Epidurally administered morphine is reported to produce analgesia in human. Epidural and intrathecal clonidine is also reported to produce analgesia and to prolong analgesic action of local anesthetics. This study was undertaken to evaluate the analgesic effects of the combination of epidural morphine and clonidine versus epidural morphine alone in patients with postoperative pain. 20 patients were scheduled for postoperative pain relief by epidural block. Patients were received either epidural morphine and clonidine(clonidine group: n=10) or morphine alone(morphine group: n=10) before general anesthesia. To compare clonidine group and morphine group in postoperative analgesia, we used Visual analogue scale(VAS), time and dosage of additional analgesics required and change of forced vital capacity(FVC). 1) There were no statistically significant differences in hemodynamic values during operation between two groups. 2) Although there was no statistically significant difference in postoperative analgesic effect between two groups, clonidine group showed some trend of analgesic effect during postoperative 24 hours. 3) There were no statistically significant differences between two groups in side effects. Epidural clonidine enhances the analgesic effect of epidural morphine clinically without causing more side effects.
Analgesia* ; Analgesics ; Anesthesia, General ; Anesthetics, Local ; Clonidine* ; Hemodynamics ; Humans ; Morphine ; Pain, Postoperative

Pulmonary tumor thrombotic microangiopathy (PTTM) is a rare, malignancy-related complication that causes marked pulmonary hypertension, right heart failure, and death. We report on a patient with locally advanced breast cancer whose course was complicated by fatal PTTM based on clinical and laboratory findings.
Breast ; Breast Neoplasms ; Heart Failure ; Humans ; Hypertension, Pulmonary ; Thrombotic Microangiopathies

For the evaluation of the correlation between the ETCO2 and the PaCO2 in post-extubated spontaneously breathing patients, we tested 30 patients in recovery room with Salter Divided Nasal Cannula, which have permanent bamer in the face piece and a dual tubing set that allows end tidal sampling from one nare and oxygen delivery to the other. When the wave form of capnogram looked regular and normal, the value of ETCO2 was recorded and the arterial blood was taken from the radial artery to analize blood gas immediately. The results were as following; 1. The mean value of PaCO2 was 42.0+/-4.8 mmHg. 2. The mean value of P(ET)CO2 was 39.3+/-5.1 mmHg. 3. The value of P(ET)CO2 acquired with Salter Divided Nasal Cannula hase close positive correlation with the values of the PaCO2. (PaCO2=0.75 x P(ET)CO2+/-12.64, r=0.79, p<0.001)
Catheters* ; Humans ; Oxygen ; Radial Artery ; Recovery Room ; Respiration*

Purpose: This study aims to determine the effectiveness of high physical activity (PA) on shoulder pain, functional recovery, and structural outcome in the early healing phase after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair (ARCR). Methods: Forty-two patients were included in this study according to inclusion criteria. Subjects were classified into high PA (HPA) group (n=22) and low PA (LPA) group (n=20) according to the classification criteria. Differences between groups according to the PA level were analyzed by comparing visual analogue scale (VAS), range of motion (ROM), American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons Shoulder Score (ASES), and isokinetic strength before and 6 weeks, 3, and 6 months after surgery. Structural outcome was analyzed by evaluating magnetic resonance imaging performed 6 months after ARCR. Results: VAS, ROM, and ASES were significantly higher in the HPA group at 6 weeks and 3 months after ARCR with a significant interaction effect between time and group (p＜ 0.05). The isokinetic muscle strength was significantly higher in the HPA group at 3 months after surgery with a significant interaction effect on forward flexion and external rotation strength (p＜ 0.05). There was no significant difference in extension and internal rotation strength. In the structural outcome of 6 months after surgery, the retear rate was lower in the HPA group with a significant trend (p＜ 0.05). Conclusion In this study, higher PA levels in the early healing phase after ARCR were found to result in faster pain relief and restoration of shoulder function. In addition, higher PA level was associated with lower retear rates in structural outcomes related to tendon healing.

