PURPOSE: DNA flow cytometry is a simple and easy method to assess the DNA content and the cell-cycle distribution of a tumor cell. The prognostic significance of the DNA content and the S-phase fraction in a gastric carcinoma has been controversial. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prognostic significance of the nuclear DNA content and the S-phase fraction in patients with a gastric carcinoma. METHODS: Between May 1995 and March 1996, 94 patients who were underwent a gastric resection for a gastric carcinoma were evaluated with DNA flow cytometry. Of them, 88 patients underwent a gastric resection with curative intent. The relationship of variable clinicopathological factors and of recurrence pattern to survival and nuclear DNA content were assessed. RESULTS: The mean age was 55 years. 55 patients (58.5%) exbitied diploidy and 39 patients (41.5%) aneuploidy. There was no relationship between the clinicopathological factors and either the ploidy pattern or the S-phase fraction. Though the recurrence and its pattern were not different between the two ploidy group (p=0.860, 0.137), diploidy tended to recur locoregionally and aneuploidy hematogenously. CONCLUSION: The ploidy pattern was a significant prognostic factor in gastric carcinomas, but should be interpreted carefully.
Aneuploidy ; Diploidy ; DNA* ; Flow Cytometry ; Humans ; Ploidies ; Prognosis ; Recurrence

Painful post-traumatic trigeminal neuropathy (PPTTN) is a distinctive facial pain syndrome characterized by facial and/or oral pain along the sensory distribution of the fifth cranial nerve with a clear history of a traumatic event. To our knowledge, PPTTN after endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS) has not been reported in the literature. We present a case of an elderly woman who experienced unilateral neuralgic pain after undergoing ESS. Following ESS of the left sphenoid sinus to remove suspicious fungus balls, the patient complained of intermittent facial pain occurring in the left periorbital and forehead area. Clinical diagnosis of PPTTN was established after a comprehensive multidisciplinary assessment. The pain disappeared completely after a 5-week medical treatment with gabapentin. Since PPTTN cases associated with ESS are extremely rare, our case demonstrates that PPTTN should be considered in the differential diagnosis of facial pain developing after ESS and can be successfully treated with medical therapy.

Aptamers are synthetic, relatively short (e.g., 20-80 bases) RNA or ssDNA oligonucleotides that can bind targets with high affinity and specificity, similar to antibodies, because they can fold into unique, three-dimensional shapes. For use in various assays and experiments, aptamers have been conjugated with biotin or digoxigenin to form complexes with avidin or anti-digoxigenin antibodies, respectively. In this study, we developed a method to label the 5' ends of aptamers with cotinine, which allows formation of a stable complex with anti-cotinine antibodies for the purpose of providing another affinity unit for the application in biological assays using aptamers. To demonstrate the functionality of this affinity unit in biological assays, we utilized two well-known aptamers: AS1411, which binds nucleolin, and pegaptanib, which binds vascular endothelial growth factor. Cotinine-conjugated AS1411/anti-cotinine antibody complexes were successfully applied to immunoblot, immunoprecipitation, and flow cytometric analyses, and cotinine-conjugated pegaptanib/anti-cotinine antibody complexes were used successfully in enzyme immunoassays. Our results show that cotinine-conjugated aptamer/anti-cotinine antibody complexes are an effective alternative and complementary technique for aptamer use in multiple assays and experiments.
Animals ; Antibodies, Anti-Idiotypic/immunology/metabolism ; *Aptamers, Nucleotide/chemistry/immunology ; Biological Assay ; *Cotinine/administration & dosage/chemistry ; Flow Cytometry ; Hep G2 Cells ; Humans ; Mice ; NIH 3T3 Cells ; Phosphoproteins/*chemistry/immunology ; Protein Binding ; RNA-Binding Proteins/*chemistry/immunology ; *Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A/chemistry/immunology

PURPOSE: The laser processability of dental prosthesis is investigated using two ceramic composites, including 3M, Lava Ultimate and Ivoclar vivadent, IPS e.max. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The CO₂ laser, picosecond laser and femtosecond laser are used to assess the processing power of dental prosthetic materials Lava Ultimate and IPS e.max and the line processing shape was measured using a confocal microscope. RESULTS: The brittleness, carbonization and micro crack of the ceramic composite were influenced by heat accumulation of the material and could be controlled by the laser power and pulse time. CONCLUSION: In the case of CO₂ lasers, micro crack and carbonation occurred immediately, and in the picosecond laser processing, the micro cracks are partially improved, but the carbonization occurs continuously. Finally, we confirmed the high efficiency of laser processing with femtosecond laser. In particular, Lava Ultimate, a ceramic resin composite material, showed the best processability when processed using a femtosecond laser.
Carbon ; Ceramics* ; Dental Prosthesis ; Hot Temperature ; Lasers, Gas

Background and Objectives: The diagnosis of hearing impairment is based on repeated audiometry, including pure tone audiometry (PTA), speech reception threshold test (SRT), and speech discrimination test (SDT). SDT results particularly show a wide discrepancy upon repeated testing, while malingering is suspected when having more than 12% difference between 3 individual SDT results. Therefore, in this study, we compared the proportion of malingering found in repeated SDT with that found in other audiometric tests and analyzed the characteristics of malingering group in order to reevaluate the current criteria of defining malingering.Subjects and Method We retrospectively assessed the audiometry results of 113 patients (226 ears) with hearing impairment. Each ear was divided into a malingering group and a true hearing loss group. The proportion of ears corresponding to each malingering criterion was compared using a chi-square test. An independent sample t-test was performed to identify the differences between the characteristics between the two groups. Results: The number of ears that met the malingering criteria were 19 (8.41%) in PTA, 15 (6.64%) in SRT, and 75 (33.19%) in SDT. There was a significant difference in the proportion of malingering between the 3 hearing test modalities (p<0.001). There was no significant difference in auditory brainstem response, mean age and sex distribution between the malingering group and the true hearing loss group. Conclusion When conducting repeated SDT, there is a risk of misdiagnosing an actual hearing loss patient as a malingering patient under the current malingering criteria. Therefore, the current criteria on SDT requires reevaluation.

