No abstract available.
T-Lymphocytes* ; Transplantation*

Major depressive disorder(MDD) is one of the most common diseases with serious health consequences such as increased morbidity, disability, and mortality. Electroconvulsive therapy(ECT) has been used as a treatment for mental disorder since the 1930s. A growing number of recent publications support the conclusions that ECT is an effective and safe treatment for depressed patients. Dosing strategies, frequency, safety, side effects and efficacy of ECT in MDD will be considered. ECT may be an alternative to treatment with antidepressants.
Antidepressive Agents ; Depressive Disorder, Major ; Electroconvulsive Therapy ; Humans ; Mental Disorders

Depression has been causing huge direct and indirect losses to people's health because of its high prevalence, various clinical patterns, drug reaction and diverse courses different among individuals, but its treatment has not been systematic but dependent on individual clinicians'experience and knowledge. To correct this problem, it has been highly necessary to develop clinical guidelines defined as"systematically developed statements to assist practitioners'and patients'decisions about appropriate healthcare for specific clinical circumstances." Currently, countries throughout the world are making efforts to establish evidence-based guidelines among different levels of guidelines and to evaluate and test them. Although such efforts have been unsatisfactory in Korea because of several constraints including lack of high-quality RCT, the Korean Depression Clinical Practice Guideline has started to develop evidence-based guidelines, which are established through strictly designed processes. Thus, the present study purposed to review methods adopted in the development processes and to present the processes of developing the evidence-based guidelines clearly and transparently.
Delivery of Health Care ; Depression ; Korea ; Prevalence

The serotonin 6(5-HT6) receptor gene is a candidate gene for influencing the clinical response to treatment with antidepressants. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between the C267T polymorphism in the 5-HT6 receptor gene and the treatment response to citalopram in a Korean population with major depressive disorder(MDD). METHODS: Citalopram was administered for 8 weeks to the 90 patients who completed study. 21-item Hamilton depression rating scale(HAMD-21) was used as a outcome measure. RESULTS: We found that the genotype, allele, and allele-carrier distributions did not differ significantly between MDD patients and normal controls. A main effect of an interaction of genotype with time on the decrease in the HAMD-21 score during the 8 weeks study period was not found. ANOVA revealed no significant effects of the C825T polymorphism on the decrease in the HAMD-21 score at each time period. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that the C267T polymorphism in the 5-HT6 receptor gene is not associated with the treatment response to citalopram.
Alleles ; Antidepressive Agents ; Citalopram* ; Depression ; Depressive Disorder, Major* ; Genotype ; Humans ; Outcome Assessment (Health Care) ; Serotonin

BACKGROUND: The dopaminergic genes have been implicated with some personality traits. Many recent studies indicated that there is a correlation between D2 dopamine receptor gene(DRD2) polymorphisms and the personality traits. The purpose of this study is to investigate a possible association between DRD2 gene (TaqI A, TaqI B) polymorphism and personality traits. METHODS: The subjects were consisted of 173 blood-unrelated young female Koreans with a mean age(+/-SD) of 13.88(+/-0.29) years. These volunteers were recruited from one of the junior high schools in Seoul and were tested by the Korean version of the Temperament and Character Inventory(TCI). Genotyping of the DRD2 polymorphisms by PCR methods were carried out. Two DRD2 gene polymorphisms were classified and individually assessed as follows: TaqI A1+ vs A1-, TaqI B1+ vs B-. The associations between the TCI scores and TaqI A, TaqI B polymorphisms were assessed by Student's t-test. RESULTS: In the 173 subjects, the allele frequencies of the DRD2 TaqI A1, TaqI B1 alleles ranged from 0.42 to 0.43, and these results are quite different from the ranges of 0.15-0.20 in the case of a Caucasian population. The genotype frequencies of DRD2(TaqI A1, TaqI B1) variants showed no significant deviation from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. RD4(dependence vs. independence) of Cloninger's TCI, a sub-dimension of Reward Dependence, was significantly higher in the subjects having DRD2 less frequent alleles than those without these alleles. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that the female subjects carrying the less frequent DRD2 alleles exhibited higher reward-dependent personality trait compared to those without these alleles.
Alleles ; Dopamine* ; Female ; Gene Frequency ; Genotype ; Humans ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Receptors, Dopamine* ; Reward* ; Seoul ; Temperament ; Volunteers

