Purpose: To investigate the various strategies used for the treatment of premature ejaculation (PE); these encompassed behavioral, drug and surgical interventions. Materials and Methods: We retrieved data from electronic literature searches of PubMed and Cochrane library using the MeSH (Medical Subject Headings terms) and text keywords from the earliest available date of indexing through September 2022. The subject headings and text keywords included those related to the population (male patients with PE), interventions & comparisons (mono and combination treatment), and outcomes (ejaculation latency time, ELT). Results: The initial search identified a total of 454 articles from electronic databases. Finally, a total of 10,474 patients from 59 direct comparison trials were included 143 effect sizes with 43 treatments. Of these, 9 of mono treatments and 4 of combination treatments were statistically significant. Pharmaceutical agents commonly used for patients with PE are prescribed off-label, except for dapoxetine. The surface under the cumulative ranking curve values of ranking probabilities for each treatment performance, which indicated that tramadol 100 mg ranked first in terms of ELT. Conclusions Medications recommended by the American Urological Association and the Sexual Medicine Society of North America were all incorporated within the present review, together with additional management approaches that have been evaluated in randomized controlled trials. The findings indicated that in addition to SSRIs, tramadol, clomipramine, topical agents and PDE5 inhibitors could be used in the therapy of PE.

Purpose: To investigate the efficacy of medical treatment options for Peyronie's disease (PD) including oral drugs, intralesional treatment and mechanical treatment compared with placebo treatment using network meta-analysis (NMA). Materials and Methods: We searched the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of PD in PubMed, Cochrane library, and EMBASE up to October 2022. RCTs included medical treatment options: oral drugs, intralesional treatment and mechanical treatment. Studies reporting at least one of the outcome measures of interest including curvature degree, plaque size, and structured questionnaires (International Index of Erectile Function, IIEF) were included. Results: Finally, 24 studies including 1,643 participants met our selection criteria for NMA. There was no statistically significant treatment compared to placebo of the curvature degree, plaque size, IIEF in Bayesian analysis. The SUCRA values of ranking probabilities for each treatment performance, which indicated that hyperthermia device ranked first in NMA. However, in frequentist analysis, 7 of mono treatments (coenzyme Q10 [CoQ10] 300 mg, hyperthermia device, interferon alpha 2b, pentoxifylline 400 mg, propionyl-L-carnitine 1 g, penile traction therapy [PTT], vitamin E 300 mg) and 2 of combination treatments (“PTT–extracorporeal shockwave treatment”, “vitamin E 300 mg–propionyl-L-carnitine 1 g”) were statistically significant for improvement of curvature degree, and 9 of mono treatments (CoQ10 300 mg, hyaluronic acid 16 mg, hyperthermia device, interferon alpha 2b, pentoxifylline 400 mg, propionyl-L-carnitine 1 g, verapamil 10 mg, vitamin E 300 mg, vitamin E 400 U) and 3 of combination treatments ("interferon alpha 2b–vitamin E 400 U", "verapamil 10 mg–antioxidants", “vitamin E 300 mg–propionyl-L-carnitine 1 g”) were statistically significant in the improvement of plaque size. Conclusions At present, there is no clinical treatment alternatives that have been demonstrated to be effective compared to placebo. Nonetheless, as the frequentist approach has shown that a number of agents are efficacious, further research is expected to develop more effective treatment options.

Primary care lays the foundation of national healthcare systems, but it has been weak in playing its role correctly because of legal and environmental attributes surrounding the healthcare industry in Korea. This study is conducted to concretize the definition and scope of primary care and to deduce its standard functions to contribute to establishing the healthcare delivery system and appropriate healthcare systems embracing socio-environmental leverage. The term primary healthcare institution was adopted based on literature review to achieve the research goal. The principle diseases appropriate for the primary healthcare institution based on ambulatory care sensitive conditions were analyzed, and the standard functions were deduced by matching these diseases with current procedural terminologies using CrossCoder package. Based on the analysis, the primary healthcare institution-specific diseases were 53 specific diseases under 23 broad disease groups. The standard functions were deduced in three categories of the standard functions of the entire primary healthcare institutions with 100% frequency, common standard functions with 70% frequency, and peculiar standard functions specific to diseases or body systems. These functions included outpatient evaluation and measurement, various factor tests through blood collection, and X-ray. Establishing the standard functions for the primary healthcare institution can promote patient reliability on primary care, alleviate health demand congestion toward large-sized advanced healthcare institutions. Furthermore, it contributes to establishing and reinforcing other healthcare policies related to the healthcare reimbursement system and referral system, and fosters primary care physician education. Most importantly, it reduces the national health expenditures by realizing efficient and effective healthcare delivery.
Ambulatory Care ; Delivery of Health Care ; Estrogens, Conjugated (USP) ; Health Care Sector ; Health Expenditures ; Humans ; Korea ; Outpatients ; Physicians, Primary Care ; Primary Health Care ; Referral and Consultation

