A survey on soil samples collected from the vegetable gardens and vinyl houses in the vicinity of Taegu was conducted for the discovery of helminth eggs and larvae from October 1981 to September 1982. The samples collected were examined utilizing the "Commonly Employed" and Kamiya's techniques. The details of comparative features of larval nematodes are taken from the handbook of parasitology by Matsubasyhi et al. (1965). The results were compared with the data obtained from soil samples collected at the same area by Lee(1976). Five kinds of helminth eggs, ascarid, hookworm, liver fluke, Trichostrongylidae, and whipworm and undetermined eggs were found. Of these, the incidence of ascarid eggs was found to be the highest, 70.5 per cent, followed by whipworm and hookworm eggs, 9.9 and 9.2 per cent, respectively. The average number of ascarid eggs per 100 grams of soil was higher in the vinyl houses, compared with the number in the vegetable gardens than in the vinyl houses. By contrast, the number of hookworm eggs was relatively high in the vegetable gardens. In the monthly incidences of helminth eggs, ascarid eggs were found every month, continuing fairly high incidences all the year round. However, hookworm eggs was found for 8 months from February and September, with low monthly incidences between 4.0 and 22.2 per cent, and Trichostrongylidae eggs were found for 6 months from April to September, with lower incidences than those of hookworm. Three kinds of larval nematodes, the filariform and rhabditoid larvae of hookworm, Trichostrongylidae, and undetermined larvae were found in the soil of farms, but the incidences of larvae were quite low. The average number of larvae per 100 grams of soil was 0.05. When the number of eggs per 100 grams of the soil in 1976 were compared with 1982, pronounced reduction of the number was encountered in all helminth eggs. However, the incidences and the average number of larvae per 100 grams of the soil were so low that it was impossible to compare the data between 1976 and 1982.
parasitology-helminth-nematoda ; Ascarid ; hookworm ; Clonorchis sinensis ; Trichostrongylidae ; Trichuris trichiura ; epidemiology

BACKGROUND: Epidural administration of morphine is a common method for postoperative analgesia in the lower abdominal surgery, but many complications can be produced. Since the pfannenstial incision lies within L1 dermatome, bilateral ilioinguinal and iliohypogastric nerve blocks(IINB) should provide analgesia after surgery through that incision. METHODS: Forty patients undergoing cesarean delivery or total abdominal hysterectomy(TAH) through a pfannenstiel incision were randomly assigned to one of two groups: epidural morphine group(n=20) received 3 mg of morphine epidurally after surgery with epidural anesthesia; IINB group(n=20) performed IINB with 0.5% bupivacaine, 10 ml to each side after surgery with general anesthesia. Visual analogue scale(VAS) scores at resting and moving state, and complications were checked at 0, 2, 4, 8, 12, 24 hours after surgery. RESULTS: Postoperative VAS scores did not show significant differences between the two groups at rest after 0, 2, 4, 8, 12, 24 hours and at moving state after 0, 2, 4 hours, but IINB group had less pain with movement than epidural morphine group at 8, 12, 24 hours after surgery(p<0.05). The incidence of pruritus was rare in IINB group(P<.05), but incidences of other complications were not significantly different between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: IINB is effective for analgesia after surgery through a pfannenstiel incision because of a lower incidence of complications and less postoperative pain with movement than epidural morphine, and can be performed to patients who have contraindications and difficulty for epidural analgesia.
Analgesia* ; Analgesia, Epidural ; Analgesics ; Anesthesia, Epidural ; Anesthesia, General ; Bupivacaine ; Humans ; Incidence ; Morphine ; Nerve Block* ; Pain, Postoperative ; Pruritus

Inguinal endometriosis is a rare gynecologic disease. A 43-year-old woman had felt small nodular mass, which causing cyclic groin pain and fluctuation with menstrual cycle. CT scan revealed the extraperitoneal inguinal mass connected to the left round ligament. During the operation, infiltrative fibrotic mass around the inguinal mass could only be excised with wide groin dissection. After dissection of the abdominal muscles, the intraperitoneal mass could be pulled out and excised at the level of the intact round ligament. Histological diagnosis at the excised mass was endometriosis. After the surgery, the pain disappeared completely. We have reviewed published articles concerning inguinal endometriosis. The mechanism of development of inguinal endometriosis seems to be to that of indirect hernia with a difference of disappearing hernia sac resulting from inflammation of endometriosis. About half of the patients revealed periodicity such as cyclic pain or fluctuation of pain with menstral cycle. We describe the complete surgical excision of extraperitoneal inguinal endometriosis connected to round ligament endometriosis. Successful treatment can be achieved with understanding of the pathophysiology and anatomy related to the inguinal endometriosis.
Abdominal Muscles ; Adult ; Endometriosis ; Female ; Genital Diseases, Female ; Groin ; Hernia ; Humans ; Inflammation ; Menstrual Cycle ; Periodicity ; Round Ligament of Uterus