PURPOSE: We wanted to analyze the clinicopathologic characteristics of patients with gastric carcinoid tumor, which is a rare gastric tumor (less than 2% of all gastric tumors). MATERIALS AND METHODS: We reviewed all the carcinoid patients who were treated from 1996 to 2006. The clinicopathologic characteristics, the treatment modalities and the survival rates were retrospectively analysed. RESULTS: There were 8 type I patients and 10 type III patients, but there were no type II patients. The mean age of onset for type I was 47.75 years and that for type III was 57.90 years. More type III patients were female, but the gender ratio of type I patients was equal at a ratio of 1:1. There were 4 cases of solitary tumor, which were all T1 except for one case, and there was neither distant metastasis nor lymph node involvement for the type T1 cases. In the 13 patients who had no metastasis, 5 underwent endoscopic mucosal resection and 8 underwent surgery, and their combined 5 year survival rate was 92.3%. For the 5 cases who had metastastses, their mean survival was 22 months and especially, 3 of them underwent palliative surgery and their median survival were 24 months (95%, +/-6.52). CONCLUSION: Higher incidence of type III gastric carcinoid tumor and less multiplicity in type I gastric tumor were identified in our study compared with previous reports. For the type III cases, there were some noteable differences compared with the Western country's survival rate for the patients who underwent palliative surgery, so physicians must pay close attention to the definite clinicopathologic characteristics of gastric carcinoid patients.
Age of Onset ; Carcinoid Tumor ; Female ; Humans ; Incidence ; Lymph Nodes ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Palliative Care ; Retrospective Studies ; Survival Rate

The natural history of gastric cancer is unclear. We report here on a rare case of advanced gastric cancer for which we performed curative gastrectomy 78 months after the diagnosis. A 74-year-old woman with epigastric pain underwent esophagogastroscopy in January, 2000 and she was diagnosed with advanced gastric cancer. Suspicious omental cake was noted on CT. After refusing all kinds of treatment, she underwent a follow up CT scan on September, 2002, which no longer suggested omental cake. She once again refused treatment, but she visited the hospital in June, 2006 due to severe epigastric pain and a decreased oral intake. Abdominal CT showed no distant metastasis, and so radical subtotal gastrectomy with regional lymph node dissection was performed in July, 2006 and the TNM stage was T2bN1M0 (stage II)
Aged ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Gastrectomy ; Humans ; Lymph Node Excision ; Natural History ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Stomach Neoplasms

PURPOSE: Diabetic foot ulcers are one of the most important complications of patients with diabetes for their quality of life. Yet the data on factors that affect the treatment outcome and the guidelines for a multidisciplinary approach are limited. The purpose of this study was to assess the clinical characteristics that affect healing of diabetic foot ulcers, and especially when this is associated with peripheral arterial disease (PAD). METHOD: We retrospectively reviewed the clinicopathologic data of 112 patients who were admitted for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers from May 2004 to December 2007 at Bundang Seoul National University Hospital. The patient's demography and co-morbidities, the laboratory and radiological details, the surgical data and the treatment outcomes were evaluated and analyzed according to the presence of PAD. RESULT: The mean age of the patients was 66 years old and the male to female ratio was 2.3:1. Except for simple dressing of the ulcers, skin graft, amputation or revascularization were performed for 77 patients. Ulcers healed in 74 patients (66.1%) and recurrence was observed in 42 patients (37.5%). Major amputation was performed on 11 patients (9.8%). The non-healing group had a higher incidence of male gender (P=0.049), end stage renal disease (P=0.038), coronary arterial disease (P=0.018), the presence of PAD (P=0.034) and a higher level of cholesterol (P=0.011) and triglyceride (P=0.039). Patients with PAD had a lower ankle-brachial index (P<0.001) and a higher rate of undergoing revascularization (P<0.001), overall amputation (P=0.003), non-healing (P=0.034) and recurrence (P<0.001). After revascularization, the rate of major amputation was not reduced (P=0.915). CONCLUSION: The risk of non-healing, overall amputation and recurrence is increased in the presence of PAD. Evaluating the PAD status and multidisciplinary treatment strategies are needed to treat these patients with diabetic foot ulcer.
Amputation ; Ankle Brachial Index ; Bandages ; Cholesterol ; Demography ; Diabetic Foot ; Female ; Humans ; Incidence ; Kidney Failure, Chronic ; Male ; Peripheral Arterial Disease ; Quality of Life ; Recurrence ; Retrospective Studies ; Skin Ulcer ; Transplants ; Treatment Outcome ; Ulcer

