Rehabilitation of young children with hearing impairment can be defined as a teaching/learning process where the role of the clinician is to facilitate the acquisition of listening, speech and language in a normal developmental order. The young children with hearing impairment are helped by hearing aids and cochlear implants to learn language. Auditory (re)habilitation in young children with hearing impairment is to acquire auditory skills at four stages : sound detection, sound identification through imitation, sound discrimination, and comprehension. Without appropriate auditory training and early intervention, children with hearing impairment cannot develop spoken language. Speech acquisition is a perceptual as well as an oral process. To maximize the speech acquisition in children with hearing impairment, indepth understanding of the characteristics of the children, the parents' motivation and cooperation, a well-designed educational program, and the high competence of the health care professionals are important. Therefore, listening is not an isolated skill, and the auditory development in children with hearing impairment should be achieved in a comprehensive approach. Young children with hearing impairment need supports and guidance from health care professionals whose holistic approach balances auditory learning with the parallel development of the children's other learning processes.
Child* ; Cochlear Implants ; Comprehension ; Correction of Hearing Impairment* ; Delivery of Health Care ; Discrimination (Psychology) ; Early Intervention (Education) ; Hearing Aids ; Hearing Loss* ; Humans ; Learning ; Mental Competency ; Motivation ; Rehabilitation ; Speech Perception*

Isolated extramedullary relapse of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) with sparing of the marrow after allogeneic stem cell transplantation is not common. We report a 32-year-old female patient with isolated ovarian relapse of T-cell ALL 18 months after allogeneic stem cell transplantation. She had no evidence of concomitant relapse in the bone marrow.
Adult ; Bone Marrow* ; Female ; Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation* ; Humans ; Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma* ; Recurrence ; Stem Cell Transplantation ; T-Lymphocytes

Classification ; Consensus ; Diagnosis ; Hematologic Neoplasms ; Hematology ; Lymphoid Tissue

Modern capacity for high-resolution brain imaging has facilitated studying the clinicoanatomic correlations of small lesions in subcortical nuclear structures. Several recent reports have convincingly demonstrated that there were particular clinical syndromes associated with specific distributions of thalamic lesions. Thalamic dysfunction due to diveres casues, particularily in the left side has been associated with memory impairment, speech disturbance, cognitive deficits, and behavioural changes. Simplified bedside behavioral examinations were performed in six patients with the left tuberothalamic infarcts. We found severe neuropsychological deficits considered as dementia meeting the DSM III criteria, leaving few focal motor and sensory deficits. The disturbance of attention, speech, cognition and behavior after the left tuberothalamic infarcts are probably related not only to intrinsic thalamic dysfunction itself, but also to the disruption of the regular function of motor, sensory, and integrative cortical stuctures connecting with the thalamus.
Cognition ; Dementia* ; Humans ; Memory ; Neuroimaging ; Thalamus

The thymoma with extrathoracic metastasis is an exceedingly rare malady. We report here on the surgical resection and the pathologic findings of liver metastasis from an invasive thymoma in a 57-year-old female. In 1998, a benign thymoma in the anterosuperior mediastinum was removed from the patient and then postoperative radiation therapy was given. After 6 years, the patient complained of dyspnea, dry cough and abdominal pain. Abdominal CT and MRI showed an encapsulated and septated 19 x 14 cm sized cystic mass in the right liver. Right hepatectomy was done and it was shown to be a metastatic thymoma. An extensive literature review has revealed only a few cases of surgical resection of liver metastasis in a patient with invasive thymoma.
Abdominal Pain ; Cough ; Dyspnea ; Female ; Hepatectomy ; Humans ; Liver ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Mediastinum ; Middle Aged ; Neoplasm Metastasis* ; Thymoma* ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed

To evaluate P300 cognitive evoked-potential, the pattern of learning impairment and their possible relationship in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease, we performed P300 cognitive potential test and neuropsychologic tests evaluating learning ability-Gollin's incomplete drawing test (GIDT) , the tower of Hanoi Puzzle (TOHP), and recall the name of pictures in Gollin's incomplete drawing test (GIDT recall), on 37 patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (19 never-medicated and 18 with levodopa therapy for more than 6 months) and age- and sex-matched normal healthy controls. Compared with controls, patients showed significant delay in P300 latency and significant impairment in TOHP and GIDT recall, but not in GIDT. The revodopa-treated patients showed significantly shorter P300 latency and better performance in TOHP than never-medicated patients, although they still showed impairments in both tests compared with controls. Although all neuropsychologic tests used in present study significantly correlated to the P300 latency in patients, the most significant correlation was found in TOHP. These results suggest, first, the P300 latency significantly delayed in parkinsonian patients which is partially improved by levodopa therapy ; second, visuomotor procedural learning but not visuoperceptual procedural learning is impaired in parkinsonian patients which is also partially responsive to levodopa therapy third, although visuoperceptual procedural learning is not impaired, the transformation process of procedural learning into declarative learning is probably impaired in Parkinson's disease ; fourth, the dopaminergic lesion in Parkinson's desease may have a role in producing both P300 abnormality and impairments in visuomotor procedural learning.
Humans ; Learning* ; Levodopa ; Neuropsychological Tests ; Parkinson Disease*

