The National Institute of Health(NIH) under the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the Korean Government was established in 1963 integrating four institutes; National Institute of Health National Chemical Laboratories National Laboratory of Herb Medicine and National Institute of Public Health Training The root however goes down to the Bacteriology Laboratory opened in 1912 with the function for microbiological testing and pox vaccine development which was absorbed into the former National Institute of Health in 1948 when the government of the Republic of Korea was inaugurated. The Institute opened a satellite office the Masan Branch in 1977 and was further expanded adding the Divisions of AIDS and Biotechnology in 1988. In 1996 as a part of restructuring the Government organizations Korea Food and Drug Administration(KFDA) was founded by expanding the Toxicology Research Institute to which all the functions of testing and certifying foods and drugs were transferred Simultaneously a new department the Department of Biomedical science was organized which currently consists of five divisions; the Divisions of Cancer Research Degenerative Diseases Cardiovascular Diseases Metabolic Diseases and Genetic Diseases. In 1999 in order to provide a rapid and effective disease control the Department of Communicable Diseases was newly founded merging the Division of Disease Control and Prevention from the Ministry of Health and Welfare. With these steady and significant changes the NIH together with the training of health manpower has become the national organization for research prevention and control of various diseases of public health importance in Korea.
Academies and Institutes/*history ; English Abstract ; Government Agencies/*history ; History of Medicine, 20th Cent. ; History of Medicine, 21st Cent. ; Korea ; Public Health Administration/*history ; Research/*history

Flavimonas oryzihabitans is a gram-negative, glucose non-fermentative bacillus, and is rarely reported as a pathogen in human. In recent years, reports of infection due to F. oryzihabitans, especially in immunocompromised patients with indwelling catheter or peritoneal Tenckhoff catheter have increased. We report two cases of F. oryzihabitans peritonitis in patients undergoing continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD).
Bacillus ; Catheters ; Catheters, Indwelling ; Glucose ; Humans ; Immunocompromised Host ; Peritoneal Dialysis, Continuous Ambulatory* ; Peritonitis* ; Pseudomonas*

PURPOSE: This study compared the total antioxidant status (TAS) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity in the saliva of periodontally compromised patients before and after scaling and root planing (SRP) to assess their diagnostic utility. METHODS: Severe chronic periodontitis patient (test group) and subjects with no attachment loss, sites showing a 3 mm or more probing depth and a sulcus bleeding index < 10% (control group) were enrolled in this study. Saliva sampling and clinical examination were performed at one week, one month and 3 months after SRP. The TAS and SOD activity in each patient's saliva was measured for the comparative analysis between the groups. RESULTS: In the test group, the TAS decreased directly after SRP. With time, it increased slightly and was relatively unchanged compared to the baseline. In the control group, the TAS also decreased immediately after SRP but increased gradually with time until 3 months. The SOD activity in the test and control subjects decreased immediately after SRP until 1 month. At 3 months, the SOD activity had increased. Both groups had a similar profile of SOD activity. However, the SOD activity of the control group was significantly higher than that of the test group at each point in time (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: There was a significant difference in the total salivary antioxidant level between the periodontitis and healthy or gingivitis (control) group during the experiment period. The total antioxidant level in the saliva was higher in the patients with severe chronic periodontitis than the healthy or gingivitis control before SRP. The SOD activity of the periodontitis patients was lower than the control at each time point. These findings conclusively reveal the possible use of saliva as a diagnostic tool for periodontal health.
Antioxidants ; Chronic Periodontitis ; Gingivitis ; Hemorrhage ; Humans ; Periodontal Diseases ; Periodontitis ; Root Planing ; Saliva ; Superoxide Dismutase

No abstract available.
Emergencies* ; Emergency Service, Hospital*

Benign partial epilepsy of childhood is the most common type of epilepsy in school-aged children and is typically well controlled with antiepileptic drug, thus having an excellent prognosis. Recently, we have encountered one case of atypical benign partial epilepsy of childhood with the following atypical clinical and EEG features : predominant atypical absence seizure in addition to partial motor seizure, unusual awake EEG tracings of focal sharp waves in the frontocentrotemporal location, while the sleep tracings showed nearly continuous slow spike and wave activity. The administration of various antiepileptic drugs adversely provoked a drowsy mental state without seizure control. The patient dramatically improved after steroid therapy.
Anticonvulsants ; Child ; Electroencephalography ; Epilepsies, Partial* ; Epilepsy ; Epilepsy, Absence ; Humans ; Prognosis ; Seizures

BACKGROUND: Although the poor short-term outcome of antiepileptic drug (AED) treatment may represent long-term AED refractoriness in general, the same hypothesis in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) has yet to come up as an important subject to be investigated. We examined to decide early drug intractability and aid treatment plan. METHODS: From a prospective patient cohort of Yonsei Epilepsy Clinic, 121 newly-referred TLE patients were selected to participate in this study. First, we divided the patients into two groups according to their second one-year remission at two year of AED treatment. One group was the remission group (RG) and the other was the non-remission group (NRG). Second, we evaluated clinical characteristics influencing remission between the two groups. RESULTS: Nineteen patients (15.7%) were RG whereas 102 (84.3%) were NRG. The six month remission and terminal remission at the first year of AED treatment and the first one year remission rate in patients with RG was significantly higher than those with NRG (P<0.05). In patients with NRG, the number of complex partial seizures and secondary generalized seizures, the annual frequency of secondary generalized seizures prior to AED treatment, polypharmacy, new drug use, and drug side effects were significantly higher (p<0.05) than RG. CONCLUSIONS: The earlier seizure outcome may influence the later prognosis of AED treatment in non-lesional TLE. The prognosis during the second year of AED treatment is influenced by drug treatment and the number of generalized seizures.
Anticonvulsants ; Cohort Studies ; Epilepsy ; Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe* ; Humans ; Polypharmacy ; Prognosis* ; Prospective Studies ; Seizures ; Temporal Lobe*

No abstract available.
Hamartoma*

To investigate the effect of diazepam on the contractility of the intestinal smooth muscle, longitudinal muscle strip isolated from rat ileum was prepared for myography in isolated organ bath. 1) Basal tone of ileal muscle was reduced by diazepam concentration-dependently. 2) Higher concentrations (30 and 100 microM) of diazepam inhibited (p<0.05, p<0.001) The carbachol-induced contraction in a concentration-dependent manner; but lower concentration of diazepam (10 microM) enhanced (p<0.05). 3) Histamine-induced contraction was inhibited by pretreatment with diazepam in a concentration-dependent manner. 4) Ca⁺⁺-induced tension recovery in calcium-free solution was inhibited in the presence of diazepam concentration-dependently. These results suggest diazepam reduces the contractility of the longitudinal muscle isolated from rat ileum via interference with influx of calcium into the muscle cells.
Animals ; Baths ; Calcium ; Carbachol* ; Diazepam* ; Ileum* ; Muscle Cells ; Muscle, Smooth ; Myography ; Rats*

No abstract available.
Cerebral Palsy* ; Humans

Aspergillosis of the spine has been reported infrequently. It has usually been attributed to hematogenous infection, spread from an adjacent pulmonary infection. Acute paraplegia developed in a 68 year old man with aspergillus infection. Histopathologic findings showed aspergillus hyphae and magnetic resonance imaging study revealed mid thoracic cord compression. Direct extension of aspergillus infection caused an epidural abscess, vertebral destruction, thoracic spinal cord compression, and paraplegia.
Aged ; Aspergillosis* ; Aspergillus ; Epidural Abscess ; Humans ; Hyphae ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Paraplegia* ; Spinal Cord Compression ; Spine*