BACKGROUND: Performing antibody screening and identification tests before blood transfusion are important since unexpected red cell antibodies can cause acute or delayed hemolytic transfusion reactions. We investigated the frequency and distribution of unexpected red cell antibodies that were detected in cancer patients at National Cancer Center (NCC) and we compared our results with the previously published data. METHODS: From January 2001 to June 2009, 56,660 sera of the cases from NCC were screened and 197 sera were identified with using the Ortho BioVue System (Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Raritan, USA) and the conventional tube method. In case of the presence of autoantibody, the ZZAP method was performed to distinguish alloantibody from autoantibody. RESULTS: 759 cases (1.34%) showed positive results out of all 56,660 cases that underwent unexpected antibodies screening. Among them, unexpected antibodies were identified in 197 cases. The most frequently detected antibody was anti-Le(a) in 62 cases (31.47%), followed by anti-E in 32 cases (16.24%) and anti-Le(b) in 18 cases (9.14%). Unidentified antibodies were detected in 43 cases (21.83%). In the cases with a previous history of transfusion at the NCC and the screening results were altered from negative to positive, anti-E was the most frequently detected antibody (8/30 cases, 26.67%), and this included the mixed antibodies. CONCLUSION: Compared with the previous reports, this study showed that the frequency and distribution of the unexpected red cell antibodies of cancer patients were not different from those of general patients. Moreover, there was no apparent difference of frequency of the unexpected red cell antibodies among the diagnosed cancers. Our research may provide data for the frequency and characteristics of red cell antibodies because we targeted only cancer patients.
Antibodies ; Blood Group Incompatibility ; Blood Transfusion ; Humans ; Mass Screening

Tumor peptides associated with MHC class I molecules or their synthetic variants have attracted great attention for their potential use as vaccines to induce tumor-specific CTLs. However, the outcome of clinical trials of peptide-based tumor vaccines has been disappointing. There are various reasons for this lack of success, such as difficulties in delivering the peptides specifically to professional Ag-presenting cells, short peptide halflife in vivo, and limited peptide immunogenicity. We report here a novel peptide vaccination strategy that efficiently induces peptide-specific CTLs. Nanoparticles (NPs) were fabricated from a biodegradable polymer, poly(D,L-lactic-co-glycolic acid), attached to H-2Kb molecules, and then the natural peptide epitopes associated with the H-2K b molecules were exchanged with a model tumor peptide, SIINFEKL (OVA 257-268 ). These NPs were efficiently phagocytosed by immature dendritic cells (DCs), inducing DC maturation and activation. In addition, the DCs that phagocytosed SIINFEKL-pulsed NPs potently activated SIINFEKL-H-2K b complex-specific CD8 + T cells via cross-presentation of SIINFEKL. In vivo studies showed that intravenous administration of SIINFEKL-pulsed NPs effectively generated SIINFEKLspecific CD8 + T cells in both normal and tumor-bearing mice. Furthermore, intravenous administration of SIINFEKL-pulsed NPs into EG7.OVA tumor-bearing mice almost completely inhibited the tumor growth. These results demonstrate that vaccination with polymeric NPs coated with tumor peptide-MHC-I complexes is a novel strategy for efficient induction of tumor-specific CTLs.

Background: Lower limb balance ability is reduced after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR). However, the recovery of balance based on functional test scores after ACLR is not known because the correlation between balance and clinical scores remains unclear. We aimed to analyze the correlation between lower limb balance assessed by functional test and clinical knee test scores after ACLR. Methods: We evaluated lower limb balance using the anterior-posterior stability index (APSI) of the Biodex Balance System (BBS).Patients underwent clinical tests to evaluate the knee, including the Tegner activity score, International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) subjective score, Lysholm score, and KT-2000 arthrometer measurement, hamstring per quadriceps muscle strength ratio at 60°/sec (HQ ratio), and functional performance tests (single-leg hop and single-leg vertical jump tests) 1 year after ACLR.We used a paired t-test to compare continuous preoperative and postoperative variables and Pearson’s correlation coefficient to determine the relationship between BBS-APSI and clinical scores. Results: Forty-eight patients (35 men and 13 women; mean age, 28.9 ± 8.3 years) were included. The follow-up period and BBSAPSI were 12.4 ± 2.0 months and 0.9 ± 0.4, respectively. Tegner activity score, IKDC subjective score, Lysholm score, and KT-2000 arthrometer measurement improved significantly postoperatively (p < 0.001). BBS-APSI was correlated with the Tegner activity score (r = –0.335, p = 0.020), IKDC subjective score (r = –0.301, p = 0.037), Lysholm score (r = –0.323, p = 0.025), single-leg hop test results (r = –0.300, p = 0.038), and single-leg vertical jump test results (r = –0.336, p = 0.019). There was no correlation between KT-2000 arthrometer measurement and HQ ratio. Conclusions BBS-APSI was correlated with functional performance test scores after ACLR, rendering the BBS-APSI as a useful assessment tool to evaluate postoperative functional recovery. Continuously improving balance after ACLR could be useful for functional recovery after surgery.