PURPOSE: To evaluate the clinical features and treatment results of optic nerve sheath meningioma (ONSM) in Korean patients. METHODS: The present retrospective noncomparative case series was comprised of 10 eyes of 10 patients with a diagnosis of ONSM who were treated between 1997 and 2010 at the Seoul National University Hospital. RESULTS: The mean age at presentation was 47.9 years. Two males and 8 females participated in the study. Decreased vision and proptosis were the most common presenting symptoms. On imaging, the most common pattern was tubular. The most common histopathologic pattern was a meningothelial type. Two patients who were observed maintained good vision during the follow-up period and showed a slow progression of the tumor. Two patients out of 3 who underwent surgical management presented significant visual loss and complications. Three patients in the gamma-knife surgery (GKS) group showed no significant changes in visual acuity after treatment; however, tumor growth was halted. Two patients who underwent 3-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3D-CRT) presented improvement in their visual acuity or visual field, and tumor growth was halted. CONCLUSIONS: Management should be conservative in most cases because of the slow and indolent growth pattern of ONSM. However, 3D-CRT can be considered as an initial treatment in patients with progressive visual deterioration and having still higher possibility of vision maintenance. GKS can be indicated in patients with progressive visual deterioration and a rare possibility of visual recovery. Surgical indications for ONSM are limited and must be carefully considered for each patient.
Exophthalmos ; Eye ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Korea ; Male ; Meningioma ; Optic Nerve ; Radiotherapy, Conformal ; Retrospective Studies ; Vision, Ocular ; Visual Acuity ; Visual Fields

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of the present study was to estimate the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and to investigate the relation between metabolic syndrome and heart rate variability in a community population. METHODS: The study design was cross-sectional, and 1028 subjects, aged 20~87 years, were recruited. Heart rate variability was measured in the sitting position for five minutes. The recorded data were assessed by time-domain (standard deviation of RR interval) and frequencydomain analysis. All subjects were examined for five components of metabolic syndrome. RESULTS: The prevalence of metabolic syndrome in male and female subjects was 25.9% and 27.7%, respectively. The mean value of heart rate variability of the subjects was significantly different between healthy subjects and those with metabolic syndrome. The regression model showed that metabolic syndrome was negatively correlated with heart rate variability. CONCLUSIONS: The results demonstrate that metabolic syndrome has potentially negative effects on the cardiovascular system, and that these effects could be detected by heart rate variability. Follow-up studies able to control the cohort effect are necessary to evaluate the relation between metabolic syndrome and heart rate variability.
Cardiovascular System ; Cohort Effect ; Female ; Heart Rate* ; Heart* ; Humans ; Male ; Prevalence

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to compare differences in perception and knowledge of child abuse and child disciplinary practices according to the history of child abuse victimization. METHODS: A questionnaire survey on child abuse was conducted with 491 adults raising children. We compared the perception and knowledge of child abuse and child disciplinary practices between two groups of adults with and without a history of childhood abuse victimization. RESULTS: The group with a history of childhood abuse had lower levels of knowledge of child abuse (F=6.990, p<0.01) and engaged in more negative disciplinary practices (F=5.974, p<0.05) than those without. However, no differences in the perception of child abuse were observed between the two groups. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that adults with a history of childhood abuse have lower levels of knowledge of child abuse and use more negative disciplinary practices in raising their children. This highlights the need to administer not only educational but also more direct hands-on interventions to vulnerable parents in order to foster healthy parenting and disciplinary practices.
Adult ; Child ; Child Abuse ; Child ; Crime Victims ; Humans ; Parenting ; Parents

Gliosarcoma (GS) is a rare variant (2%) of glioblastoma (GBM) that poses clinical genomic challenges because of its poor prognosis and limited genomic information. To gain a comprehensive view of the genomic alterations in GS and to understand the molecular etiology of GS, we applied whole-exome sequencing analyses for 28 GS cases (6 blood-matched fresh-frozen tissues for the discovery set, 22 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues for the validation set) and copy-number variation microarrays for 5 blood-matched fresh-frozen tissues. TP53 mutations were more prevalent in the GS cases (20/28, 70%) compared to the GBM cases (29/90, 32%), and the GS patients with TP53 mutations showed a significantly shorter survival (multivariate Cox analysis, hazard ratio=23.9, 95% confidence interval, 2.87–199.63, P=0.003). A pathway analysis showed recurrent alterations in MAPK signaling (EGFR, RASGRF2 and TP53), phosphatidylinositol/calcium signaling (CACNA1s, PLCs and ITPRs) and focal adhesion/tight junction (PTEN and PAK3) pathways. Genomic profiling of the matched recurrent GS cases detected the occurrence of TP53 mutations in two recurrent GS cases, which suggests that TP53 mutations play a role in treatment resistance. Functionally, we found that TP53 mutations are associated with the epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) process of sarcomatous components of GS. We provide the first comprehensive genome-wide genetic alternation profiling of GS, which suggests novel prognostic subgroups in GS patients based on their TP53 mutation status and provides new insight in the pathogenesis and targeted treatment of GS.
Glioblastoma ; Gliosarcoma* ; Humans ; Prevalence* ; Prognosis