ERCP is the standard treatment for common bile duct stones (CBD stones). On the other hand, in approximately 10% of patients with CBD stones, the complete removal of the stones cannot be achieved by conventional ERCP, which performs endoscopic sphincterotomy followed by stone extraction. Additional advanced and complex procedures are often necessary to remove these “difficult bile duct stones”, including endoscopic papillary large balloon dilatation or mechanical lithotripsy. Advances in cholangioscopy have made electrohydraulic or laser lithotripsy under direct endoscopic visualization possible during ERCP. Cholangioscopy-guided lithotripsy using the SpyGlass DS system could be a better treatment tool for removing difficult stones. The focus of this review was to describe single-operator cholangioscopy in the management of difficult CBD stones.

PURPOSE: We aim to assess the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, third edition (Bayley-III), Adaptive Behavior (AB) and Social-Emotional (SE) scales at 18 to 24 months of corrected age (CA) to examine their associations with school-age cognitive and behavioral outcomes in children born preterm. METHODS: Eighty-eight infants born with a very low birth weight ( < 1,500 g) or a gestational age of less than 32 weeks who were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit from 2008 to 2009 were included. Of the 88 children who completed school-age tests at 6 to 8 years of age, 37 were assessed using the Bayley-III, including the AB and SE scales, at 18 to 24 months of CA. Correlation, cross-tabulation, and receiver operating characteristic analyses were performed to assess the longitudinal associations. RESULTS: A significant association was observed between communication scores on the Bayley-III AB scale at 18 to 24 months of CA and the Korean version of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (K-WISC) full-scale intelligence quotient (FSIQ) at school age (r=0.531). The total behavior problem scores of the Korean version of the Child Behavior Checklist (K-CBCL) at school age were significantly negatively related to the Bayley-III SE and AB scales but not to the cognitive, language, or motor scales. CONCLUSION: Our findings encourage AB and SE assessments during the toddler stage and have important implications for the early identification of children in need of intervention and the establishment of guidelines for follow-up with high-risk infants.
Adaptation, Psychological* ; Checklist ; Child Behavior ; Child* ; Follow-Up Studies ; Gestational Age ; Humans ; Infant ; Infant, Newborn ; Infant, Very Low Birth Weight ; Intelligence ; Intensive Care, Neonatal ; ROC Curve ; Weights and Measures*

To substantiate psychological symptoms following humidifier disinfectant (HD) disasters, counseling records of 26 victims and 92 family members of victims (45 were bereaved) were analyzed retrospectively. Among the victims, 34.6% had Clinical Global Impression-Severity scores of over 4, which meant they were moderately ill. While anxiety/fear and depression with respiratory symptoms were frequently observed in victims and family members, chronic psychological distress such as alcohol/smoking abuse and insomnia was relatively high in bereaved family members. In conclusion, it is important to provide mental health support for victims and their families, focusing on the characteristic symptoms of each group as well as monetary compensation.
Compensation and Redress ; Counseling ; Depression ; Disaster Victims* ; Disasters* ; Humans ; Humidifiers* ; Mental Health ; Retrospective Studies ; Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders

We recently reported that adeno-associated virus serotype 1 (AAV1) transduction of murine nigral dopaminergic (DA) neurons with constitutively active ras homolog enriched in brain with a mutation of serine to histidine at position 16 [Rheb(S16H)] induced the production of neurotrophic factors, resulting in neuroprotective effects on the nigrostriatal DA system in animal models of Parkinson’s disease (PD). To further investigate whether AAV1-Rheb(S16H) transduction has neuroprotective potential against neurotoxic inflammation, which is known to be a potential event related to PD pathogenesis, we examined the effects of Rheb(S16H) expression in nigral DA neurons under a neurotoxic inflammatory environment induced by the endogenous microglial activator prothrombin kringle-2 (pKr-2). Our observations showed that Rheb(S16H) transduction played a role in the neuroprotection of the nigrostriatal DA system against pKr-2-induced neurotoxic inflammation, even though there were similar levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin-1-beta (IL-1β), in the AAV1-Rheb(S16H)-treated substantia nigra (SN) compared to the SN treated with pKr-2 alone; the neuroprotective effects may be mediated by the activation of neurotrophic signaling pathways following Rheb(S16H) transduction of nigral DA neurons. We conclude that AAV1-Rheb(S16H) transduction of neuronal populations to activate the production of neurotrophic factors and intracellular neurotrophic signaling pathways may offer promise for protecting adult neurons from extracellular neurotoxic inflammation.