PURPOSE: To evaluate the effects of a logotherapy program entitled 'Finding meaning in my life' for adolescents with terminal cancer. METHODS: A nonequivalent control group, non-synchronized design was conducted with a convenience sample of 44 late adolescents with terminal cancer. The experimental group (n=22) participated in the 'Finding meaning in my life' program which consisted of five-day sessions for one week. The control group (n=22) received the usual nursing care. The effects were measured using adolescent meaning in life (AMIL), and quality of life (QOL) scales. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, Chi-square, and t-test using SPSS/PC 17.0 program. RESULTS: There were significant differences in AMIL (t=3.36, p<.05) and QOL (t=2.67, p<.05) between the experimental and control groups. CONCLUSION: Logotherapy is effective in improving the meaning in life and quality of life of late adolescents with terminal cancer, and can be used to prevent existential distress.
Adolescent ; Demography ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Neoplasms/psychology/*therapy ; Patient Education as Topic ; Program Evaluation ; *Psychotherapy ; Quality of Life ; Questionnaires ; Young Adult

The term histiocytic medullary reticulosis first was introduced by Scott and Robb-Smith. It is a clinicopathologic syndrome characterized by wasting, fever, lymphadenopathy, hepatosplenomegaly, pancytopenia, and is often accompanied by jaundice, purpura. Cardinal pathologic feature are systemized proliferation of atypical, neoplastic, erythrophagocytic D. We are here reporting one case which considered compatible for HMR, with a few elementary reviewed literatures.
Fever ; Jaundice ; Lymphatic Diseases ; Pancytopenia ; Purpura

The 46, XX male syndrome is rare disease that is characterized by a phenotypic male who has a 46, XX female karyotype. Since the first report by de la Chapelle and associates in 1964, several cases have been reported, but it is still a rare entity. Recently we examined a 20-year-old XX male who had the symptoms of gynecomastia, an infantile appearance of the external genitalia, scanty pubic hair, no Adams apple, and no axillary hair. We presently describe a patient with the 46, XX male syndrome who showed a 46, XX karyotype on chromosomal study and review the literatures.
46, XX Testicular Disorders of Sex Development* ; Female ; Genitalia ; Gynecomastia ; Hair ; Humans ; Karyotype ; Male ; Rare Diseases ; Young Adult

A 76-year-old female admitted with nausea, anorexia, vague abdominal pain, and malaise. Her past medical history included an 15-year history of type 2 diabetes mellitus and hypertension. She had been taking metformin, glipizid, and amlodipine for past 2 years. One week previously, she underwent gastroscopy to evaluate epigastic pain, and she was diagnosed Helicobacter pylori positive duodenal ulcer, for which she was treated with amoxicillin, clarithromycin, and omeprazole. At admission, laboratory test revealed lactic acidosis (pH 7.23, bicarbonate 8.3 mEq/L, and lactate 5.51 mmol/L) and acute renal failure with a serum creatinine of 7.4 mg/dL. We diagnosed meformin-associated lactic acidosis and the patient made a complete recovery following therapy with bicarbonate-based hemodialysis and supportive care. It is the first report of metformin-associated lactic acidosis in Korea.
Abdominal Pain ; Acidosis, Lactic* ; Acute Kidney Injury ; Aged ; Amlodipine ; Amoxicillin ; Anorexia ; Clarithromycin ; Creatinine ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 ; Duodenal Ulcer ; Female ; Gastroscopy ; Helicobacter pylori ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Korea ; Lactic Acid ; Metformin ; Nausea ; Omeprazole ; Renal Dialysis

