No abstract available.
Gait* ; Humans ; Spinal Cord Diseases*

Torsades de pointes, a polymorphic ventricular tachycardia associated with prolonged QT interval, is a well-known life-threatening arrhythmia, which has been found to be induced by various causes such as drugs, electrolyte imbalances, and severe bradycardia. Cisapride is a gastrointestinal prokinetic drug, which is widely used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease or other functional gastrointestinal disorders. Cisapride can cause torsades de pointes and cases of torsedes de pointes induced by cisapride have been reported in other countries. Cases of torsades de pointes associated with antihistamine drugs have been reported in Korea, however, cisapride-induced torsades de pointes case has not been reported. We report a case of 31 year-old female patient who experienced repeated loss of consciousness due to cisapride-induced torsades de pointes.
Adult ; Arrhythmias, Cardiac ; Bradycardia ; Cisapride* ; Female ; Gastroesophageal Reflux ; Gastrointestinal Diseases ; Humans ; Korea ; Tachycardia, Ventricular ; Torsades de Pointes* ; Unconsciousness

Purpose: Myofascial syndrome is a chronic muscle pain caused by repetitive motions with stress-related muscle tension. This study aimed to investigate the validity and reliability of the evidence for diagnosing myofascial pain syndrome in trapezius muscle using a pressure algometer and surface electromyography. Methods: The experiments were performed using a total of 10 subjects, and the target locations were determined by means of a pressure algometer in the right upper trapezius muscle. The part with the lowest pain value as the trigger point and the part with the highest pain value as the non-pain trigger point were selected for measuring the locations. The median frequency and average frequency were measured in those locations with electromyography. To check the muscle fatigue, the upper trapezius muscle was moved up and down for 2 seconds at 5-second intervals in 30 seconds. The measured values were evaluated using the independent paired t-test and MannWhitney U-test. Results: The median frequency at the non-trigger point (13.7) was significantly higher than that at the trigger point (7.3). Furthermore, the mean frequency (14.7) at the non-trigger point was significantly higher than that at the trigger point (6.3). Conclusion The results showed the correlations between the trigger points of the muscle pain and frequency analysis of surface electromyography. Thus, this study may be possible to use as a diagnostic tool for myofascial pain syndrome.

We report a 46-year-old woman with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) presenting with Sjogren's syndrome and systemic mononuclear inflammatory vasculopathy. Biopsy specimens of sural nerve showed findings consistent with vasculitic neuropathy. Perivascular inflammatory mononuclear cell infiltration was observed on muscle biopsy specimen. The findings of abdominal computed tomography and brain magnetic resonance imaging were suggestive of vasculitis. Clinical manifestations and radiologic findings were improved after high dose prednisolone therapy.
Biopsy, Needle ; Case Report ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Human ; Liver Cirrhosis, Biliary/diagnosis+ACo- ; Liver Cirrhosis, Biliary/complications+ACo- ; Middle Age ; Prednisone/administration +ACY- dosage ; Sjogren's Syndrome/pathology ; Sjogren's Syndrome/diagnosis+ACo- ; Sjogren's Syndrome/complications ; Sural Nerve/pathology ; Treatment Outcome ; Vasculitis/pathology ; Vasculitis/drug therapy ; Vasculitis/diagnosis+ACo- ; Vasculitis/complications

BACKGROUND: Recently, joint replacement arthroplasty has been increasing. We report retrospective study on preoperative assessments, anesthetic managements, and postoperative complications of patients with total knee replacement arthroplasty (TKR) or total hip replacement arthroplasty (THR). METHODS: Four hundred ninety-seven cases of TKR or THR operations were investigated. Age, body mass index, operation time, total input, total output, blood loss, transfusion, and complications with corresponding treatments were obtained from chart review and anesthesia records, and statistically analyzed. RESULTS: In 497 patients, most patients (91.5%) suffered arthroplasty under regional anesthesia. 78.0% of patients had one or more coexisting diseases, where hypertension was the most common. Blood loss and transfusion were more in THR than TKR during the operations (P < 0.05). But, TKR developed more blood loss after operation than THR because of the tourniquet usage, and especially in both TKR, blood loss reached approximately up to 47.8% of the estimated blood volume on the operation day. Postoperative complications were observed mostly on the operative and postoperative first days. Common complications were itching, nausea and vomiting, and hypotension which had no significant differences between anesthetic types. CONCLUSIONS: We concluded that anesthetic types for arthroplasty did not give statistically significant difference in postoperative complications. The blood loss was extremely high that it compromised the elderly patient with coexisting diseases. More surgical complications were observed in both TKR cases than in unilateral TKR cases. There must be precise preoperative assessment of health status and intensive postoperative management in the operative day.
Aged ; Anesthesia ; Anesthesia, Conduction ; Arthroplasty ; Arthroplasty, Replacement ; Arthroplasty, Replacement, Hip* ; Arthroplasty, Replacement, Knee ; Blood Volume ; Body Mass Index ; Hip* ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Hypotension ; Joints ; Knee* ; Nausea ; Postoperative Complications ; Pruritus ; Retrospective Studies* ; Tourniquets ; Vomiting