PURPOSE: This study was performed to evaluate the efficacy and compliance of beta2- agonist according to the type of preparations in the children with asthma. METHODS: Randomly selected 30 patients, who visited to Soonchunhyang University Hospital with acute asthma attack from May to August, 2004 were enrolled. Patients were randomly divided into 3 groups. We evaluated asthma symptom score before and 1 week after treatment in each group. Also, we measured O2 saturation, peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR), heart rate, and evaluated adverse reactions during the treatment. Treatment compliance was evaluated by the face to face interview with the patients and their guardians after 1 week of treatment. RESULTS: The mean asthma symptom score before and after treatment in each group were 5.9 and 1.1 in transdermal group, 5.4 and 0.9 in inhalation group, and 5.5 and 1.3 in oral group, respectively. Mean improvement of PEFR was 23.7% predicted after treatment. There was no serious adverse reactionin each group except mild itching of patch site in one case of transdermal group. Compliance of each group was relatively good. CONCLUSION: For the treatment of acute asthma attack, there was no difference in efficacy and safety of beta-agonist among the type of preparations. Also, there was no difference in adverse reaction and compliance between the type of preparation. Therefore it will be useful to choose the preparation with better compliance in each patient for the effective treatment of childhood asthma.
Asthma* ; Child ; Compliance* ; Heart Rate ; Humans ; Inhalation ; Peak Expiratory Flow Rate ; Pruritus

Background: To investigate the clinicopathologic pattern of prostate cancer (PCa) in elderly patients compared with their younger counterparts with a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level below the low-risk threshold (< 10 ng/mL), which is often a deciding factor for biopsy. Methods: A nationwide database of PCa at the time of biopsy from 2010 to 2020 was constructed from 39 hospitals. Patients were categorized into age groups of < 64 years, 65–69 years, 70–74 years, and ≥ 75 years considering guidelines that recommend PSA testing only for those aged 55–69 years during the study period, the average age of Korean PCa registrants of 70.3 years (2010–2020), and the average life expectancy of Korean males of 80.3 years (2020). Results: The mean ± standard deviation age was 70.3 ± 8.2 years, which was normally distributed (kurtosis = 0.095). Among 14,548 subjects, 54.1%, 39.5%, and 6.4% of them had high-risk disease, intermediate-risk disease, and low-risk disease, respectively. Based on three risk parameters, a marked increase in high-risk cancer was observed in the oldest age group (linear combination, P < 0.001). The same pattern was observed among patients with low-risk disease (PSA < 10 ng/mL), who were divided into PSA tiers as follows: 4–5 ng/mL (P < 0.001), 5–6 ng/mL (P < 0.001), 6–7 ng/mL (P < 0.001), 7–8 ng/mL (P < 0.001), 8–9 ng/mL (P = 0.009), and 9–10 ng/mL (P < 0.001). In all PSA tiers between 4 and 10 ng/mL, multivariate analysis demonstrated a significantly higher prevalence of high-risk cancer in the oldest age group than in the youngest age group. In the lowest tier (4–5 ng/mL), 35.2% of those aged over 75 years had high-risk PCa. Conclusion The older the patient, the more aggressive the PCa. Moreover, there was an increase in high-risk PCa in older males compared with younger males even with a PSA level below the low-risk threshold of 10 ng/mL, suggesting the need to strengthen cancer screening policies in the older population.