OBJECTIVES: The purposes of this study were to investigate depressive symptoms among married women and to their understand depression through social and interpersonal factors. METHODS: The subjects were consisted of 632 married women who lived in 00 city. They completed the Beck Depression Inventory, Marital Global Distress Scale, Dissatisfaction with Children Scale, and Conflict-coping Method Scale. Descriptive statistics, correlation, chi2-test, ANOVA, step-wise regression, and hierarchical regression were applied to analyze the data. RESULTS: ANOVA analysis showed the differences in education, income, experience of abuse, parent-in-law relationship, marital global distress, dissatisfaction with children, rational coping, emotion/action-expression coping, and avoidant coping among the non-depressive group, mildly depressive group, and depressive group. Step-wise regression showed that the variance of the current depressive symptoms was accounted for by marital global distress, dissatisfaction with children, avoidance coping method, and satisfaction with parent-in-law (total account=36.1%). It was found that the rational coping method and avoidance coping method significantly mediated the relationship between the satisfaction with family relation and depressive symptoms. CONCLUSION: Therapeutic interventions for the married women experiencing depressive symptoms showed include their marital relationship. Based on the finding that the conflict coping methods mediated the association between the depressive symptoms and the family relation satisfaction, the effective conflict coping skills or social problem solving skills should be included in the interventions for married women.
Adaptation, Psychological ; Child ; Depression* ; Education ; Family Relations* ; Female ; Humans ; Marriage ; Social Problems

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the indications, clinical features, cytogenetic results and complications of amniocentesis and to determine the efficacy of antenatal genetic amniocentesis. METHODS: We analyzed retrospectively maternal age, gestational age, indications, transplacental puncture, frequency, discoloration of amniotic fluid, karyotype and complications in 325 cases of prenatal genetic amniocentesis performed at Chungnam National University Hospital from January 2000 to December 2002. RESULTS: The most common age group was from 30 to 34 (31.4%) and mean age was 32.7 years old. 85.3% of cases were performed at 16th-20th gestational weeks. Abnormal maternal serum markers were the most common indication of amniocentesis (56.0%) and the second most common indication was maternal age over 35 (33.2%). Abnormal karyotypes were found in 12 cases (3.6%) and normal variants were 21 cases (6.5%). Numerical aberration were 9 cases (2.7%) and structural aberration were 3 cases (0.3%). Among the autosomal aberrations, Down syndromes were 5 cases and Edward syndrome was 1 case. Among the sex chromosomal aberrations, 47,XXX were 2 cases and Turner syndrome was 1 case. As the increasing maternal age, the incidence of abnormal karyotype was increased. Procedure-related complications occurred in 11.7% of cases and fetal loss rate was 7.4%. No significant associations were found between procedure-related complications and maternal age, gestational age, transplacental puncture, frequency, discoloration of amniotic fluid, and antibiotic treatment. CONCLUSION: Amniocentesis is useful for prenatal genetic diagnosis in pregnancies with increasing risk of chromosome aberrations, such as advanced maternal age, abnormal maternal serum markers or abnormal US findings. Further studies are necessary to identify risk factors of complications after invasive procedure.
Abnormal Karyotype ; Amniocentesis* ; Amniotic Fluid ; Biomarkers ; Chromosome Aberrations ; Chungcheongnam-do ; Cytogenetic Analysis* ; Cytogenetics* ; Diagnosis ; Female ; Gestational Age ; Humans ; Incidence ; Karyotype ; Maternal Age ; Pregnancy ; Pregnancy Trimester, Second* ; Punctures ; Retrospective Studies ; Risk Factors ; Turner Syndrome

No abstract available.
Cell Line* ; Glioma*

No abstract available.
Kidney Failure, Chronic* ; Renal Dialysis*

BACKGROUND: Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been reported to be useful in treating nonmelanoma skin cancers and a variety of benign skin conditions including warts. However, only one case of condyloma acuminata treated with PDT has been reported in Korea. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the complete response rate and side effect of PDT, using light emitting diode (LED) device and 20% 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) to treat recalcitrant verruca. METHODS: We treated 8 cases of recalcitrant verruca (3 cases of verruca vulgaris, 3 cases of verruca plana, 2 cases of condyloma acuminata) with PDT, using ALA and a 630+/-50nm LED device. The light intensity was 30-50mW/cm2 and the light dose was 50-120J/cm2. RESULTS: After treatment, two cases of verruca plana showed complete response, and one case of verruca plana, two cases of verruca vulgaris, and two cases of condyloma acuminata showed partial response. However, one case of verruca vulgaris showed no response. There was only burning sensation and/or wheals during treatments. CONCLUSION: Topical PDT may be an alternative therapy in the treatment of verruca, especially of verruca plana.
Burns ; Korea ; Photochemotherapy* ; Sensation ; Skin ; Skin Neoplasms ; Warts*