No abstract available.
Humans ; Male ; Military Personnel*

No abstract available.
Humans ; Male ; Military Personnel*

No abstract available.
Lymphangioleiomyomatosis* ; Tuberous Sclerosis*

BACKGROUND: Endobroncheal intubation or extubation may occur accidentally when the patient's neck is flexed or extended even in the appropriate endotracheal intubation. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of fixation or unfixation of the endotracheal tube at the teeth level on the displacement of its distal end when the patient's neck is extended or flexed. METHODS: This study was conducted in 37 patients who underwent endotracheal general anesthesia. The patients with the evidence of pathology in head, neck and chest were excluded from the study. Individual patient's displacement in endotracheal tube tip compared unfixed cases with fixed cases when the change of neck position. The moved distance was measured by fiberoptic bronchoscope. The data were statistically analyzed by Student's paired t-test. RESULTS: The endotracheal tube moved away from the carina when the patient's neck was extended, while it moved toward the carina when flexed in all cases. When the patient's neck was extended the average distance displaced 1.2 0.7 cm in fixed cases and 1.1 0.9 cm in unfixed cases. when the neck was flexed, they were 1.2 0.5 cm and 1.0 0.8 cm respectively. There were not statistically significant between the fixed and the unfixed cases. CONCLUSIONS: It is concluded that the displacement of the endotracheal tube is not related to its fixation or unfixation at the teeth level and therefore, unfixation does not provide any benefits in terms of the displacement of the distal end of the tube in adult trachea.
Adult ; Anesthesia, General ; Bronchoscopes ; Head ; Humans ; Intubation ; Intubation, Intratracheal ; Neck* ; Pathology ; Thorax ; Tooth ; Trachea

Subcutaneous emphysema is a complication of the pneumoperitoneum necessary to perform laparoscopy and will be seen more often as laparoscopic techniques are applied to a growing number of intraabdominal procedures. We report a case of subcutaneous emphysema and hypercarbia without pneumothorax or pneumomediastinum during laparoscopic cholecystectomy, which was treated by multiple puncture with 18G needle on emphysematous site. The suspected cause is inadvertent subcutaneous insufflation of carbon dioxide through the trocar sites by increased intra-abdominal pressure for the establishment of pneumoperitoneum. Immediate recognition, evaluation, and treatment of subcutaneous emphysema is necessary since this can be life-threatening complication.
Carbon Dioxide ; Cholecystectomy, Laparoscopic* ; Insufflation ; Laparoscopy ; Mediastinal Emphysema ; Needles ; Pneumoperitoneum ; Pneumothorax ; Punctures ; Subcutaneous Emphysema* ; Surgical Instruments

BACKGROUND: As an airplane has been developed, the man could experienced the new environment. In these circumstances, the research of human's physical changes in the air was commended. About 80% of airplane's accidents was occurred by human factors and about 4% was related to the pilot's physical state. According to the many studies, the most common cause of the permanent grounding of the pilot is coronary artery disease(CAD). Therefore the tool of prevention and early detection for CAD was needed. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of routine and regular Exercise Treadmill Test(ETT) to the civil airline pilots especially 1) in decreasing the correctable risk factors of coronary artery disease 2) in reducing the medical disqualification rate of pilots. METHOD: Routine ETT has been performed to the Asiana Airlines' pilot during his regular physical check up. When the pilot showed abnormal resting ECG or abnormal ETT results, Echocardiography, 24hour Holter monitoring, Cardiac SPECT or Coronary angiography were done to rule out coronary artery disease. Review the medical records from June 1993 through December 1998. Compare the medical disqualification rate between Asiana Airlines pilot & other pilot groups. Compare the individual correctable risk factors of coronary artery disease and the numbers of risk factors between pilot and non-pilot group using SPSS 8.0 t-test. RESULTS: 1. The results showed no evidence of CAD and there was no case of CAD as a pilot's disqualifying conditions. 2. The levels of cholesterol and the numbers of risk factors of pilot had a statistically significantly lower than non-pilot group. CONCLUSIONS: Routine and regular ETT will be effective in educating the pilot to do his best to decrease the correctable risk factors of CAD.
Aircraft ; Cholesterol ; Coronary Angiography ; Coronary Artery Disease ; Coronary Vessels ; Echocardiography ; Electrocardiography ; Electrocardiography, Ambulatory ; Exercise Test* ; Humans ; Medical Records ; Risk Factors ; Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon

Williams syndrome is a congenital disorder characterized by mental retardation, loquacious personalities, dysmorphic face, and vascular and valvular abnormalities. The etiology of this syndrome was one allelic loss of elastin gene, exhibiting a submicroscopic deletion, at 7q11.23. Sudden death is an infrequently recognized complication. The mechanism of sudden death is explained by myocardial ischemia, decreased cardiac output, and arrhythmia by anatomical abnormality of coronary artery stenosis and severe biventricular outflow tract obstruction. We report an autopsy case of a 80 day-old male with Williams syndrome. Five days before admission, cardiac murmur was detected incidentally on ascultation at a local clinic during a visit for vaccination. He was transferred to our hospital and cardiac catheterization was done. He died suddenly next day. Postmortem examination revealed a dysmorphic face and multiple cardiovascular abnormalities including supravalvular aortic stenosis with narrowed coronary artery ostia, supravalvular pulmonic stenosis, secundum type of atrial septal defect, right ventricular hypertrophy, and renal artery stenosis. Histologically, aorta and pulmonary, bronchial, and renal arteries showed markedly hyperplastic medial elastic laminae approximately three times thick compared to those of age-matched normal artery. The elastic fibers of the innermost two thirds of media were disposed in a normal orderly parallel fashion. In outer third of the media, the elastic fibers had lost the normal orderly arrangement.
Aorta ; Aortic Stenosis, Supravalvular ; Arrhythmias, Cardiac ; Arteries ; Autopsy* ; Cardiac Catheterization ; Cardiac Catheters ; Cardiac Output ; Cardiovascular Abnormalities ; Congenital, Hereditary, and Neonatal Diseases and Abnormalities ; Coronary Stenosis ; Coronary Vessels ; Death, Sudden ; Elastic Tissue ; Elastin ; Heart Murmurs ; Heart Septal Defects, Atrial ; Humans ; Hypertrophy, Right Ventricular ; Infant* ; Intellectual Disability ; Loss of Heterozygosity ; Male ; Myocardial Ischemia ; Pulmonary Valve Stenosis ; Renal Artery ; Renal Artery Obstruction ; Vaccination ; Williams Syndrome*

