The development of tophi in th absence of prior episodes of gauty arthritis is unusual. We report a case of extensive tophi in a 31 year-old man, whose initial skin lesion had started without arthritis.
Adult ; Arthritis ; Gout* ; Humans ; Skin

No abstract available.
Child* ; Humans ; Seizures, Febrile* ; Spinal Puncture*

A 32-year-old housewife who resides in Taegu was admitted in Yeungman University Hospital due to right upper quadrant abdminal pain of 2 mounths'duration. An abdomical CT and ultrasonography revealed a relatively well demarcated low density mass in the right lobe of liver. Right hepatic lobectomy was performed on the clinical impression of hepatoma. On the light microscopic study, the lobulated liver mass showed extensive central necrosis and fibrosis, with large numbers of pseudotubercles therein. The pseudotubercles have distorted helminthic eggs frequently. The submitted common bile duct lymph node also showed a few pseudotubercles. The eggs recovered from the tissue homogenate measured 140~152 micrometer by 75~85 micrometer in size and were unembryonated and light yellow to brown. The eggs were determined as those of Fasciola species. We reported the present case as 11th one of human fascioliasis in korea.
Humans

Primary tumors of the heart are rare, three quarter of the tumors are benign, and nearly half of the benign heart tumors are myxomas. Cardiac myxoma usually originate in the left atrium about 75 percent, however, only 3 to 4 percent of myxoma are detected in the left ventricle. We report on a 32 years old woman with left ventricular myxoma who presented with shortness of breath, chest tightness, and general weakness. Acute pulmonary embolism and left ventricular myxoma were found on a perfusion lung scan and echocadiogram. A mass located on septal wall of left ventricle was excised en bloc. The patient recovered uneventfully and careful follow up has be performed periodically.
Adult ; Dyspnea ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Heart ; Heart Atria ; Heart Neoplasms ; Heart Ventricles ; Humans ; Lung ; Myxoma* ; Perfusion ; Pulmonary Embolism* ; Thorax

No abstract available.
Brain* ; Child* ; Humans

This study was performed to observe the changes of blood sugar levels in 200 cases with acute Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. Successive tests of blood sugar on the day of onset and the lst, 2nd, 3rd & 4th day after anoxic insult were done in 12 patients with acute CO poisoning. In addition, to determine the derangement of thyroid function, blood levels of triiodothyronine(T3), tetraiodothyronine(T4), thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) were measured on the day of admission in 29 with C0 poisoning. The blood levels of T3, T4 and TSH were within normal ranges, but over two-thirds were distributed in lower range of normal mean values. This lower tendency within normal range was especially prominent in the blood level of T3. The blood level of sugar was increased, and 79.5% was higher than the upper limit of normal range. The blood levels of T3 and T4 were significantly decreased as CO exposure time period- prolonged. There was significant negative correlation between blood T3 levels and consciousness levels. Blood TSH levels were not significantly affected in acute CO poisoning. As consciousness levels were depressed and exposure time period were prolonged, blood sugar was increased. There found a rapid increase in blood sugar, followed by a abrupt dropping, and then progressive decrease to normal level over a period of 5 days after exposure to CO. In conclusion, acute CO poisoning obviously changes the thyroidal physiology. Even though blood TSH levels were variable, there was an obvious decrease in T3. The assumed CO-induced decrease in thyroid hormone secretion is seemingly not mediated by depressed TSH secretion but thyroid hormone metabolic dysfunction or extrathyroidal cotiverslon defect The alterations of blood sugar were also found to be acute and temporal which may be the result of physiologic compensation to hypoxic state caused by CO poisoning.
Blood Glucose ; Carbon Monoxide Poisoning* ; Carbon Monoxide* ; Carbon* ; Compensation and Redress ; Consciousness ; Humans ; Physiology ; Poisoning ; Reference Values ; Thyroid Gland* ; Thyroid Hormones* ; Thyrotropin

No abstract available.
Chondromatosis, Synovial* ; Knee Joint* ; Knee* ; Osteoarthritis*

Open long bone fracture is frequently difficult to reduce and maintain, especilly when there is extensive soft tissue damage. Infection, instability, malalignment and soft tissue complication often result in prolonged mobidity or failure. The Hoffmann's apparatus have merits, that can easily correct distracted, angular or rotational deformity of fracture site during early post-operative period, and stable fixation facilitates easily to the care of soft tissue injury. In addition, the affected limb can be elevated with balanced suspension, possible early exercise of neighboring joints. But we have exerienced some problems during treatment of fracture with Hoffmann's transfixation method. From February 1980 to December 1981, Hoffmann's transfixation method was employed in treatment of twenty-one patients that considered to have a poor prognosis with conversional forms of treatment. The results were obtained as follows; 1. For correction of distracted, angular, or rotational deformity, the fracture site should be reduced accurately. 2. Hoffmann pins should be transfixed as one plane and parrallel to each other. 3. Rigidity of fixation can be increased by increasing number of pins, actually three or more pins should be applied at each fragment of fracture. 4. Hoffmann's apparatus is more complex for management, more expensive and requires skillful technique compared with other external fixation apparatus. 5. The lateral view of fracture site could not be confirmed accurately due to overlapping of Hoffmann's adjustable connecting rod and bony shadow. 6. The main cause of injuries was due to traffic accidents in 17 cases (81%), involving tibia in 18 cases, femur in 2 cases and humerus in 1 case. 7. In the sixteen cases which could be assessed, the average times for external transfixation was 13.9 weeks and then followed by early weight bearing with P.T.B. cast or brace. The average time of bony union was 26.4 weeks. 8. The final result was excellent in 7 cases, good in 5 cases, acceptable in 3 cases, poor in 1 case.
Accidents, Traffic ; Braces ; Congenital Abnormalities ; Extremities ; Femur ; Fractures, Bone ; Fractures, Open ; Humans ; Humerus ; Joints ; Methods ; Prognosis ; Soft Tissue Injuries ; Tibia ; Weight-Bearing