Background: To investigate the clinicopathologic pattern of prostate cancer (PCa) in elderly patients compared with their younger counterparts with a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level below the low-risk threshold (< 10 ng/mL), which is often a deciding factor for biopsy. Methods: A nationwide database of PCa at the time of biopsy from 2010 to 2020 was constructed from 39 hospitals. Patients were categorized into age groups of < 64 years, 65–69 years, 70–74 years, and ≥ 75 years considering guidelines that recommend PSA testing only for those aged 55–69 years during the study period, the average age of Korean PCa registrants of 70.3 years (2010–2020), and the average life expectancy of Korean males of 80.3 years (2020). Results: The mean ± standard deviation age was 70.3 ± 8.2 years, which was normally distributed (kurtosis = 0.095). Among 14,548 subjects, 54.1%, 39.5%, and 6.4% of them had high-risk disease, intermediate-risk disease, and low-risk disease, respectively. Based on three risk parameters, a marked increase in high-risk cancer was observed in the oldest age group (linear combination, P < 0.001). The same pattern was observed among patients with low-risk disease (PSA < 10 ng/mL), who were divided into PSA tiers as follows: 4–5 ng/mL (P < 0.001), 5–6 ng/mL (P < 0.001), 6–7 ng/mL (P < 0.001), 7–8 ng/mL (P < 0.001), 8–9 ng/mL (P = 0.009), and 9–10 ng/mL (P < 0.001). In all PSA tiers between 4 and 10 ng/mL, multivariate analysis demonstrated a significantly higher prevalence of high-risk cancer in the oldest age group than in the youngest age group. In the lowest tier (4–5 ng/mL), 35.2% of those aged over 75 years had high-risk PCa. Conclusion The older the patient, the more aggressive the PCa. Moreover, there was an increase in high-risk PCa in older males compared with younger males even with a PSA level below the low-risk threshold of 10 ng/mL, suggesting the need to strengthen cancer screening policies in the older population.

Background: To investigate the clinicopathologic pattern of prostate cancer (PCa) in elderly patients compared with their younger counterparts with a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level below the low-risk threshold (< 10 ng/mL), which is often a deciding factor for biopsy. Methods: A nationwide database of PCa at the time of biopsy from 2010 to 2020 was constructed from 39 hospitals. Patients were categorized into age groups of < 64 years, 65–69 years, 70–74 years, and ≥ 75 years considering guidelines that recommend PSA testing only for those aged 55–69 years during the study period, the average age of Korean PCa registrants of 70.3 years (2010–2020), and the average life expectancy of Korean males of 80.3 years (2020). Results: The mean ± standard deviation age was 70.3 ± 8.2 years, which was normally distributed (kurtosis = 0.095). Among 14,548 subjects, 54.1%, 39.5%, and 6.4% of them had high-risk disease, intermediate-risk disease, and low-risk disease, respectively. Based on three risk parameters, a marked increase in high-risk cancer was observed in the oldest age group (linear combination, P < 0.001). The same pattern was observed among patients with low-risk disease (PSA < 10 ng/mL), who were divided into PSA tiers as follows: 4–5 ng/mL (P < 0.001), 5–6 ng/mL (P < 0.001), 6–7 ng/mL (P < 0.001), 7–8 ng/mL (P < 0.001), 8–9 ng/mL (P = 0.009), and 9–10 ng/mL (P < 0.001). In all PSA tiers between 4 and 10 ng/mL, multivariate analysis demonstrated a significantly higher prevalence of high-risk cancer in the oldest age group than in the youngest age group. In the lowest tier (4–5 ng/mL), 35.2% of those aged over 75 years had high-risk PCa. Conclusion The older the patient, the more aggressive the PCa. Moreover, there was an increase in high-risk PCa in older males compared with younger males even with a PSA level below the low-risk threshold of 10 ng/mL, suggesting the need to strengthen cancer screening policies in the older population.

Background: To investigate the clinicopathologic pattern of prostate cancer (PCa) in elderly patients compared with their younger counterparts with a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level below the low-risk threshold (< 10 ng/mL), which is often a deciding factor for biopsy. Methods: A nationwide database of PCa at the time of biopsy from 2010 to 2020 was constructed from 39 hospitals. Patients were categorized into age groups of < 64 years, 65–69 years, 70–74 years, and ≥ 75 years considering guidelines that recommend PSA testing only for those aged 55–69 years during the study period, the average age of Korean PCa registrants of 70.3 years (2010–2020), and the average life expectancy of Korean males of 80.3 years (2020). Results: The mean ± standard deviation age was 70.3 ± 8.2 years, which was normally distributed (kurtosis = 0.095). Among 14,548 subjects, 54.1%, 39.5%, and 6.4% of them had high-risk disease, intermediate-risk disease, and low-risk disease, respectively. Based on three risk parameters, a marked increase in high-risk cancer was observed in the oldest age group (linear combination, P < 0.001). The same pattern was observed among patients with low-risk disease (PSA < 10 ng/mL), who were divided into PSA tiers as follows: 4–5 ng/mL (P < 0.001), 5–6 ng/mL (P < 0.001), 6–7 ng/mL (P < 0.001), 7–8 ng/mL (P < 0.001), 8–9 ng/mL (P = 0.009), and 9–10 ng/mL (P < 0.001). In all PSA tiers between 4 and 10 ng/mL, multivariate analysis demonstrated a significantly higher prevalence of high-risk cancer in the oldest age group than in the youngest age group. In the lowest tier (4–5 ng/mL), 35.2% of those aged over 75 years had high-risk PCa. Conclusion The older the patient, the more aggressive the PCa. Moreover, there was an increase in high-risk PCa in older males compared with younger males even with a PSA level below the low-risk threshold of 10 ng/mL, suggesting the need to strengthen cancer screening policies in the older population.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the perioperative, functional, and oncological outcomes of renal cryoablation (RC) of small renal masses (SRMs) performed in Korea University Hospital. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We reviewed an Institutional Review Board-approved database of 70 patients who underwent RC and were followed up for a minimum of 3 months by a single surgeon in Korea University Hospital from August 2007 to May 2014. Among these patients, 68 patients (79 renal masses) were enrolled in our research. We evaluated perioperative, functional, and oncologic outcomes of RC. RESULTS: A total of 68 patients (79 renal masses) underwent RC in our institution. The mean age of the patients was 62.0 years. The mean tumor size was 2.25 cm. Among the 59 patients who underwent laparoscopic surgery, only 1 patient (1.47%) was converted to open surgery. No other perioperative complications occurred. The mean preoperative and 1-month postoperative estimated glomerular filtration ratio (eGFR) were 71.8 and 68.3 mL/min/1.73 m2, respectively (p=0.19). The mean 1-year postoperative eGFR was 65.0 mL/min/1.73 m2 (p=0.25). The mean follow-up period was 59.76 months (range, 3-119 months). Local tumor recurrence occurred in eight tumors (15.4%; a total of 52 renal cell carcinomas). Concerning treatment in the patients with recurrence, five patients underwent re-treatment and three patients are under active surveillance. None of the eight patients who experienced local recurrence had additional recurrence or tumor progression during the follow-up period. In our study, the recurrence-free rate was 83.0% and the cancer-specific survival rate was 100%. Moreover, the 5- and 10-year overall survival rates were both 100%. CONCLUSIONS: Long-term experience with RC in our institution demonstrates that RC is a safe and effective treatment for patients with SRMs.
Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Biopsy ; Carcinoma, Renal Cell/pathology/radiography/*surgery ; Cryosurgery/adverse effects/*methods ; Follow-Up Studies ; Glomerular Filtration Rate ; Humans ; Kidney Neoplasms/pathology/radiography/*surgery ; Laparoscopy/adverse effects/methods ; Middle Aged ; Neoplasm Recurrence, Local ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; Treatment Outcome ; Young Adult

PURPOSE: We previously described a new procedure specific module (Tube 3) to allow the practice of vesicourethral anastomosis after robot-assisted radical prostatectomy. Herein, we report a predetermined proficiency level of Tube 3 and preliminary validation to explore whether this new module can lead to performance improvement in the da Vinci system. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Eight urology residents and three urology fellows performed the Tube 3 module 1 hour daily for 7 days. The learning curve was depicted through a scatterplot and the stable point was identified through the cumulative sum chart. Concurrent and predictive validations were performed with the da Vinci system. The mean time to complete the task and end product rating score between Tube 3 training group and no Tube 3 training group were compared. RESULTS: Concerning the learning curve, about 41 repetitions comprising about 5 hours were needed to achieve this stable point when the mean time to complete Tube of 384 seconds was set as a target. With regarding to the concurrent and predictive validation, there significant differences were evident in the mean time to complete 16 needle passages and the vesicourethral anastomosis and the end product rating score. CONCLUSIONS: The virtual reality (VR) simulator can yield sufficient improvement in technical performance in Tube 3 within 5 hours. The acquired proficiency can be transferable to the vesicourethral anastomosis using the da Vinci system.
Anastomosis, Surgical/methods ; Clinical Competence ; Computer Simulation ; Education, Medical, Graduate/*methods ; Humans ; Learning Curve ; Male ; Prostatectomy/*education/methods ; Robotic Surgical Procedures/*education/methods ; Simulation Training/methods ; Urethra/surgery ; Urinary Bladder/surgery ; User-Computer Interface