OBJECTIVE: It is difficult for emergency residents to attend all the lectures that are required because of the limited labor time. The Google Hangouts program for has been used as a remote videoconference to overcome the limit to provide equal opportunities and reduce the time and costs since 2015. This article reports the authors' experiences of running a residency education program using Google Hangouts. METHODS: From 2015, topics on the emergency radiology were lectured to emergency residents in three different hospitals connected by Google Hangouts. From 2017, electrocardiography analysis, emergency radiology, ventilator application, and journal review were selected for the remote videoconference. The residents' self-assessment score, and a posteducation satisfaction questionnaire were surveyed. RESULTS: Twenty-nine emergency residents responded to the questionnaire after using the Google Hangouts. The number of participants before and after Hangout increased significantly in other two hospitals. All the residents answered that the score on achieving the learning goal increased before and after the videoconference lectures. All the residents answered that the training program is more satisfactory after using the Google Hangouts than before. CONCLUSION: All emergency residents were satisfied and were more confident after the remote videoconference education using the Google Hangouts than before.
Education ; Electrocardiography ; Emergencies ; Emergency Medicine ; Internship and Residency ; Learning ; Lectures ; Running ; Self-Assessment ; Ventilators, Mechanical ; Videoconferencing

A fungus ball is the most common manifestation of fungal sinusitis. Bilateral involvement of fungus balls is rare, and bilateral sphenoid involvement is even more uncommon. The authors report two cases of bilateral fungus balls with sphenoid sinus involvement successfully treated with endoscopic sinus surgery. Both patients complained of nonspecific headache; diagnoses were made with CT and histopathological examinations, and surgical removal was achieved via transostial approach. Bilateral fungus balls involving the sphenoid sinus are rare but do occur; their removal is possible through endoscopic sinus surgery with a high cure rate. We thus recommend using CT scanning to identify typical findings of a sphenoid fungus ball even in bilateral paranasal sinusitis and perform aggressive surgical treatment.
Diagnosis ; Fungi ; Headache ; Humans ; Sinusitis ; Sphenoid Sinus ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed

A fungus ball is the most common manifestation of fungal sinusitis. Bilateral involvement of fungus balls is rare, and bilateral sphenoid involvement is even more uncommon. The authors report two cases of bilateral fungus balls with sphenoid sinus involvement successfully treated with endoscopic sinus surgery. Both patients complained of nonspecific headache; diagnoses were made with CT and histopathological examinations, and surgical removal was achieved via transostial approach. Bilateral fungus balls involving the sphenoid sinus are rare but do occur; their removal is possible through endoscopic sinus surgery with a high cure rate. We thus recommend using CT scanning to identify typical findings of a sphenoid fungus ball even in bilateral paranasal sinusitis and perform aggressive surgical treatment.

The complement system is a part of the innate immune system that potentiates the ability of antibodies and phagocytic cells to clear microbes and damaged cells. The complement system consists of a number of proteins circulating as inactive precursors. It is stimulated mainly by three pathways: the classical pathway, the alternative pathway, and the lectin pathway. There are many genetic polymorphisms in this system, which can over-activate the immune system. In this study, we collected the polymorphisms reported to over-activate complement cascades that affect the immune system and induce autoimmune diseases.
Antibodies ; Autoimmune Diseases ; Complement System Proteins* ; Immune System ; Phagocytes ; Polymorphism, Genetic*

BACKGROUND: Patients who received orthodontic treatment are likely to have apical root shortening. It appears that external apical root resorption results from a combination of patient-related risk factors such as genetic influences, systemic factors, and orthodontic treatment-related factors. Regarding the fact that the anterior segmental osteotomy (ASO) has been known for its possibility of complementing external apical root resorption and of buffering periodontal problems, it has been the preferred treatment. However, the studies on the efficacy of ASO in preserving the root are not sufficient. In this study, we compared the amount of root resorption between the patients who only received orthodontic treatment and the patients who received orthodontic treatment with ASO. METHODS: This study included 28 patients (the number of incisor = 198) who received orthodontic treatment with or without ASO. We categorize them into groups A and B by the type of orthodontic treatment (group A: conventional orthodontic treatment; group B: orthodontic treatment with ASO). Cone-beam computed tomographic and cephalometric evaluations were retrospectively performed on the radiographs taken for the diagnosis of the treatment before treatment and at the end of active treatment. RESULTS: In group B, root resorption itself and its rate both turned out to have significantly lower than those in group A. Also, the change of incisal angle is significantly smaller in group B than in group A. On the other hand, in group A, the change of incisal angle was positively correlated with the change of AP (anteroposterior) position. In group B, the change of incisal angle was negatively correlated with the duration of the orthodontic treatment. In group B, amount of root resorption (mm) was positively correlated with the duration of the orthodontic treatment. CONCLUSIONS: The results show lesser root resorption and shorter treatment duration with ASO than with conventional orthodontic treatment. Therefore, if the indications are accurately determined, ASO can be an effective treatment option when the amount of root resorption is expected to be high, especially in late adults.
Adult ; Complement System Proteins ; Cone-Beam Computed Tomography* ; Diagnosis ; Hand ; Humans ; Incisor ; Osteotomy* ; Retrospective Studies ; Risk Factors ; Root Resorption*