A retrospective study has been made of 784 cases of road traffic casualties who were treated at the Soon-Chun-Hyang Hospital between July 1980 and December 1981. This study was conducted to find out the nature and pattern of the traffic accident from the clinical and epidemiological standpoints. In additions, the mode of injury from the road accidents were persued which might help to reduce the misdiagnosis rate. The results obtained were as follows: l. In this survey, male dominated in numbers (casualty rate, 70%). The highest incidence was in the age group between 31–40 year (26.5%). The predominance was found in younger casualties (ages between 21–50 years, 72.1% of all casualties). 2. The large number of casualties followed the rush hours. There was a peak between 10PM to midnight. The explanation for this high incidence during the hours was the hurry-up life due to midnight crufew, pedestrian's carelessness and hurry-scurry, and the negligence of traffic rules, the poor labor conditions and weariness due to drivers long continuous working hours, especially in taxi drivers. The highest seasonal incidence was in October. 3. The high incidences were in drivers and students; the drivers were the commonest victims in car passenger accidents and students were injured by pedestrians accidents respectively. The causes of high risk of injury in drivers were intimately related with their vocational aptitudes, the employment status, the driving attitudes and car maintainances; and in students, their carelessness and emotional instability, unsolved mass transportation system and their negligence of traffic rules were listed as the causative factors. 4. Over 51.8% of all casualties were injured by passenger car accidents, and 21.5% were by truck and other types of special vehicles. 5. Approximately 60% of victims were injuried in the road as pedestrian and other 40% were in the car as passengers. In general, the pedestrian injuries were more serious than those sustained in the car as passengers. 6. About 40% of total pedestrian casualties sustained injury at pedestrian's cross road. 7. About 80%of injured drivers were in the drunken state on arrival, and 20.4% of pedestrians were also heavily drunken. 8. The trauma risk was about twice higher in the front-seated passengers than the rear-seated ones in the car. In buses, the highest incidence was in the passengers seated in the front 1/3 of the seats. 9. Orthopaedic (40.5%) and head injuries (38.2%) were the commonest types of the injuries among the hospitalized casualties; about 35% of total patients had the tibial fractures. 10. Of the 784 cases, 479(61.6%) victims arrived hospital within 30 minutes after accident, and among them only 94 cases (12%) were transported by ambulance from the accident site to the hospital.
Accidents, Traffic ; Ambulances ; Aptitude ; Craniocerebral Trauma ; Diagnostic Errors ; Employment ; Humans ; Incidence ; Male ; Malpractice ; Motor Vehicles ; Occupations ; Pedestrians ; Retrospective Studies ; Seasons ; Tibial Fractures ; Transportation

Fas-mediated apoptosis is one of the major mechanisms of programmed cell death. Fas is a transmembrane protein of the nerve growth factor/tumor necrosis factor(TNF-alpha) receptor family which signals apoptotic cell death in susceptible target cells when it reacts with Fas ligand(FasL) or anti-Fas antibody. FasL, which belongs to TNF family, is mainly expressed on the surface of activated T lymphocytes and induces apoptosis of Fas-bearing cell. Astrocytoma is the most common brain tumor, which is usually fatal in its malignant form. Astrocytoma appears to progress without any significant impedance from the immune system, even if intratumoral T cell infiltrations are usually found. In the brain, it has been suggested that astrocytoma cells may potentially deliver a death signal to Fas-bearing cells which include infiltrating leukocytes as well as, paradoxically, astrocytoma cells themselves. In this study, we show that all of the astrocytoma cell lines express both Fas and FasL, which is confirmed by reverse transcription-PCR. Pre-exposure to IFN-gamma, IL-1 and TNF-alpha were found to augment the expression of Fas and FasL. These findings suggest that FasL-induced apoptosis by astrocytoma cells may play a significant role in both the immunosuppression and the regulation of tumor growth within the central nervous system. And also cytokines might play a role in the induction of Fas and FasL in astrocytoma cells.
Apoptosis ; Astrocytoma* ; Brain ; Brain Neoplasms ; Cell Death ; Cell Line* ; Central Nervous System ; Cytokines* ; Electric Impedance ; Humans* ; Immune System ; Immunosuppression ; Interleukin-1 ; Leukocytes ; Necrosis ; RNA, Messenger* ; T-Lymphocytes ; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha