Background: Conditional survival (CS) has been established as a clinically relevant prognostic factor for cancer sur-vivors, and the CS in gallbladder (GB) cancer has not yet been fully evaluated. In this study, we evaluated the cancer-specific CS rate and cancer-specific survival (CSS) rate in patients with GB cancer at multiple time points and investi-gated prognostic factors which affect cancer-specific CS rate to provide more accurate survival information. Methods: Between 2004 and 2013, a total of 9760 patients with GB cancer were identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) data. The 3-year cancer-specific CS rate was calculated using the covariate-adjusted survival function in the Cox model for each year since diagnosis, and the results were analyzed together with the adjusted CSS rates at the same time points. Cox proportional hazards regression was performed to ascertain the individual contribution of factors associated with CSS rate at diagnosis and cancer-specific CS rates at 1, 3, and 5 years after diagnosis. Results: The adjusted 5-year CSS rate was 26.1%. The adjusted 3-year cancer-specific CS rates at 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 years after diagnosis were 55.5, 72.2, 81.5, 86.8, and 90.5%, respectively. At the time of diagnosis, age, race, histology, grade, T, N, and M categories, surgery, radiotherapy, insurance status, and marriage status were significant prognostic fac-tors of CSS. Five years after diagnosis, however, T and M categories were significant prognostic factors for survivors (P = 0.007 and P = 0.009, respectively), whereas surgery and radiotherapy were not. Conclusions: T and M categories were significant prognostic factors even 5 years after the initial diagnosis, whereas local treatments at the time of diagnosis were not, suggesting that patients with GB cancer at high risks might need further adjuvant therapy after primary treatments. The combined analysis of CSS and cancer-specific CS rates offered more accurate survival information for patients who have already survived a certain period of time after diagnosis.

OBJECTIVE: Prognostic factors of metastatic brain tumors have been widely reported and their operative indications also have been extended gradually even to the poor grade patients. Authors intended to analyze the causative factors for the clinical outcome of metastatic brain tumors, especially with relevant to the poor prognosis by one year follow-up evaluation. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The authors retrospectively studied the clinical characteristics of 46 cases(35 patients) with metastatic brain tumors among 466 cases(437 patients) which were operated on due to the brain tumor, during the period between January 1994 to June 1999. Statistical analysis was performed by using SPSS 8.0(r). A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered clinically significant. RESULT: Among the variable clinical factors in patients with metastatic brain tumors, Karnofsky Performance Scale (KPS) score of less than 70(16 patients), uncontrolled primary tumor(8 patients), and surgical resection without further adjuvant therapy(9 patients) showed statistically significant poor prognosis; p value of 0.002, 0.032, and 0.001, respectively. Other tested variables, such as old age(greater than 65 years; 10 patients), gender(male; 20 patients), type of primary cancer(primary undefined; 6 patients, lung cancer; 15 patients), location(infratentorial; 9 patients, sellar; 5 patients), number of lesion(multiple; 12 patients), and number of operation(multiple craniotomy; 7 patients) were not related to the poor prognosis. CONCLUSIONS: The most common primary site of distant metastasis was lung. The poorer prognosis was highly correlated with various factors including low KPS score(<70), no postoperative adjuvant therapy, and uncontrolled primary tumors.
Brain Neoplasms* ; Brain* ; Craniotomy ; Follow-Up Studies* ; Humans ; Lung ; Lung Neoplasms ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Prognosis* ; Retrospective Studies

No abstract available.
Aneurysm*

No abstract available.
Arteries* ; Intracranial Aneurysm*

No abstract available.
Aneurysm*

With the development of body sensor technology, wearable health monitoring systems have been an emerging information technology in the 'ubiquitous health care' system. Wearable sensors enable long-term continuous physiological monitoring important in health promotion and management of many chronic disorders. In this paper, we present several wearable health monitoring systems developed by different countries and discuss emerging opportunities, as well as, existing challenges such as standardization, administration, validation, and discrepancy issues between technology and clinical implication.
Health Promotion ; Monitoring, Physiologic ; Telemedicine

A global effort was made to respond to COVID-19 using convalescent plasma therapy. The United States Food and Drug Administration Emergency Use Authorization facilitated rapid deployment, enabling the treatment of 94,287 patients by August 2020. The guidelines continuously evolved to emphasize the importance of a high titer plasma and specific immunocompromised patient groups. Korea has developed guidelines for treatment with convalescent plasma based on the successful treatment of two patients. By December 2023, convalescent plasma was collected from 67 donors at nine blood centers and transfused to 67 patients at 10 hospitals in Korea. The Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies recommendations, based on recent research, are believed to encompass the therapeutic effects of convalescent plasma therapy in COVID-19 patients. Korea initially considered convalescent plasma but experienced difficulties in development because of the switch to hyperimmune globulin and monoclonal antibodies. The insights gained from COVID-19 convalescent plasma treatment will be helpful in future pandemics caused by new infectious agents, underscoring the importance of domestic readiness for timely policy implementation.

PURPOSE: This study is a descriptive research study to develop the Nurse's Humor Questionnaire, and then analyze humor's appreciation and use by Korean nurses. METHOD: The three stages used to develop the questionnaire were to make a conceptual framework, make an open questionnaire through the 2nd preliminary inquiry, and make a structured questionnaire based on collected statements through the developed open questionnaire. The subjects that carried out completely a structured questionnaire were 337 nurses. RESULT: 1) The final developed questionnaire consists of 6 domains and 67 items. The reliability of 'When feeling humor's expression'( =0.7079), 'The barrier factors of humor's use'( =0.7895), and 'Humor's values'( =0.8336) was high. 2) The results related to Humor's values of nurses that showed significant differences were as follow: (1) age, marital status, and current position (2)a negative correlation between stress and humor's values (3) humor's sources: daily life and conversation (4) frequency of used humor (5) types of used humor: word humor, imitation, adequate situation and technical terms, and (6) when using humor's expression: tense atmosphere, awkward atmosphere and adequate situation. CONCLUSION: The developed tool can be used for understanding nurse's humor. This will help to develop the humor program as a nursing intervention for health promotion.
Atmosphere ; Health Promotion ; Marital Status ; Nursing ; Transcutaneous Electric Nerve Stimulation ; Surveys and Questionnaires

No abstract available.

PURPOSE: This study was to prepare the basic data for prevention of colo-rectal cancer and protection against its spread. METHOD: The subjects for the study were 204 patients with colo-rectal cancer from the G.S. wards of five general hospitals in Busan for the period of June 1 to September 1, 2001. The instrument used was a questionaire which was developed by Junho Shin(1995). The data was analyzed by descriptive statistics, McNemar test, x2 test, paired t-test, and ANOVA. RESULT: 1. 57% of the studied subjects were male, 42.7% were more than 60 years old, 54.9% were of standard physique, 49.5% were the Buddhists, 50.5% were the middle or high school graduates, 83.8% were city dwellers, 48% were jobless, 69.6% had no-history of alimentary disease, 44.1% had no-family history of cancer, 82.8% were married. 2. Constipation(x2=36.45, p=0.0001) in clients showed a significant positive association for the pre- diagnosed, but diarrhea(x2=3.947, p=0.047) showed a significant positive association for the post-diagnosed. The preference for high seasonings(t=6.23, p=0.0001) and animal fat (t=8.35, p=0.0001) was higher significantly in the pre-diagnosed, but physical activities(x2= 30.22, p=0.0001), an eutrophic or tonic medicine(x2=30.22, p=0.0001), was of and vegetables(t=-6.20, p=0.0001) was higher significantly in the post-diagnosed. 3. There were significant differences in the life style of the pre-diagnosed according to the general characteristics except religion. CONCLUSION: Results of the above study reveal we should be very sensitive to the change of defecation styles and consider the necessity of improving life styles as regards eating habits. When an education program is developed, the general characteristics of the subjects need to be considered.
Animals ; Busan ; Defecation ; Eating ; Education ; Hospitals, General ; Humans ; Life Style* ; Male ; Middle Aged