BACKGROUND: The tests for the anti-rubella antibodies are important in early pregnancies because the risk of congenital anomaly should be considered depending on the results. We would like to evaluate analytical performance of Roche Modular Analytics E170 (Roche Diagnostics, Mannheim, Germany; E170) for anti-rubella antibodies. METHODS: For the comparison studies, a total of 436 sera from pregnant or fertile women was used for the detection of anti-rubella antibodies by E170 and VIDAS analyzer. The precision of E170 for serum anti-rubella IgM and IgG were also evaluated. RESULTS: In the precision study, within-run and total CV of anti-rubella IgM and IgG were below 5%. In the comparison study, the agreement of E170 with VIDAS was above 90%. CONCLUSIONS: The E170 showed a satisfactory precision for anti-rubella antibodies and a high level of concordance with VIDAS. Therefore, E170 would be useful as a routine immunoassay analyzer for measuring anti-rubella IgM and IgG antibodies.
Antibodies* ; Female ; Germany ; Humans ; Immunoassay ; Immunoglobulin G* ; Immunoglobulin M* ; Pregnancy

PURPOSE: APC (adenomatous polyposis coli) gene is one of the tumor-suppressor genes that acts in the early stages of cancer. Among general colon cancer patients, normal APC gene expression is deficient in 80%. It seems that APC is the most important gene in the development of colon cancer. This study was performed to analyze the mutation spectra of APC gene in sporadic colon cancer tissue from Korean patients with colon cancer. METHODS: A total of 38 patients with sporadic colon cancer were enrolled. Colon cancer tissues were analyzed for the determination of APC gene mutation spectra by multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) method using SALSA MLPA P403 APC kit (MRC-Holland, Amsterdam, NL). RESULTS: APC gene mutations showing deletion/duplication in one or more exons were detected in 23 (60.5%) patients. Duplication in 13 patients (56.5%), duplication and deletion in 7 patients (30.4%), and deletion in 3 patients (13.1%) was detected. The incidence of APC gene mutation found in this study was highest in exon 3. From this study, no significant differences were observed with respect to clinicopathologic findings and the presence or absence of APC mutations. CONCLUSION: The frequency of APC gene mutation was about 61% in Korean patients with colon cancer, it showed concordance with the previous reports on the frequency of APC gene mutation from Caucasian patients with sporadic colon cancer. However, in contrast to these reports, the frequency of duplication disclosed much higher than those of western countries.
Colon ; Colonic Neoplasms ; Exons ; Genes, APC ; Humans ; Incidence ; Multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction

OBJECTIVE: Endovascular treatment is now accepted as an initial treatment modality, especially in cases of posterior circulation aneurysms. The purpose of this study was to review the treatment outcomes and to emphasize the necessity of maintaining the surgical ability for posterior circulation aneurysms. METHODS: During the past 10 years, 570 patients have been treated for cerebral aneurysms at our institute. Among these patients, 34 harbored posterior circulation aneurysms. From January 2004 to June 2008, 13 of the 34 patients were treated by endovascular coiling. We retrospectively reviewed the clinical outcome, cerebral angiograms, and other radiological imagings through a comparative study of the pre- and post-endovascular treatment periods. RESULTS: Overall, 9 (69.2%) of the pre-endovascular treatment period group and 20 (95.2%) of the endovascular treatment period group had good outcomes. The mean post-operative hospital days for these groups were 38.6 and 21.1, respectively. Patients in the endovascular treatment period group had shorter post-operative hospital periods and better outcomes than those in the pre-endovascular treatment period group. CONCLUSION: It is recommended that multimodality treatment involving microsurgical clipping and endovascular coiling is used to obtain better results in the treatment of posterior circulation aneurysms. These results suggest that although the trend toward endovascular treatment as the initial aneurysm therapy for posterior circulation aneurysms is also enhancing, it might be necessary to maintain the surgical ability for posterior circulation aneurysm.
Aneurysm ; Humans ; Intracranial Aneurysm ; Retrospective Studies

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Corrected transposition of the great arteries (C-TGA) is a rare congenital heart disease, of which prognosis depends on the associated cardiac defects, systemic ventricular function, competency of atrioventricular valves, and the presence of conduction disturbances. This study was aimed to assess the midterm follow-up status of C-TGA. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Retrospective review was performed on 89 cases with C-TGA and two ventricles of adequate size, which were diagnosed between January 1980 and June 1997. RESULTS: Study subjects consisted of 56 males and 33 females (average age at diagnosis, 9 months). Mean follow-up duration was 98 months (range, 2 months - 23 years 8 months). Based on the associated cardiac anomalies, there were 6 simple C-TGA and 83 complex C-TGA patients. Surgery including 19 palliative and 47 corrective operations was attempted on 61 cases at mean age of 69 months. Tricuspid regurgitation (TR) was noted at the time of first examination in 52 (mild in 39; moderate in 8; severe in 5) and progressed in 18 patients. TVR was done on 5 patients and double switch on 7 patients. Arrhythmia was noted preoperatively (complete AV block in 3) in 11 and postoperatively (postoperative complete AV block in 3) in 22 patients. A total of 13 cases died including 10 perioperative deaths during follow-up. Actuarial survival rate at 10 year was 84.5%. CONCLUSION: In this study, the midterm outcome of corrected TGA is acceptable. However, long-term follow-up is required in respect to the function of atrioventricular valve and the systemic ventricle.
Arrhythmias, Cardiac ; Arteries* ; Atrioventricular Block ; Child* ; Diagnosis ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies* ; Heart Defects, Congenital ; Humans ; Male ; Prognosis ; Retrospective Studies ; Survival Rate ; Tricuspid Valve Insufficiency ; Ventricular Function