BACKGROUND: Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty(PTCA) for long coronary lesion is known to be associated with low success rate,suboptimal outcome,high complication and restenosis rates. Here we report the early clinical and angiographic results of long coronary stent implantations for long coronary lesions. METHOD: We analyzed the clinical,angiographic features and early results after stent implantations in 46 patients who were implanted long coronary stent(> or =20mm in length)among 174 stented patients at Chonnam University Hospital from Jan.through Nov.1996. RESULT: 1) Age was 59+/-7(35-78) years,and sex ratio was 2.5:1(33 male:13 female). clinical diagnosis was as follows; 24 patients with unstable angina, 21 with acute myocardial infarction, 1 with stable angina and 6 with old myocardial infarction. Left ventricular ejection fraction by left venriculogram was 58+/-10(27-87)%. 2) Involved numbers of vessel were single in 27 patients, two in 14 patients, and three in 5 patients. Target stented coronary arteries were 28 left anterior descending arteries, 17 rigtt coronory arteries, and 1 left circumflex artery. Morphologic types of target lesions were type C in 26 patients, type B2 in 20, and diameter stenosis(DS) was 76+/-13%, minimal luminal diameter(MLD) 1.0+/-0.3mm, length 21+/-6(10-38)mm. Indications for stent were 28 denovo lesions, 10 restenoses, 5 suboptimal PTCAs and 3 bailout procedures. Twenty six Microstents 2, 15 Wallstents, 4 Freedom stents, and 1 Wictor stent were used. Stent diameter was 3.2+/-0.3(2.5-5.0)mm and length 30+/-3(20-49)mm, stent diameter/reference diameter(RD) ratio 1.0+/-0.1, and stent minus lesion length 9.0+/-3.7mm. 3) Stents were deployed successfully in all 46 patients. No procedure-related death, myocardial infarction, emergency bypass surgery, and laboratory evidences of acute or subacute stent thrombosis were observed. 4) DS was decreased to 3.5+/-7.5%, MLD was increased to 3.2+/-0.3mm(p<0.0001, respectively). Acute gain was 2.2+/-0.4mm(71.8+/-15.6%,p<0.0001). CONCLUSION: We observed high success rate without major complications in long stent implantations for long coronary arterial lesions. Long-term follow-up should be required to prove long coronary stent as a better treatment modality to reduce acute complications and late restenosis.
Angina, Stable ; Angina, Unstable ; Arteries ; Coronary Vessels ; Diagnosis ; Emergencies ; Follow-Up Studies ; Freedom ; Humans ; Jeollanam-do ; Myocardial Infarction ; Phenobarbital ; Sex Ratio ; Stents* ; Stroke Volume ; Thrombosis

IL-17A is a pro-inflammatroy cytokine secreted by activated T cells. The IL-17 family consist of IL-17A, IL-17B, IL-17C, IL-17D, IL-17E and IL-17F. IL-17A and IL-17F are produced primarily in activated T cells. In contrast, IL-17B, IL-17C, IL-17D and IL-17E are expressed in a wide assortment of tissues. Their functions partially overlap those of IL-17A, although they have not been as thoroughly investigated. The receptor for IL-17A (IL-17R) is widely expressed in a variety of tissues. IL-17A and IL-17E mRNAs were expressed in only EL4 cells. IL-17C mRNA expression was observed in the thymic subcapsular/cortex epithelial cells (SNEC), cortex or cortical reticular cells (CREC), medullary epithelial cells (MEC), medullary interdigitating-like cells (MDC), thymocytes and EL4 cells. However, IL-17C mRNA was not expressed in RAW 264.7 cells. Immunohistochemical study also demonstrated not only the presence of IL-17A mainly in the thymic epithelial cells, but also the upregulated expression of IL-17A in the thymic epithelial cells of the regenerating thymus. Thus, the results of the present study suggest that IL-17A expressed in the thymocytes and thymic epithelial cells could play an important role in the development of new T cells to replace T cells damaged by cyclophosphamide treatment during thymus regeneration.
Animals ; Cyclophosphamide ; Epithelial Cells ; Humans ; Interleukin-17 ; Rats ; Regeneration ; RNA, Messenger ; T-Lymphocytes ; Thymocytes ; Thymus Gland