OBJECTIVES: This multi-institutional study aims to investigate the survival rate of premature infants and the causes of death according to gestational age and birth weight during the past three years. METHODS: This study retrospectively examined medical records of 1,400 premature infants who were born at 23 to 34 weeks gestation and were hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit of seven hospitals from 2004 to 2006. Gestational age, birth weight, gender, plurality, survival rate, and cause of death were examined, and the survival rate was measured according to gestational age and birth weight. RESULTS: The average gestational age and the average birth weight of the subjects was 31+/-1.8 weeks and 1,775+/-530 g, respectively. The survival rate showed no difference by gender, plurality and years. The survival rate of very premature babies, low birth weight infants, very low birth weight infants, and extremely low birth weight infants were 87.6%, 93.8%, 83.2%, and 62.7% respectively. Causes of death were the complications of prematurity (83.8%), congenital anomalies (15.2%), birth asphyxia (5.0%) and others (2.5%). The survival rate increased significantly according to the gestational age and also by the birth weight. CONCLUSIONS: Our data do not represent of the survival rate and the causes of death in Korea. However, our data may reflect the common survival rate and the causes of death in Korean NICU, because the 7 hospitals participated in this study were common facilities and manpower in Korea.
Asphyxia ; Birth Weight ; Cause of Death ; Gestational Age ; Humans ; Infant ; Infant, Low Birth Weight ; Infant, Newborn ; Infant, Premature ; Infant, Very Low Birth Weight ; Intensive Care, Neonatal ; Korea ; Medical Records ; Parturition ; Pregnancy ; Premature Birth ; Retrospective Studies ; Survival Rate

The purpose of our study was to create a novel rat aorta stent implantation model. Stainless steel bare metal stents (BMS) or paclitaxel-eluting stents (PES) were implanted in male Sprague-Dawley rats (BW 400 +/- 20 g). Two and four weeks after stent implantation, the aorta were collected, fixed with 2% glutaraldehyde, and cut into two segments. One segment was used for scanning electron microscopy analysis to evaluate re-endothelialization, and the other segment was used to calculate the neointimal area. At 2 weeks after stenting, the appearance of neointimal hyperplasia was less in the PES group than in the BMS group. At 4 weeks after stenting, no significant difference in neointimal hyperplasia was observed between two groups. On the other hand, the PES group showed more thrombus formation and less re-endothelialization compared to the BMS group. This study demonstrated the ability of a novel rat model of aorta stenting via a common carotid artery to measure the efficacy and safety of commercially available drug-eluting stents.
Angioplasty/*methods ; Animals ; Aorta, Thoracic/*surgery/ultrastructure ; Coronary Artery Disease/*surgery ; *Drug-Eluting Stents ; Histocytochemistry ; Male ; Microscopy, Electron, Scanning ; Models, Animal ; Neointima/pathology ; Paclitaxel/*administration & dosage ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley

Parathyroid carcinoma is a very rare disease which comprising 0.1~5% of hyperparathyroidism, and it usually presents with marked hypercalcemia. Clinically, it shows hypercalcemia due to the effect of excessive secretion of parathyroid hormone, bone disease, renal involvement and palpable neck mass. It is known that hyperparathyroidism is induced mostly by parathyroid adenoma but it can be seen in parathyroid hyperplasia, hyperparathyroid carcinoma, rarely associated with familial or multiple endocrine neoplasia. Parathyroid carcinoma can be diagnosed with distant metastasis or local invasion. Treatment is complete resection of primary cancerous lesion and local tissue. Since recurrence or distant metastases are frequent, radiological studies should be done when hypercalcemia is recurred. Sometimes, other tumors can causes hypercalcemia. There are several reports of parathyroid cancer associated with multiple endocrine neoplasia, but has never been reported of parathyroid carcinoma associated with meningioma. We experienced a parathyroid carcinoma with meningioma in 68 year old woman and report the case with the review of literatures.
Aged ; Bone Diseases ; Female ; Humans ; Hypercalcemia ; Hyperparathyroidism ; Hyperplasia ; Meningioma* ; Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia ; Neck ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Parathyroid Hormone ; Parathyroid Neoplasms* ; Rare Diseases ; Recurrence

