Since the book "Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying" was published in 1991, there has been a worldwide increase in the number of cases of suicidal asphyxiation using helium gas. However, no domestic reports have been published thus far. Recently, we encountered a case of asphyxial suicide by inhalation of helium from inside a plastic bag. Subsequently, we reviewed the records of the Scientific Crime Analysis System of National Police Agency of Korea. There were 17 cases of helium-associated asphyxial suicides between January 1, 2000 and June 30, 2012. The average age of the deceased was 30.6 years with a male to female ratio of approximately 5:1. Thirteen of 17 such deaths occurred in the victims'houses. In all cases, the method of death involved placing a plastic bag over the head with a hose attached to helium tanks. In 6 of 17 cases, the decedents had psychiatric disorders such as depression. As neither characteristic signs of death nor conventional methods for detecting helium gas exist, a thorough investigation of the death scene and the decedents'environment is extremely vital for confirming death due to helium asphyxiation.
Crime ; Depression ; Female ; Head ; Helium ; Humans ; Inhalation ; Korea ; Male ; Plastics ; Police ; Suicide ; Suicide, Assisted

No abstract available.
Diagnosis* ; Infant, Newborn ; Meconium Aspiration Syndrome* ; Meconium*

No abstract available.
Breast Neoplasms* ; Breast*

BACKGROUND: Induction of general anesthesia with tracheal intubation and skin incision are potent stimuli that can induce increased sympathetic activity, heart rate and blood pressure. We compared the hemodynamic response and catecholamine concentration during general anesthesia with intravenous clonidine pretreatment, a centrally acting -2 adrenoceptor agonist, and without pretreatment. METHODS: Forty ASA I or II patients aged from 20 to 60 years undergoing elective surgery were randomly allocated to two groups. In group I, 5 ml of 0.9% normal saline as control administered intravenously 10 minutes before induction of anesthesia, and anesthesia was induced with thiopental sodium, succinylcholine and maintained with N2O (2.5L/min)-O2 (2.5L/min)-enflurane (1.3~1.8 vol%). In group II, 4 g/kg clonidine diluted in 5ml of normal saline administered intravenously 10 minutes before induction of anesthesia, and anesthesia was induced with thiopental sodium, succinylcholine and maintained with N2O-O2-enflurane (0.5~1.0vol%) and 2 g/kg/hr clonidine was continuously infused. We measured blood pressure, heart rate and plasma catecholamine at preinduction, 1 minute after intubation (T1), 1 (T2) and 30 minutes after skin incision (T3) and compared with group I. RESULTS: There was statistical significance in systolic and diastolic pressure at T1 between two groups. There was statistical significance in heart rate, epinephrine and norepinephrine at T1, T2 and T3 between two groups. CONCLUSION: The elevation of blood pressure, heart rate and plasma catecholamine accompanying tracheal intubation and skin incision may be prevented by administration of intravenous clonidine.
Adult ; Anesthesia ; Anesthesia, General* ; Blood Pressure* ; Brain ; Clonidine* ; Epinephrine ; Heart Rate* ; Heart* ; Hemodynamics ; Hemorrhage ; Hope ; Humans ; Incidence ; Intubation* ; Larynx ; Male ; Norepinephrine ; Plasma* ; Skin ; Spondylitis, Ankylosing ; Succinylcholine ; Thiopental

No abstract available.
Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation* ; Telephone*

No abstract available.

No abstract available.
Epinephrine* ; Heart Arrest*

No abstract available.
Dilatation* ; Urethra*

PURPOSE: CD24 is a small heavily glycosylated glycosylphosphatidylinositol-linked cell surface protein, which is expressed in hematological malignancies as well as a large variety of solid tumors. The authors aimed to evaluate the CD24 protein expression in fibroadenomas and adenocarcinomas of the breast and its correlation to clinicopathological data. METHODS: Immunohistochemical staining for CD24 was performed on 28 mammary neoplasia, diagnosed as either adenocarcinomas (22 cases) or fibroadenomas (6 cases), to examine the relationship with clinicopathological parameters. The results of the immunohistochemical staining were evaluated by the stainability (negative, weak-, moderate-, strong-positive) and staining patterns (membranous vs. intracytoplasmic) for statistical analyses. RESULTS: The present study clearly demonstrates that CD24 was abundantly expressed in adenocarcinoma, compared to in fibroadenomas of the breast (P<0.001). Intracytoplasmic staining was noted in the adenocarcinomas only but this was not statistically significant between the adenocarcinoma and fibroadenoma groups. No significant correlations of the CD24 stainability or staining pattern were detected with the nodal status, tumor histological grade or histological subtypes. CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that abundant membranous expression or intracytoplasmic expression of CD24, as detected by immunohistochemistry, is an important tissue marker for a mammary epithelial neoplasm, which could help to define adenocarcinomas from fibroadenomas.
Adenocarcinoma ; Breast ; Fibroadenoma ; Hematologic Neoplasms ; Immunohistochemistry ; Neoplasms, Glandular and Epithelial

This report describes surface properties of several cell membranes tested by lectininduced agglutination reactions which were quantitated using the microquantitative particle counter agglutination assay of Davis et al. (1976). The quantitative assays of concanavaalin A (con A) induced agglutination were performed for rabbit erythrocyte, rat erythrocyte, human erythrocyte, and sarcoma 180 mouse ascites cells. The percent agglutination versus the con A concentration revealed a sigmoid curve in all cases, but the steepness of the sigmoid curve is variable depending on the cell types. It varies even with the same cell but in different species. Optimum cell concentration was (0.92-0.95) x 10(7) cells/ml final concentration in the hanging drop, for rabbit erythrocytes, (0.77-1.64) x 10(7) cells/ml for rat erythrocytes, (1.59-2.7) x 10(7) cells/ml for human erythrocytes and (0.23-0.39) x 10(7) cells/ml for sarcoma 180 mouse ascites cells. When minimal and maximal agglutination percentages were defined as the concentration of con A/ml/1 x 10(6) cells corresponding to 10% and 95% agglutination, minimal and maximal agglutination occured at 0.56 ug, 19.98 ug for human erythrocytes at 0.56 ug, 224 ug for rat erythrocytes at 0.08 ug, 1.43ug for rabbit erythrocytes at 0.12 ug, 14.8 ug for sarcoma 180-mouse ascites cells respectively. The order of inhibitory activity of alpha-methyl-D-mannopyranoside (alphaMM) for each corresponding cells from the highest inhibition was human erythrocytes, rat erythrocytes, sarcoma 180 mouse ascites cells and rabbit erythrocytes. The concentrations of alphaMM required for 50% inhibition per ml of the final concentration in the hanging drop per 1 x 10(7) cells were 0.565 umoles for rabbit erythrocytes, 0.072 umoles for rat erythrocytes, 0.018 umoles for human erythrocytes and 3.677 umoles for sarcoma 180 mouse ascites cells, respectively. From our experimental results we conclude that the cytoagglutination activity was increased with con A, the inhibitory activity with alphaMM in the presence of con A was decreased, however the sarcoma 180 mouse ascites cells revealed a contradictory result, and might be due to the topological distribution of agglutination site changes to a distribution more favorable for agglutination.
Agglutination ; Agglutination Tests ; Animal ; Cell Membrane/immunology* ; Concanavalin A/pharmacology* ; Erythrocytes/immunology ; Human ; Methylmannosides/pharmacology ; Mice ; Rabbits ; Rats ; Sarcoma 180/immunology ; Surface Properties