PURPOSE: This study was designed to identify the possible mechanism of insensitivity of DU145 prostate cancer cells to the transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta1-mediated growth inhibition. MATERIALS AND METHODS: DU145 cells were treated with 4, 40, 100 pM TGF-beta1 for 3, 6, 9 days. Initially we performed the growth assay. After that, we analysed the change of cell cycle using fluorescence flow cytometry. At each time point, Western blot analysis with cell pellets was performed to investigate the change of expressions of epidermal growth factor(EGF), TGF-alpha, EGF receptor(EGFR) and TGF receptorII(TbetaR-II) proteins. RESULTS: The growth rate of TGF-beta1-treated cells was initially suppressed, but over time returned to control level. Flow cytometric analysis revealed that TGF-beta1-treated cells showed an increase in apoptotic/G1 phases, and concurrent decrease in S, G2/M phases until 6days. On day 9, however, TGF-beta1-treated cells showed a persistent increase of apoptotic unclei in spite of recovery of apoptotic/G1, S and G2/M phases. Western blot analysis showed that the intensity of EGF or TGF-alpha band decreased in dose-sependent manner on day 6. However, the intensity of each band increased up to the control level on day 9. the expression of EGFR or TbetaR-II protein did not change after treatment of TGF-beta1. CONCLUSIONS: these results suggest that EGF and TGF-alpha sould mediate in part the escape fron the inhibitory effect of TGF-beta1 in DU145 cells.
Blotting, Western ; Cell Cycle ; Epidermal Growth Factor* ; Flow Cytometry ; Fluorescence ; Prostate* ; Prostatic Neoplasms* ; Transforming Growth Factor alpha ; Transforming Growth Factor beta1 ; Transforming Growth Factors ; United Nations

Secondary involvement of the eye and orbit occurs in about two to four percent of the patients with generalized lymphomatosis and/or other forms of lymphomatous tumors. Of the extranodal primary lesions which are more rare manifestation of the malignant lymphoma, only one percent occur in the eye and orbit. The malignant lymphoma of the orbit is consequently a relatively uncommon condition. The authors experienced a case of the malignantly mphoma of the orbital margin and treated by local radiation therapy with Co60, and the lesions regressed rapidly and completely disappeared. There has been no sign of recurrence at the orbital region, but we found that the malignant lymphomatous lesions involved in the pancreas and omentum by the surgical laparotomy. The patient died of poor course of the disease about 20 days after discharge.
Humans ; Laparotomy ; Lymphoma* ; Omentum ; Orbit* ; Pancreas ; Recurrence

Purpose: This study evaluated changes in growth and nutritional status using the first basic and the second repeated surveys on children from North Korean refugee families who settled in South Korea. Methods: A total of 337 children were included in the survey. Using a structured questionnaire, the data collected included sex, date of birth, country of birth, date of entry to South Korea, and birth parents’nationality. The prevalence of stunting, underweight, wasting, and obesity were evaluated using the 2017 Korean National Growth Chart for Children and Adolescents. Results: The prevalence of stunting decreased from 7.9% in the first survey to 6.9% in the second survey; that of underweight decreased from 6.0% to 4.7%; and that of wasting decreased from 6.3% to 3.5%; however, these changes were not statistically significant. The prevalence of obesity significantly increased from 8.0% to 13.2% in the first and second surveys, respectively (p=0.037). There was no significant difference in the prevalence of malnutrition according to the length of stay in South Korea or the children’s country of birth. However, the prevalence of obesity was significantly higher in children with longer lengths of stay and in those born in South Korea. Conclusion Although children from North Korean refugee families have settled in South Korea for a long time, the rate of malnutrition is still high, and the prevalence of obesity continuously increases.

