No abstract available.
Animals ; Rats*

To determine the level of exercise for dynamic exercise echocardiography and to evaluate the changes of cardiac work loads in normal subjects, the authors performed M-mode echocardiography at rest and during 20degrees supine bicycle exercise in 10 normal subjects with good image of left ventricle. A special, self-made 20degrees supine exercise table was used on which the subject's chest could be immobilized to record echocardiograms during exercise. The recordings were always performed just below the tip of the anterior mitral leaflet. Interpretable left ventricular M-mode echocardiograms were obtained at a submaximal exercise level with mean heart rate of 132+/-21 beat/min. Left ventricular end-diastolic dimension, an index of preload, showed no significant change during exersise. But left ventricular end-systolic dimension decreased significantly(p<0.01) and % fractional shortening increased significantly(p<0.01). Peak-systolic left ventricular wall stress increased signficantly(p<0.01) during exercise but end-systolic wall stress did not. Both end-systolic wall stress/end systolic dimension ratio and systolic blood pressure/end-systolic dimension ratio increased during exercise(p<0.01). The results suggest that dynamic exercise echocardiography is a suitable method measuring various parameters of cardiac mechanics during submaximal exercise, whereas it's not available during maximal exercise.
Echocardiography* ; Heart Rate ; Heart Ventricles ; Mechanics ; Thorax ; Ventricular Function, Left*

No abstract available.
Female ; Mammaplasty*

No abstract available.

The ultimate goal in nerve repair is to restore sensory and motor function of the injured part. The success or failure of this goal depends upon several variables, with the mechanism of injury being one of the more crucial determining factors. At the time of nerve repair, the damaged neural tissue is resected back to what appears to be an uninjured level. However, it is often difficult to determine this level. This study was designed to compare the degree of intraneural scarring over 3-week period in experimental different injuries. In this study, nerve cut, crush, saw, and avulsion injuries were produced in male Sprague-Dawley rats. The extent of nerve damage was assessed based on histology and intraoperative observations on days 1, 8, and 21 after the post-injury. The result of this study demonstrated that the degree of injury can vary from cutting, sawing, crushing to avulsion as well as vary on period; the first 3 weeks after injury. Therefore, a dynamic pathophysiology is induced by a nerve injury. The most severe injury was caused by nerve avulsion, sawing, crushing and cutting mechanisms of injury in order. The intraoperative observation on the first day does not good predictor of the degree of injury. Especially in case of saw injury, the scope of injury was enlarged in course of time, therefore secondary repair on the nerve would be appropriate, when the progress of fibrosis was completed. The extent of injury in the avulsion group will compromise the final result if a primary neurorrhaphy is peformed. Secondary nerve grafting may be the only way to improve sensory function in these injuries. In contrast, the zone of injury in a cut nerve has a tendency to improve over the first 2 to 3 weeks. This would suggest that when an injured nerve is trimmed back to what appears to be a noninjured zone, or normal nerve, no significant additional injury is being induced.
Cicatrix ; Fibrosis ; Humans ; Male ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Sensation ; Transplants

The ultimate goal in nerve repair is to restore sensory and motor function of the injured part. The success or failure of this goal depends upon several variables, with the mechanism of injury being one of the more crucial determining factors. At the time of nerve repair, the damaged neural tissue is resected back to what appears to be an uninjured level. However, it is often difficult to determine this level. This study was designed to compare the degree of intraneural scarring over 3-week period in experimental different injuries. In this study, nerve cut, crush, saw, and avulsion injuries were produced in male Sprague-Dawley rats. The extent of nerve damage was assessed based on histology and intraoperative observations on days 1, 8, and 21 after the post-injury. The result of this study demonstrated that the degree of injury can vary from cutting, sawing, crushing to avulsion as well as vary on period; the first 3 weeks after injury. Therefore, a dynamic pathophysiology is induced by a nerve injury. The most severe injury was caused by nerve avulsion, sawing, crushing and cutting mechanisms of injury in order. The intraoperative observation on the first day does not good predictor of the degree of injury. Especially in case of saw injury, the scope of injury was enlarged in course of time, therefore secondary repair on the nerve would be appropriate, when the progress of fibrosis was completed. The extent of injury in the avulsion group will compromise the final result if a primary neurorrhaphy is peformed. Secondary nerve grafting may be the only way to improve sensory function in these injuries. In contrast, the zone of injury in a cut nerve has a tendency to improve over the first 2 to 3 weeks. This would suggest that when an injured nerve is trimmed back to what appears to be a noninjured zone, or normal nerve, no significant additional injury is being induced.
Cicatrix ; Fibrosis ; Humans ; Male ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Sensation ; Transplants

