A case of fibroepithelial polyp with stromal atypia in a 25-year-old female is described. The tumor arose from the vaginal wall and measured 3.5 cm in maximal diameter. It was composed of hypercellular connective tissue stroma and focal myxoid area containing numerous atypical mono- and multinucleated stromal cells. These cells may mislead to make a diagnosis of sarcoma, particulary of botryoid rhabdomyosarcoma.
Adult ; Connective Tissue ; Diagnosis ; Female ; Humans ; Polyps* ; Rhabdomyosarcoma ; Sarcoma ; Stromal Cells* ; Vagina*

Colonic sarcomatoid carcinomas are known to be extremely rare tumors, with only 22 cases reported either as sarcomatoid carcinomas or carcinosarcomas in the literature. The known characteristics are rapid growth, a high recurrence rate, and an extremely poor prognosis. Herein we report a case of a patient who had a sarcomatoid carcinoma of the sigmoid colon and died only 22 days after surgery due to rapid tumor growth.
Carcinosarcoma ; Colon ; Colon, Sigmoid ; Humans ; Prognosis ; Recurrence

No abstract available.
DNA*

A case of calcifying synovial sarcoma, occuring in the deep muscle fascia of the left thigh is reported. The presence of extensive calcification in synovial sarcoma is a favorable sign for prognosis. The patient was a 31-year-old female. The tumor mass had been present for 3 years, accompanying local tenderness. X-ray revealed a soft tissue tumor with central calcification, which was located between the adductor magnus and brevis of the left thigh. The tumor size was 7 x 5.5 cm. There was no connection with the knee joint or the femur. Grossly, the tumor was a relatively well circumscribed hard tumor with massive calcification. Microscopically, the tumor was composed of predominantly spindle cells with accompanying hyalinization, numerous spherical concretions and ossification. The epithelial component was not clearly noted. Mitotic figures were rarely noted in the densely cellular area. Immunohistochemical staining for EMA, S-100, vimentin, and carcinoembryonic antigen was negative while vimentin and cytokeratin were weakly and focally positive. EM study revealed multiple desmosome-like calcification intercellular junctions with a slit-like lumen and an incomplete basal lamina, which suggest that tumor show these cells were undergoing epithelia] differentiation. Above evidence suggest that this tumor is a synovial sarcoma associated with a large area of calcification, a so called calcifying synovial sarcoma. No recurrence was noted in one and half years of follow up.
Female ; Humans

OBJECTIVE: This study was carried out to evaluate the effect of the isolation methods of inner cell mass from mouse blastocyst, types of feeder cells and treatment time of mitomycin C on the formation rate of ICM colony. METHODS: The inner cells were isolated by conventional immunosurgery, partial trophoblast dissection with syringe needles and whole blastocyst co-culture method. Commercially available STO and primary cultured mouse embryonic fibroblast (pMEF) feeder cells were used, and mitomycin C was treated for 1, 2 or 3 hours, respectively. The formation rate of ICM colony was observed after isolation of ICM and culture of ICM on the feeder cells for 7 days. RESULT: The ICM colony formation rate on STO were significantly higher in partial trophoblast dissection group (58%) than that in immunosurgery (12%) or whole blastocyst culture (16%) group (p<0.05). The formation rate on pMEF feeder layer was higher in partial trophoblast dissection (88%) and whole blastocyst culture (82%) group than that in immunosurgery (16%) group (p<0.05). When mitomycin C treated to pMEF for 2 hours, the formation rate of 88% was significantly higher than those of other conditions. CONCLUSIONS: Above results showed that the efficient isolation method of ICM from blastocyst was the partial trophoblast dissection and the appropriate treatment time of mitomycin C was 2 hours. However, the subculture of ICM colony and characterization of stem cells should be carried out to confirm the efficacy of the partial trophoblast dissection method.
Animals ; Blastocyst ; Coculture Techniques ; Feeder Cells* ; Fibroblasts ; Mice* ; Mitomycin* ; Needles ; Stem Cells ; Syringes ; Trophoblasts

Sebaceous carcinoma is a rare malignant epithelial tumor and has diverse clinical presentations as well as a variety of histologic patterns. Although the overwhelming majority of sebaceous carcinomas occur on the eyelid, they may also arise where sebaceous gland and hair are found together, but they favor the head and neck. We report a case of sebaceous carcinoma of the umbilicus in a 68-year-old man who had suffered from a long standing recurrent Bowen's disease of 23 years. The recurrent Bowen's disease in this patient appeared to be closely related to multiple arsenic medication 49 years and 39 years earlier. The excised specimen of umbilicus revealed a well demarcated, 1.5x1 cm sized tumor with grey-yellow hue. The tumor was identified as sebaceous carcinoma, which was characterized by lobular and comedo-carcinoma patterns. The tumor cells showed cytoplasmic foamy vacuolation, nuclear pleomorphism, and high mitotic activity. On an Oil-Red-O stain, the tumor cells were found to contain fine lipid droplets. The intracytoplasmic lipid vacuoles were demonstrated by an electron microscopic examination.
Aged ; Arsenic ; Bowen's Disease* ; Carcinoma ; Cytoplasm ; Eyelids ; Hair ; Head ; Humans ; Neck ; Sebaceous Glands ; Umbilicus ; Vacuoles