The insulin-like growth factor(IGF)s are believed to play an important role in the maintenance of bone mass. The IGFs are found complexed with high affinity to a family of IGF-binding protein(IGFBP)s in the circulation. It is known that IGFBPs are involved in the transport of IGFs to tissues and modulate IGFs actions at local tissue The purposes of this study were to compare serum IGFBPs profiles in natural menopausal women with and without osteoporosis and in osteoporotic and nonosteoporotic women with premature menopause and to evaluate the relationship between serum IGFBPs profiles and bone mineral density(BMD) in women without ovarian function. Serum IGFBPs were measured by western ligand blot and immunoradiometric assay. The relative levels and proportions of serum IGFBP-2 measured by western ligand blot in natural menopausal women with osteoporosis(n=20) significantly increased compared to nonosteoporotic women(n= 20), whereas relative levels of serum IGFBP-3 in natural menopausal women with osteoporosis decreased. No significant differences in the relative levels of serum IGFBPs between osteoporotic(n=8) and nonosteoporotic women(n=10) with premature menopause were noted. The IGFBP-3 levels determined by immunoradiometric assay in women without ovarian function(n= 69) showed a similiar trend. The relative proportions of serum IGFBP-2 in osteoporotic women without ovarian function were signifcantly higher than those in nonosteoporotic women whereas relative levels of serum IGFBP-3 in osteoporotic women with natural menopause decreased. The relative levels and proportions of serum IGFBP-2 in women without ovarian function correlated negatively with BMD of lumbar spine, trochanter and Ward's triangle but there were significant positive correlations between levels and relative proportions of serum IGFBP-3 and BMD of above sites. No significant correlations between relative levels and proportions of serum IGFBP-1, IGFBP-2 and BMD were noted. Our data indicate that serum IGFBP profiles might be useful in identifying women without ovarian funcion at risk for osteoporosis,
Bone Density* ; Carrier Proteins* ; Female ; Femur ; Humans ; Immunoradiometric Assay ; Insulin* ; Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein 1 ; Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein 2 ; Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein 3 ; Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Proteins ; Menopause ; Menopause, Premature ; Osteoporosis ; Spine

No abstract available.

Burkholderia cepacia is a Gram-negative aerobic bacillus known to cause opportunistic infections in the immune-compromised hosts. This microorganism is strongly virulent and causes a necrotising invasive infection that may lead to death. As B. cepacia is highly resistant to various antimicrobials, combination antimicrobial therapy must be used instead of monotherapy. We report a successful treatment of lung abscess that was naturally caused by B. cepacia in a healthy child, through combination antimicrobial therapy of meropenem and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole and operative management.
Bacillus ; Burkholderia cepacia* ; Burkholderia* ; Child* ; Humans ; Lung Abscess* ; Lung* ; Opportunistic Infections

Transobturator tape (TOT) operation for urinary stress incontinence is associated with less complication rate than Tension free vaginal tape (TVT). The two procedures yield similar rates of success. The TOT is lead through the obturator foramen, reducing the risk of bladder injury as well as damage of structures located in the Retzii cave, e.g. nerves and blood vessels. However the complications of TOT procedure may have several complications associated with obturator foramen. They are the injury of obturator nerve and vessels, abscess formation on th obturator foramen, vulvar hematoma, etc. There is no report the uterine artery injury after TOT procedure so far. Recently we experienced a case of successful control of bleeding of the uterine artery after TOT operation via uterine artery embolization. Therefore we report our case with brief review of the literatures.
Abscess ; Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols ; Blood Vessels ; Cyclophosphamide ; Doxorubicin ; Hematoma ; Hemorrhage ; Obturator Nerve ; Podophyllotoxin ; Suburethral Slings ; Urinary Bladder ; Urinary Incontinence, Stress ; Uterine Artery ; Uterine Artery Embolization ; Vincristine

OBJECTIVE: Surgical drains are commonly used after the spine surgeries for minimizing hematoma formation, which can delay wound healing and may become a source of fibrosis, infection, and pain. The drain, however, may provide a direct route for infection if it is contaminated. Our objective was to survey the relationship between surgical drains and infection. METHODS: The 70 patients who had undergone single-level lumbar discectomy from April 2011 to March 2012 were retrospectively analyzed. Each patient's medical chart and magnetic resonance image were thoroughly reviewed after all the patients had been divided into the drainage and the nondrainage groups. The amounts and durations of the surgical drains in the drainage group were analyzed. Additionally, the levels of C-reactive protein, rates of infection, scores of preoperative and postoperative visual analog scale (VAS), and lengths of hospital stay after operation were compared between the 2 groups. RESULTS: In this study, 70 patients were retrospectively analyzed; out of which, 42 and 28 patients were included in the drainage and the nondrainage groups, respectively. Two of the postoperative infection cases in the nondrainage group required to undergo repeated operations. The frequency of the postoperative infection cases was higher in the nondrainage group than in the drainage group; however, there was no significant statistical difference between the 2 groups (p=0.157). CONCLUSION: Surgical drains did not elevate postoperative infection. Furthermore, drain tip cultures allowed us to detect postoperative infection at an early stage, and it led to faster initiation of antibiotics treatment.
Anti-Bacterial Agents ; C-Reactive Protein ; Diskectomy ; Drainage ; Fibrosis ; Hematoma ; Humans ; Length of Stay ; Retrospective Studies ; Spine ; Suction ; Treatment Outcome ; Visual Analog Scale ; Wound Healing