Williams syndrome is a congenital disorder characterized by mental retardation, loquacious personalities, dysmorphic face, and vascular and valvular abnormalities. The etiology of this syndrome was one allelic loss of elastin gene, exhibiting a submicroscopic deletion, at 7q11.23. Sudden death is an infrequently recognized complication. The mechanism of sudden death is explained by myocardial ischemia, decreased cardiac output, and arrhythmia by anatomical abnormality of coronary artery stenosis and severe biventricular outflow tract obstruction. We report an autopsy case of a 80 day-old male with Williams syndrome. Five days before admission, cardiac murmur was detected incidentally on ascultation at a local clinic during a visit for vaccination. He was transferred to our hospital and cardiac catheterization was done. He died suddenly next day. Postmortem examination revealed a dysmorphic face and multiple cardiovascular abnormalities including supravalvular aortic stenosis with narrowed coronary artery ostia, supravalvular pulmonic stenosis, secundum type of atrial septal defect, right ventricular hypertrophy, and renal artery stenosis. Histologically, aorta and pulmonary, bronchial, and renal arteries showed markedly hyperplastic medial elastic laminae approximately three times thick compared to those of age-matched normal artery. The elastic fibers of the innermost two thirds of media were disposed in a normal orderly parallel fashion. In outer third of the media, the elastic fibers had lost the normal orderly arrangement.
Aorta ; Aortic Stenosis, Supravalvular ; Arrhythmias, Cardiac ; Arteries ; Autopsy* ; Cardiac Catheterization ; Cardiac Catheters ; Cardiac Output ; Cardiovascular Abnormalities ; Congenital, Hereditary, and Neonatal Diseases and Abnormalities ; Coronary Stenosis ; Coronary Vessels ; Death, Sudden ; Elastic Tissue ; Elastin ; Heart Murmurs ; Heart Septal Defects, Atrial ; Humans ; Hypertrophy, Right Ventricular ; Infant* ; Intellectual Disability ; Loss of Heterozygosity ; Male ; Myocardial Ischemia ; Pulmonary Valve Stenosis ; Renal Artery ; Renal Artery Obstruction ; Vaccination ; Williams Syndrome*

Idiopathic spinal cord herniation is a rare spinal cord disorder caused by spinal cord prolapse through a adural defect. It is a curable disease, so early detection is of particular importance. We report a 38-year-old woman with Brown-Sequard syndrome which was caused by the thoracic spinal cord herniation. Her weakness was almost completely resolved after surgical management, which emphasizes the importance of early diagnosis and surgical management in this rare disease entity.
Adult ; Brown-Sequard Syndrome* ; Early Diagnosis ; Female ; Humans ; Prolapse ; Rare Diseases ; Spinal Cord Diseases ; Spinal Cord*

OBJECTIVE: The surgical treatment of symptomatic degenerative disc disease remains one of the most controversial topics among spine surgeons. Recently, advances in many endoscopic surgical techniques have resulted in lowered morbidity, expense, and suffering associated with their open surgery counterparts. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of laparoscopic anterior lumbosacral interbody fusion in our patients with symptomatic degenerative disc disease. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We performed laparoscopic anterior interbody fusion for degenerative disc disease at L5-S1 in 26 patients who were unresponsive to conservative treatments for 1 year, from Oct. 1996 to Dec. 1997. This technique consists of a four-puncture laparoscopic approach with a 10mm trocar at the umbilicus for laparoscope, two 5mm trocars at left and right flanks for dissection, and a 15mm trocar at suprapubic area for working port. We performed complete discectomy and stabilized the spine with carbon interbody fusion cages filled with allograft bone. RESULTS: Laparoscopic fusion at L5-S1 was successful in 22 of 26 patients and the remaining four patients were successfully converted to minilaparotomy. The operation time averaged 150 minutes, hospitalization 4.1 days and average blood loss was 90cc. The mean follow-up period was 16.8 months. Radiographic fusion was achieved in 23 of 26 patients(88.5%) and clinical results showed excellent in 11/26, good in 11/26, fair in 3/26, poor in 1/26 according to Macnab's criteria. There were four complications; retroplacement of cages(1), transient dry ejaculation (1), transient urinary bladder dysfunction(1) and malposition of cages(1). CONCLUSION: Laparoscopic fusion at L5-S1 in degenerative disc disease seems to be safe, with satisfactory clinical results. Main advantage are early recovery and short hospitalization time compared with conventional technique.
Allografts ; Carbon ; Diskectomy ; Ejaculation ; Follow-Up Studies ; Hospitalization ; Humans ; Laparoscopes ; Laparotomy ; Male ; Spine* ; Surgical Instruments ; Umbilicus ; Urinary Bladder