PURPOSE: The objective of the present study was to determine whether fermentation can increase the protective effects of blueberry liquid in a high-fat diet-induced obese mice model. METHODS: Male C57BL/6J mice were fed a high-fat diet (HD, 60% fat, w/w,), HD supplemented with 10 ml/kg BW/day of blueberry liquid (BHD, blueberry high-fat diet), or HD supplemented with 10 ml/kg BW/day of fermented blueberry liquid (FBHD, fermented blueberry high-fat diet) for 10 weeks. RESULTS: There were significant decreases in the body, epididymal adipose tissue, and liver weights of blueberry-fed groups compared to HD, whereas there were no significant differences in food intake among the groups. Furthermore, blueberry liquid groups, especially fermented blueberry liquid, significantly attenuated the contents of hepatic triglycerides and total cholesterol induced by HD. Serum LDL-cholesterol was significantly lower in the BHD and FBHD-fed groups, whereas FBHD significantly increased the serum HDL-cholesterol level compared to the control. Concentrations of aspartate transaminase, alanine transaminase, and leptins in serum were also reduced by blueberry liquid supplementation. The mRNA expression of hepatic acetyl CoA carboxylase was significantly reduced in both the BHD and FBHD groups compared to HD. Furthermore, FBHD altered the mRNA expression level of hepatic lipolysis genes. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, these results suggest that blueberry, especially fermented blueberry liquid, may improve obesity-related abnormalities.
Acetyl-CoA Carboxylase ; Adipose Tissue ; Alanine Transaminase ; Animals ; Aspartate Aminotransferases ; Blueberry Plant* ; Cholesterol ; Diet, High-Fat ; Eating ; Fermentation ; Humans ; Leptin ; Lipolysis ; Liver ; Male ; Mice* ; Mice, Obese ; RNA, Messenger ; Triglycerides ; Weights and Measures

Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) is a causative agent for shingles and herpes zoster. The genomes of VZV contain five reiteration (R) sequences and an origin of replication (ORI) sequences composed of tandem repeats whose numbers vary among different strains. Variation of the genome lengths among VZV strains could be attributed by the lengths of R sequences. There was a strong correlation between the lengths of VZV genome and R sequences, while variation of ORI did not contribute the variation of VZV genome length. The high G+C contents of The R sequences in ORF11, 14 and 22 influenced the codon usage of VZV in these ORFs. None of the most frequent 5 codons in R sequences was included in the top 5 most frequent codon in ORF11-14-22 or VZV genome, and vice versa.
Animals ; Base Composition ; Codon ; Ecthyma, Contagious ; Genome ; Herpes Zoster ; Herpesvirus 3, Human* ; Open Reading Frames ; Replication Origin ; Tandem Repeat Sequences

BACKGROUND: We studied hemodynamic changes using a noninvasive partial CO2 rebreathing cardiac output method (NICO) and esophageal Doppler monitor (EDM), and metabolic changes in elderly patients undergoing bilateral total knee replacement arthroplasty (BTKA). METHODS: Twenty patients undergoing BTKA were studied. Hemodynamic and metabolic parameters were measured before tourniquet inflation (TI), 0, 3, 6, 9, 15, 30, 45 min after TI, and 0, 3, 6, 9, 15, 30 min after tourniquet deflation (TD) and skin suture. Stroke volume (SV), cardiac output (CO) and systemic vascular resistance (SVR) were measured using NICO and EDM. RESULTS: Mean blood pressure (MBP), central venous pressure (CVP), and SVR had significant increases in TI, and decreases in TD compared with value measured before TI (baseline value). Especially, MBP had higher decrease in the second tourniquet compared with first tourniquet, SV and CO were decreased in TI, and increased in TD compared with baseline value, HR had significant increases in the TD of second tourniquet. pH and lactate were shown significantly lower values at the second tourniquet compared with the first tourniquet (P < 0.05). The bias and precision derived from CO between EDM and NICO was 0.27 +/- 0.41 L/min, and CO by NICO was smaller than that by EDM. The correlation coefficient between NICO and EDM was calculated to be 0.43. CONCLUSIONS: MBP, SV, CO, pH and lactate were shown to be higher in the second tourniquet in BTKA. NICO showed lower CO compared with EDM after TD in patients undergoing BTKA, but statistically insignificant at most measurement.
Aged ; Arthroplasty* ; Arthroplasty, Replacement, Knee* ; Bias (Epidemiology) ; Blood Pressure ; Cardiac Output ; Central Venous Pressure ; Hemodynamics* ; Humans ; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration ; Inflation, Economic ; Lactic Acid ; Skin ; Stroke Volume ; Sutures ; Tourniquets ; Vascular Resistance

The Use of Color Doppler Sonography Avoids Misinterpretation of the Intrahepatic Portal Vein in the Gray-Scale Sonographic Diagnosis of Cysts. When gray-scale US shows an intrahepatic cystic lesion with weak or no posterior acoustic enhancement in close proximity to the portal vein, especially at the bifurcation area, a detailed color Doppler US should be subsequently performed to evaluate its vascular nature.
Acoustics ; Diagnosis* ; Portal Vein* ; Ultrasonography*

Background: and Purpose: Verbal and nonverbal fluency tests are the conventional methods for examining executive function in the elderly population. However, differences in impairments result in fluency tests in patients with mild cognitive impairments (MCIs) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and in neural correlates underlying the tests still necessitate concrete evidence. Methods: We compared the test performances in 27 normal controls, 28 patients with MCI, and 20 with AD, and investigated morphological changes in association with the test performances using structural magnetic imaging. Results: Patients with AD performed poorly across all the fluency tests, and a receiver operating characteristics curve analysis revealed that only category fluency test discriminated all the 3 groups. Association, category, and design fluency tests involved temporal and frontal regions, while letter fluency involved the cerebellum and caudate. Conclusions Category fluency is a reliable measure for screening patients with AD and MCI, and this efficacy might be related to morphological correlates that underlie semantic and executive processing.