BACKGROUND: Genomic instability has been reported as a novel mechanism of tumorigenesis. Microsatellites are short tandemly repeated nucleotide sequences throughout the human genome. Widespread somatic mutations in these sequences due to the loss or gain of one or more repeated units are termed as microsatellite instabilites (MI). MI have been found to be the result of numerous replication errors due to mutations in mismatched repair genes. Recently, MI have been recognized as the causes of the increased mutation rates of cancer cells. An elevated mutation rate manifested by MI may also affect various genes that are essential for normal cell function and growth, thus contributing to tumor initiation, promotion, and progression. We investigated the frequency of MI in a series of 44 gastric carcinomas in an attempt to clarify the role of these genetic alterations in gastric carcinogenesis and to see whether the cases with MI displayed any clinical significance and morphologic features and/or whether they showed distinctive relations with any clinicopathologic characteristics. METHODS: We analyzed 44 gastric carcinomas and paired samples from non-neoplastic mucosa of Korean patients who had undergone a gastrectomy. The samples were immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at 70oC until use. High molecular weight DNAs were isolated by standard methods only from cases whose were composed of more than 50% tumor cells. Ten loci of microsatellites were used in this study: D3S1766, D3S1339, D3S1029, D9S162, D9S171, INF-a, D11S925, D11S1818, D11S35, and D11S1284. The MI analysis was performed by Polymerace Chein Reaction (PCR) with 33P-labelled primers. PCR products were separated on 6% polyacrylamide gel containing 7M urea, and autoradiographed. H-E stained sections were used to review the pathologic features. The relationships between MI incidence and clinicopathologic findings were statistically tested. RESULT: Analysis of the 44 cases at the 10 loci of microsatellites allowed us to identify 19 instabilities (43%): 15 cases at 1 locus, 2 cases at 2 loci, and 2 cases at multiple loci. The incidence of MI was remarkably increased in cases with poor differentiation and node metastasis (p=0.067 and p=0.007, respectively). Comparing the histologic type (diffuse vs. intestinal type), the diffuse type of carcinoma had a higher incidence; however, there was no statistical significance (55% vs. 33%, p=0.108). There was no significant correlation between MI and other prognostic variables including location, tumor size, and distant metastasis. CONCLUSIONS: These results confirm that the mutator phenotype plays in a certain role gastric carcinogenesis. The gastric cancers with MI were correlated with the worse prognostic variables of poor differentiation and node metastasis, suggesting that MI appear to be useful as possible indicators of the worst prognosis and represent important genetic alterations associated with tumor progression in gastric carcinogenesis.
Base Sequence ; Carcinogenesis ; DNA ; Gastrectomy ; Genome, Human ; Genomic Instability ; Humans ; Incidence ; Microsatellite Instability* ; Microsatellite Repeats* ; Molecular Weight ; Mucous Membrane ; Mutation Rate ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Nitrogen ; Phenotype ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Prognosis ; Stomach Neoplasms* ; Urea

Androgen insensitivity syndrome is a genetic syndrome characterized by complete or partial resistance of end organs to the peripheral effect of androgen. The phenotype of this condition is female, despite the normal male karyotype 46,XY. This is the third most common cause of primary amenorrhea after gonadal dysgenesis and mullerian agenesis. There is a congenital insensitivity to androgens, transmitted by means of a maternal X-linked recessive gene responsible for the androgen intracellular receptor. Prophylactic gonadectomy in usually performed due to increased risk for development of malignancy and possible virilization. Pelviscopy provides a minimally invasive technique for the accurate diagnosis and also provides the opportunity for therapeutic management of these patients. Recently we experienced two cases of this syndrome and removed the gonad by pelviscopic surgery, so we presented them with brief review of literature.
Amenorrhea ; Androgen-Insensitivity Syndrome* ; Androgens ; Diagnosis ; Female ; Genes, Recessive ; Gonadal Dysgenesis ; Gonads ; Humans ; Karyotype ; Male ; Phenotype ; Virilism