Parathyroid carcinoma is a very rare disease which comprising 0.1~5% of hyperparathyroidism, and it usually presents with marked hypercalcemia. Clinically, it shows hypercalcemia due to the effect of excessive secretion of parathyroid hormone, bone disease, renal involvement and palpable neck mass. It is known that hyperparathyroidism is induced mostly by parathyroid adenoma but it can be seen in parathyroid hyperplasia, hyperparathyroid carcinoma, rarely associated with familial or multiple endocrine neoplasia. Parathyroid carcinoma can be diagnosed with distant metastasis or local invasion. Treatment is complete resection of primary cancerous lesion and local tissue. Since recurrence or distant metastases are frequent, radiological studies should be done when hypercalcemia is recurred. Sometimes, other tumors can causes hypercalcemia. There are several reports of parathyroid cancer associated with multiple endocrine neoplasia, but has never been reported of parathyroid carcinoma associated with meningioma. We experienced a parathyroid carcinoma with meningioma in 68 year old woman and report the case with the review of literatures.
Aged ; Bone Diseases ; Female ; Humans ; Hypercalcemia ; Hyperparathyroidism ; Hyperplasia ; Meningioma* ; Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia ; Neck ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Parathyroid Hormone ; Parathyroid Neoplasms* ; Rare Diseases ; Recurrence

The incidence of postspinal headache is one of the well known complications of spinal anesthesia. Several factors such as needle size, bevel direction, multiple dural puncture and previous history of postspinal headache were thought to influence the incidence of postspinal headache. This studies were done to see the effect of needle size (22 and 25 gauge needle) and needle bevel direction (parallel, vertical, oblique insertion to the longitudinal dural fiber) on the incidence, duration, severity and location of spinal headache in the 548 patients underwent spinal anesthesia. The following results wre observed: 1) Neither needle size nor needle bevel direction had effect on the incidence of severity, duration and location of postspinal headache. 2) The ineidence of headache was 8.8% (48 cases), 3) The onset of headache was 1~2 day (67%) and duration of headache was 4~5 day (85%) in postanesthetic day. 4) The severity of headache was mild and moderate in 77% cases. 5) In the half cases, headache was relieved by means of bed rest alone.
Anesthesia, Spinal ; Bed Rest ; Headache* ; Humans ; Incidence ; Needles* ; Punctures

Type 1 diabetes is considered as Th1 cell mediated autoimmune disease and the suppression of Th1 cells or the activation of Th2 cells has been regarded as a plausible immunologic intervention for the prevention of type 1 diabetogenesis in a rodent model. CpG ODN is an immunostimulatory sequence primarily present in bacterial DNA, viral DNA and BCG. CpG ODN is conventionally classified as a Th1 cell activator, which has been clinically applied to cancer, allergy and infectious disease. Recently, there was a promising report of that CpG ODN administration suppressed the development of type 1 diabetes in NOD mice by inducing Th2 cell mediated cytokine. However, the antidiabetogenic effect of CpG ODN on NOD mice is controversial. Thus, two studies were serially undertaken with various kinds of CpG motif to find a more optimal sequence and administration method. In the first study, CpG ODN was vaccinated four times and pancreatic inflammation and the quantity of serum insulin subsequently evaluated. In the second study, the amounts of IFN gamma and IL-4 in sera were measured as representative cytokines of Th1 and Th2 cells, respectively. As a result, vaccination or continuous injection of CpG ODN failed to show a preventive effect on type 1 diabetogenesis in NOD mice. Structural differences of CpG ODN also had no affect on the result. CpG ODN also consistently showed affect on the pancreatic pathology. The productions of IFN gamma and IL-4 were detected only in the K and D type CpG ODN administration groups. Comparison of the two cytokines leads to the conclusion that CpG ODN generated a Th1-weighted response in both study groups. It was assumed that CpG ODN failed to produce Th2-weighted cytokine milieu, which can overcome the genetically determined phenotype of NOD mice. Given these results, it was concluded that the immunotherapeutic application of CpG ODN on Type 1 diabetes had clear limitations.
Animals ; DNA/*pharmacology ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1/*immunology/*prevention & control ; Female ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred NOD ; Th1 Cells/*immunology