compared the results of smear and culture positivity to determine whether the NALC-NaOH treatment method improves culture positivity in the sputum samples, and especially for those sputum samples that are smear negative and scanty. METHODS: For each decontamination method, 436 sputum samples from pulmonary TB patients in the National Masan Tuberculosis Hospital were collected for this study. Sputum from a patient was collected two times for the first and second day of sampling time, and these samples were employed for the decontamination process by performing the 4% NaOH and NALC-2% NaOH treatment methods, respectively, for detecting M. tb by an AFB (Acid Fast Bacilli) smear and also by culture in solid Ogawa medium. RESULTS: The NaOH and NALC-NaOH treatment methods did not significantly affect the AFB smear positivity of the sputum samples (33.0% vs 39.0%, respectively, p=0.078). However, the culture positive percents of M. tb in the Ogawa medium treated with NALC-NaOH and NaOH were 39.7% and 28.0%, respectively, which was a significantly different (p=0.0003). This difference in culture was more prominent in the sputum samples that were smear negative (the positive percents with NALC-NaOH and NaOH were 15.8% and 7.2%, respectively, p=0.0017) and scanty (NALC-NaOH and NaOH were 60.8% and 42.9%, respectively, p=0.036), but not for a smear that was 1+ or higher (p>0.05). CONCLUSION: NALC-NaOH treatment is better than NaOH treatment for the detection of M. tb by culture, but not by smear, and especially when the AFB smear is negative and scanty.
Decontamination ; Hospitals, Chronic Disease ; Humans ; Mycobacterium tuberculosis ; Nitroimidazoles ; Sputum ; Sulfonamides ; Tuberculosis ; Tuberculosis, Pulmonary

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) gB is known to play important roles in cell surface attachment, virion penetration, spread of infection from cell to cell, and provocation of neutralizing antibody. This study was performed to determine the role of anti-HCMV gB antibody in overall neutralizing response in patients with HCMV infection and healthy control with past infection. HCMV gB was stably expressed in 293 cells. With the stable cell line expressing gB as a specific immunosorbent, anti-gB antibody was removed from the current and past HCMV-infected sera and the remaining neutralizing activity was measured by plaque assay. It was shown that 19-50% of the total virus-neutralizing activity of sera with past HCMV infections was derived from anti-gB antibody, but anti-gB antibody had little effect on the total serum virus-neutralizing activity in patients currently infected with HCMV. This result suggests that neutralizing antibody to HCMV gB may reflect disease status.
Adult ; Antibodies, Monoclonal ; Antibodies, Viral/immunology* ; Antibodies, Viral/blood ; Antigens, Viral/immunology ; Antigens, Viral/genetics ; Cells, Cultured ; Cytomegalovirus/immunology* ; Cytomegalovirus Infections/prevention & control ; Cytomegalovirus Infections/immunology* ; Female ; Fetus/cytology ; Fibroblasts/cytology ; Gene Expression Regulation, Viral/immunology ; Human ; Immunosorbents ; Lung/cytology ; Male ; Middle Age ; Neutralization Tests ; Recombinant Proteins/genetics ; Viral Envelope Proteins/immunology* ; Viral Vaccines

Background: Many studies have reported injury characteristics of individual traumatic situations. However, a comparative analysis of specific risks is meaningful to better understand injury characteristics and help establish injury-prevention measures. This study was conducted to investigate and compare injury characteristics in children and adolescents by various outdoor traumatic situations. Methods: Outdoor traumatic situations were determined and classified into physical activity-related injury (n = 3,983) and pedestrian (n = 784) and passenger (n = 1,757) injuries in traffic accidents. Home injury (n = 16,121) was used as the control group. Then, the characteristics of each outdoor trauma were compared with 1:1 matched indoor trauma (among home injuries); each outdoor traumatic situation’s predisposing risk for the injured body part, injury type, and injury severity were analyzed; and changes by age of frequency ranking among physical activity-related injuries were investigated. Results: Outdoor trauma showed higher risks for limb injuries (injured body part), fracture and muscle/tendon injuries (injury type), and severe injuries (severity) than indoor trauma. Various outdoor traumatic situations presented different predisposing effects on injury characteristics. Among physical activity-related injuries, bicycle injury was commonest across all ages, and playing activities were common causes for injury for individuals of age < 9 years, whereas sports activities overwhelmed the common causes thereafter. Conclusions The findings would help to better understand the specific injury risk of various outdoor traumatic situations and may potentially facilitate the establishment of more effective injury-prevention measures.