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of ischemic heart diseases (IHD) has increased remarkably during the past 10 years in Korea. Because only few reports on risk factors of IHD in Korean women exist, the aim of this study was to determine the clinical characteristics (including risk factors) of IHD in Korean women. METHODS: Fifty-six female patients and 122 (out of 655) of male patients with significant coronary artery stenosis were included in this study. There were 12 cases of angina pectoris and 35 cases of myocardial infarction in the 56 female patients. There were 54 cases of angina pectoris and 68 cases of myocardial infarction in the 122 male patients. Age and sexdistributions, risk factors of atherosclerosis, and coronary angiographic findings were compared between the female and male patients. RESULTS: The female patients were older than the male patients (63+/-8 years vs. 58+/-4 years, p<0.01). The proportion of patients older than 60 was higher in women than men (70% vs. 48%, p<0.01). The number of risk factors was 1.17 in women and 1.27 in men, and the proportion of patients with multiple risk factors (> or = 2) was greater in men than in women (43% vs. 25%, p<0.05). Hypertension was more prevalent (66% vs. 11%, p<0.001) and smoking was less (65% vs. 11%, p<0.001) in women than men. After age adjustment, hypertension was more frequent in women, and smoking was more in men (p=0.001). On coronary angiograms there were no difference in the morphology of coronary artery stenosis, the distribution of culprit vessels, and the number of vessels involved between women and men, In terms of therapeutic modalities, there were no differences between women and men in our study. CONCLUSIONS: In Koean women with IHD, hypertension is more common and smoking is less common. However, coronary artery lesion morphology and distribution are comparable between women and men.
Angina Pectoris ; Atherosclerosis ; Coronary Stenosis ; Coronary Vessels ; Female ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Korea* ; Male ; Myocardial Infarction ; Myocardial Ischemia* ; Prevalence ; Risk Factors ; Smoke ; Smoking

PURPOSE: Shortage of donor organs is one of the major barriers to transplantation worldwide, especially, in countries where cadaveric organ donation is still limited. To overcome the donor kidney shortage, living unrelated donor renal transplantation should be one of the options to solve this problem. However, the data on the long-term results after unrelated donor renal transplantation and potential risk factors affecting the graft survival are scarce worldwide. We designed this retrospective study to report the long-term results of 967 renal transplants from unrelated donors in a single center. METHODS: From 1979 to June 2002, 2115 kidney transplantations were performed at Yonsei University Medical Center. Among them, a total of 1945 living donor transplants, excluding 55 cadaveric transplants and early 115 transplant who received azathioprine plus prednisone, were identified as a study cohort. The minimum and mean follow- up periods were 12 and 87.8 months, respectively. Of these, 978 transplants received living related donors (LRDs), and 967 patients underwent kidney transplantation using living unrelated donors (LURDs). For the analysis of risk factors affecting the graft survival, a couple of each demographic, immunologic, and clinical variates were included. RESULTS: The actuarial graft survival in the LRD and LURD recipients were 88.26% vs. 83.4% at 5 years, and 72.31% vs. 66.9% at 10 years, respectively. The 10-year patient survival rate for LRD and LURD transplants were 82.6% and 84%, respectively with no significant difference. On the multivariate analysis of LURD recipients, history of acute rejection, recipient age over 55 years, preoperative history of diabetes and hepatitis B viral infection were identified as a significant risk factor affecting the graft survival in LURD renal recipients. CONCLUSION: Excellent long-term patient and graft survivals were achieved among LURD kidney transplant recipients. Long-term outcome of transplants were not differed by the kinds of kidney donors. Renal transplantations using LURDs should be considered as an alternative way to increase the number of available donors.
Academic Medical Centers ; Azathioprine ; Cadaver ; Cohort Studies ; Graft Survival* ; Hepatitis B ; Humans ; Kidney Transplantation* ; Kidney* ; Living Donors ; Multivariate Analysis ; Prednisone ; Retrospective Studies ; Risk Factors* ; Survival Rate ; Tissue and Organ Procurement ; Tissue Donors ; Transplantation ; Transplants* ; Unrelated Donors*

PURPOSE: This study evaluated the prognostic impact of the lymph node ratio (LNR; i.e., the ratio of positive to dissected lymph nodes) on recurrence and survival in breast cancer patients with positive axillary lymph nodes (LNs). METHODS: The study cohort was comprised of 330 breast cancer patients with positive axillary nodes who received postoperative radiotherapy between 1987 and 2004. Ten-year Kaplan-Meier locoregional failure, distant metastasis, disease-free survival (DFS) and disease-specific survival (DSS) rates were compared using Kaplan-Meier curves. The prognostic significance of the LNR was evaluated by multivariate analysis. RESULTS: Median follow-up was 7.5 years. By minimum p-value approach, 0.25 and 0.55 were the cutoff values of LNR at which most significant difference in DFS and DSS was observed. The DFS and DSS rates correlated significantly with tumor size, pN classification, LNR, histologic grade, lymphovascular invasion, the status of estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor. The LNR based classification yielded a statistically larger separation of the DFS curves than pN classification. In multivariate analysis, histologic grade and pN classification were significant prognostic factors for DFS and DSS. However, when the LNR was included as a covariate in the model, the LNR was highly significant (p<0.0001), and pN classification was not statistically significant (p>0.05). CONCLUSION: The LNR predicts recurrence and survival more accurately than pN classification in our study. The pN classification and LNR should be considered together in risk estimates for axillary LNs positive breast cancer patients.
Breast ; Breast Neoplasms ; Cohort Studies ; Disease-Free Survival ; Estrogens ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Lymph Nodes ; Multivariate Analysis ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Prognosis ; Receptors, Progesterone ; Recurrence

No abstract available.
Wound Healing* ; Wounds and Injuries*

No abstract available.
Dental Enamel* ; Wound Healing* ; Wounds and Injuries*