Glutathione S-Transferase (GST) is a conjugation enzyme in the metabolism of exogenous and endogenous lipophilic compounds for their excretion and detoxification. Acidic isozyme of GST, GST-Pi, has been recognized as a preneoplastic marker in the experimental hyperplastic nodules of liver in rats, and GST-Pi is abundant in the squamous cells of the skin, also. This histochemical study was carried out to evaluate the distribution and the relationship between the differentiation status of squamous cells in dysplastic or neoplastic epithelium in various organs. The human placental form of glutathione S-transferase (GST-Pi) were stained immunohistochemically with specific anti GST-Pi rabbit antibody in 23 cases of human squamous cell carcinomas. The patients consisted of 14 cases from the uterine cervix, 3 cases from the esopahgus, 3 cases from the lung and 3 cases from the larynx. The results obtained were as follows; 1. Basal cells in normal mucosa were stained negative for GST-Pi while superficial keratinocytes were stained moderately positive. Basal dysplastic cells were stained negatively or weakly positive. Carcinoma cells especially large cells either keratinizing or nonkeratinizing were stained moderately to strongly. Carcinoma cells surrounding keratin pearl were strongly reacted with GST-Pi than other carcinoma cells. 2. Differentiated cells of squamous cell carcinoma showed moderate to strong positive reaction to GST-Pi staining irrespective of its site of origin. 3. Therefore, Immunohistochemical staining pattern of GST-Pi in various squamous carcinoma cells showed similar immunohistochemical reaction to the GST-pi, which is closely correlated to the degree of differentiation, keratinigation and also suggested that squamous carcinoma cells had abundant GST-Pi related detoxifying system.
Humans ; Rabbits ; Animals

PURPOSE: This study aimed to assess the prevalence of asthma, allergic rhinitis, and atopic dermatitis in elementary school students according to thebody mass index. METHODS: This study was conducted as cross-sectional descriptive research using a structured questionnaire. Data were collected from 6,398 students at 15 elementary schools located in Y City in Korea. The cross-sectional survey used the Korean version of International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was performed to estimate the odds ratios of body mass index. RESULTS: The symptom prevalence of asthma, allergic rhinitis, and atopic dermatitis in the last 12 months was 12.4%, 49.5%, and 24.5%, respectively. The symptom prevalence of asthma was significantly higher in the obesity group. The number of those without any asthma symptom in lifetime was significantly smaller in the overweight (OR=0.70, p=.004) and obesity (OR=0.57, p=.005) groups than in the healthy weight group. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that asthma, allergic rhinitis, and atopic dermatitis prevention programs for elementary school students should include weight control intervention.
Asthma* ; Body Mass Index* ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Dermatitis ; Dermatitis, Atopic* ; Humans ; Hypersensitivity ; Korea ; Logistic Models ; Obesity ; Odds Ratio ; Overweight ; Prevalence* ; Rhinitis*

Analysis and prediction of the care charges related to colorectal cancer in Korea are important for the allocation of medical resources and the establishment of medical policies because the incidence and the hospital charges for colorectal cancer are rapidly increasing. But the previous studies based on statistical analysis to predictthe hospital charges for patients did not show satisfactory results. Recently, data mining emerges as a new technique to extract knowledge from the huge and diverse medical data. Thus, we built models using data mining techniques to predict hospital charge for the patients. A total of 1,022 admission records with 154 variables of 492 patients were used to build prediction models who had been treated from 1999 to 2002 in the Kyung Hee University Hospital. We built an artificial neural network (ANN) model and a classification and regression tree (CART) model, and compared their prediction accuracy. Linear correlation coefficients were high in both models and the mean absolute errors were similar. But ANN models showed a better linear correlation than CART model (0.813 vs. 0.713 for the hospital charge paid by insurance and 0.746 vs. 0.720 for the hospital charge paid by patients). We suggest that ANN model has a better performance to predict charges of colorectal cancer patients.
Algorithms ; Colorectal Neoplasms/*economics/epidemiology ; Comparative Study ; *Decision Trees ; *Hospital Charges ; Humans ; Incidence ; Korea/epidemiology ; *Models, Econometric ; *Neural Networks (Computer) ; Predictive Value of Tests

Mllerian adenosarcoma of uterus usually present as pedunculated endometrial masses in postmenopausal women with vaginal bleeding. Extraendometrial variants are much less common. A 50-year-old woman, after total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy due to adenomyosis and benign ovarian mass, presented with protruding mass through vagina. The mass, originated from vaginal stump, was diagnosed as Mllerian adenosarcoma. We report a case of extrauterine Mllerian adenosarcoma with a review of literatures.
Adenomyosis ; Adenosarcoma* ; Female ; Humans ; Hysterectomy* ; Middle Aged ; Uterine Hemorrhage ; Uterus ; Vagina