Background: Many studies have reported injury characteristics of individual traumatic situations. However, a comparative analysis of specific risks is meaningful to better understand injury characteristics and help establish injury-prevention measures. This study was conducted to investigate and compare injury characteristics in children and adolescents by various outdoor traumatic situations. Methods: Outdoor traumatic situations were determined and classified into physical activity-related injury (n = 3,983) and pedestrian (n = 784) and passenger (n = 1,757) injuries in traffic accidents. Home injury (n = 16,121) was used as the control group. Then, the characteristics of each outdoor trauma were compared with 1:1 matched indoor trauma (among home injuries); each outdoor traumatic situation’s predisposing risk for the injured body part, injury type, and injury severity were analyzed; and changes by age of frequency ranking among physical activity-related injuries were investigated. Results: Outdoor trauma showed higher risks for limb injuries (injured body part), fracture and muscle/tendon injuries (injury type), and severe injuries (severity) than indoor trauma. Various outdoor traumatic situations presented different predisposing effects on injury characteristics. Among physical activity-related injuries, bicycle injury was commonest across all ages, and playing activities were common causes for injury for individuals of age < 9 years, whereas sports activities overwhelmed the common causes thereafter. Conclusions The findings would help to better understand the specific injury risk of various outdoor traumatic situations and may potentially facilitate the establishment of more effective injury-prevention measures.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to compare the histogram analysis and visual scores in 3T MRI assessment of middle cerebral arterial wall enhancement in patients with acute stroke, for the differentiation of parent artery disease (PAD) from small artery disease (SAD). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Among the 82 consecutive patients in a tertiary hospital for one year, 25 patients with acute infarcts in middle cerebral artery (MCA) territory were included in this study including 15 patients with PAD and 10 patients with SAD. Three-dimensional contrast-enhanced T1-weighted turbo spin echo MR images with black-blood preparation at 3T were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The degree of MCA stenosis, and visual and histogram assessments on MCA wall enhancement were evaluated. A statistical analysis was performed to compare diagnostic accuracy between qualitative and quantitative metrics. RESULTS: The degree of stenosis, visual enhancement score, geometric mean (GM), and the 90th percentile (90P) value from the histogram analysis were significantly higher in PAD than in SAD (p = 0.006 for stenosis, < 0.001 for others). The receiver operating characteristic curve area of GM and 90P were 1 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.86–1.00). CONCLUSION: A histogram analysis of a relevant arterial wall enhancement allows differentiation between PAD and SAD in patients with acute stroke within the MCA territory.
Arteries* ; Constriction, Pathologic ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Middle Cerebral Artery ; Parents* ; ROC Curve ; Stroke ; Tertiary Care Centers

BACKGROUND: The serological diagnosis of herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) infection has pitfalls, in that most of the antibodies against HSV-2 cross-react with HSV-1 and the prevalence of HSV-1 infection is high, especially in Korea. In this study, we tried to establish the serological diagnostic method, which could detect and measure the specific antibodies against HSV- 2 by competitive immunofluorescent staining method as well as competitive ELISA based on the specific monoclonal antibody, MH2-7. METHODS: Immunofluorescent staining and western blot analysis were used to characterize the antigens recognized by MH2-7. Competitive immunofluorescent staining (IF), competitive enzyme immunoassay (ELISA), and western blot analysis were used to detect specific antibodies against HSV-2 in patients' sera. RESULTS: In western blot analysis, the sera from two of six patients clinically diagnosed as genital herpes showed characteristic band patterns, which have been known to be compatible with HSV-2 infection. In competitive immunofluorescent staining, only the sera from the two patients clinically diagnosed as genital herpes and with characteristic band pattern showed competition with MH2-7 monoclonal antibody. The dilution range of the serum showing specific competition was between 1:10 and 1:80. Competitive ELISA was also performed and evaluated as the diagnostic efficacy as ELISA has been known to be advantageous over IF staining in mass screening. The result showed linear dose-response relationship for the patient's sera in inhibition of the reactivity of MH2-7. CONCLUSION: We suggest that the competitive immunofluorescent staining method and competitive ELISA based on the specific monoclonal antibody MH2-7 is a simple, accurate, and precise method, which can be used in serological diagnosis of HSV-2 infection.
Antibodies ; Blotting, Western ; Diagnosis ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay ; Herpes Genitalis ; Herpesvirus 1, Human ; Herpesvirus 2, Human* ; Humans ; Immunoenzyme Techniques* ; Korea ; Mass Screening ; Prevalence

BACKGROUND: Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is causative agent of infectious mononucleosis and nasopharyngeal carcinoma and associated with Burkitt lymphoma and other tumors. The recombinant protein is needed for the rapid and sensitive serodiagnosis of EBV infection. METHODS: EBV gene encoding the protein reactive with the sera of EBV-infected patient was cloned and characterized with lambda gt11 expression library of cDNA of EBV B95-8 strain. RESULTS: The recombinant proteins from clone 12, 15 and 21 were expressed as 120, 118, 160 kDa-usion protein with beta-galactosidase, respectively, which were reactive with IgG anti-EBV antibody-positive sera, but not with anti-EBV antibody-negative sera. A homology search of the DNA sequence of the cloned gene with EBV B95-8 sequences revealed that those were located at 61716~62087, 61898~62085, and 102128~103158, respectively. These positions correspond to BFRF3, BFRF3, and BZLF1, respectively, which were reported as immunogenic protein which evoked strong and longstanding antibody response and had no sequence homology with the proteins of other herpesviruses. All the patients' sera were reactive with clone 12 protein, but only 5 out of 9 patients' sera were reactive with clone 21 protein. CONCLUSION: Clone 21 protein expressing BFRF3 fragment was immunoreactive in patient sera from natural EBV infection and was regarded as useful candidate for the serodiagnosis of EBV infection.
Antibody Formation ; Base Sequence ; beta-Galactosidase ; Burkitt Lymphoma ; Clone Cells* ; Cloning, Organism* ; DNA, Complementary ; Epstein-Barr Virus Infections ; Herpesviridae ; Herpesvirus 4, Human* ; Humans ; Immunoglobulin G ; Infectious Mononucleosis ; Recombinant Proteins ; Sequence Homology ; Serologic Tests