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Peritoneoscopy allows the clinician to assess the activity of the surface of the liver and helps him to make a prognosis in cases of liver disease by judging the structural changes of the surface. In chromoperitoneoscopy using an intravenous injection of indocyanine green (ICG), hepatic parenchyme is stained after intravenous injection of ICG while interstitial connective tissue, fatty deposition and hepatoma are not. So diagnostic accuracy is, therefore believed to be elevated in chromoperitoneoscopy than conventional peritoneoscopy or blind liver biopsy. This study was performed to assess the clinical usefulness of chromoperitoneoscopy in various chronic liver diseases. METHODS: Intravenous ICG was administered at 2 mg/Kg mixed with 20 cc of saline in 30 cases with several kinds of hepatic disorders during conventional peritoneoscopic examinatians. Liver surface was examined 5 minutes after ICG injection.
Biopsy ; Carcinoma, Hepatocellular ; Connective Tissue ; Indocyanine Green* ; Injections, Intravenous* ; Laparoscopy ; Liver Diseases* ; Liver* ; Prognosis

Background: A rise and/or fall in cardiac troponin value with at least one value above the 99th percentile upper reference limit is essential for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) diagnosis. We evaluated the clinical usefulness of serial high-sensitivity cardiac troponin I (hs-cTnI) measurements in AMI diagnosis, in terms of the predictability of absolute and relative changes. Methods: For this retrospective, forward observational study, we enrolled 281 patients older than 18 years who presented with chest pain at the emergency department (ED) between August 2015 and December 2016. The patients were grouped as AMI and nonAMI, and 73 (26%) were diagnosed as having AMI. Hs-cTnI (Abbott Diagnostics, Abbott Park, IL, USA) was measured at presentation and 3 hours later. We assessed the diagnostic performance of the absolute and relative changes in hs-cTnI. Results: The cut-off values to predict AMI were 16.2 ng/L and 42.1% for the absolute and relative hs-cTnI changes, respectively. The area under the curve of hs-cTnI for AMI diagnosis was larger for absolute changes than for relative changes [0.96 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.92–0.98) vs 0.89 (95% CI, 0.85–0.93)] (P = 0.014). Conclusions The absolute hs-cTnI change at 3 hours after presentation was superior to the relative change, and a rise and/or fall in hs-cTnI of > 16.2 ng/L at 3 hours after presentation was useful to identify AMI in patients presenting at the ED.

Purpose: We compared the changes in the perioperative peripheral lymphocyte subsets and the acute inflammatory reactants (CRP and SAA) to compare the immune responses between a Laparoscopy-assisted distal gastrectomy (LADG) and a conventional open distal gastrectomy (CODG). METHODS: 23 patients, who underwent an operation for early gastric cancer, between Nov. 2003 and Feb. 2004, were enrolled in this study. The total WBC, lymphocytes, peripheral lymphocyte subsets and acute inflammatory reactants (CRP and SAA) were evaluated on the preoperative day, and 2, and 24 hrs and on the 4th postoperative day in 20 of the 23 cases. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in the preoperative total WBC, lymphocyte, peripheral lymphocyte subsets, CRP and SAA between the two groups (P <0.05). The WBC levels were highest 2 hours after surgery, but had decreased at 24 hrs and on the 4th postoperative day in both groups. The numbers of lymphocyte subsets in both groups dropped at 2 hours, but increased gradually during the postoperative days (P >0.05). The postoperative CRP and SAA levels; however, gradually increased compared to the preoperative levels, and were significantly lower in the LADG than the CODG group (CRP: P=0.03 and SAA: P=0.01). Conclusion: No difference was detected in the immune-cell numbers in the gastric cancers between the LADG and CODG groups. The LADG was found to influence the acute inflammatory reaction less than the CODG.
Gastrectomy* ; Humans ; Lymphocyte Subsets ; Lymphocytes ; Stomach Neoplasms*

No abstract available.
Administration, Intravesical* ; Photochemotherapy* ; Urinary Bladder Neoplasms* ; Urinary Bladder*