BACKGROUND: Mechanisms of secondary injury (post-ischemic injury) in the central nervous system have cently reported in a vast of amount of experiments. Among many factors which give rise to post-ischemic neuronal damage, glial deterioration probably mediated by calcium paradox, could be another of the aggravating deleterious factars to the already ischemic neurophil. METHODS: Here we have designed experiment to investigate calcium paradox in astroglial cell line, humsn asttocytoma U1242MG. Intracellular calcium alterations in experimental cells were monitored by using calcium indicating dye fura-2 and epifluorescent photometry system. RESULTS: Intracellular free calcium changes during reperfusion phase after exposure to low calcium led to a prampt increase in intracellular calcium level after 10 and 30 minutes. The way of calcium entry during the reperfusion phase was mediated by the revase mode of Na+/Ca(2+) exchanger. Cells that had a reduction of reperfusate calcium to 10 uM increased cell viability. Also we observed an inverse relationship between major enzymatic activity in the astrocytoma cells (i.e., glutamine synthetase activity) and the duration of reperfusion in the the same protocols. CONCLUSIONS: A relatively small amount of intracellular calcium increase by the reverse mode of Na+/Ca(2+) exchanger during the reperfusion period is related to a limitation of enzyme activity and viability 24 hours later.
Anesthesia* ; Astrocytoma ; Brain ; Calcium ; Capnography* ; Cell Line ; Cell Survival ; Central Nervous System ; Fura-2 ; Glutamate-Ammonia Ligase ; Ions ; Neuroglia ; Neurons ; Photometry ; Reperfusion

Although some employees working for Seoul Metropolitan Subway Cooperation are working at the noisy workplaces, they has been excluded from Special Periodic Health Examination Program. And some workers complained of hearing loss or tinnitus. So, this study was carried out to investigate the prevalence rate of Noise Induced Hearing Loss of employees(10,792) working for Seoul Metropolitan Subway Cooperation. The number of subjects were total 10,792 with 10,355 men and 437 women. A questionnaire survey, otological examination, Rinne test, pure tone audiometric tests were performed and through the first and second screening audiometric examination, 605 workers were selected after excluding employees with past otologic problems, recent exposure to high level noise, and under medications. and the results were as follow; 1. Among 10,792 workers, 4 workers(0.037%) diagnosed as NIHL and 601 workers(5.56%) as early NIHL. As workers grew older, the prevalence rate of NIHL and early NIHL became more rising. 2. The prevalence rate of NIHL and early NIHL was different between work site. After age adjustment, The prevalence rate of NIHL and early NIHL was 23.74% in Train repairmen{80dB(A)}, 3.1% in Station staffs{below 70dB(A)}, 2.53% in Train crew{below 70dB(A)}, 2.1% in Office workers. 3. The perception rate of necessities of ear plug in NIHL and early NIHL was below 55% and wearing rate of ear plug in NIHL and early NIHL was 1.1% In conclusion, some employees who was under working environment in Seoul Metropolitan Subway Cooperation should be monitored to prevent hearing impairment and would be needed health education.
Ear ; Female ; Health Education ; Hearing Loss* ; Hearing* ; Humans ; Male ; Mass Screening ; Noise* ; Prevalence ; Railroads* ; Seoul* ; Tinnitus ; Workplace ; Surveys and Questionnaires

OBJECTIVES: The objectives of the study were to investigate the school nutrition teachers' perception on their job and to find out recommendations needed for its improvement in order to provide a quality foodservice and nutrition education at schools. METHODS: A total of 219 school nutrition teachers in Seoul were surveyed using self-administered questionnaires. RESULTS: The perceived importance of the 16 job duties was rated 3.8 based on a 5-point scale (1: very unimportant - 5: very important). The importance of six duties including nutrition management, production management, nutrition education, and food safety management were rated over 4 point but that of record-keeping for documents, official reporting, and service management was rated the lowest. Importance-Performance Analysis showed that nutrition management, receiving/storage management, production management, menu management, food safety management, and equipment/facilities management should be emphasized to maintain the current performance of duties. The performance of the nutrition education and counseling needed to be improved since the importance scores were greater than average but the performance scores were lower than the average. Official reporting and miscellaneous jobs were rated the highest for simplification need. More than half of the respondents agreed that equipment/facilities management, miscellaneous jobs, service staff supervision, and service line supervision could be allocated to other school departments. CONCLUSIONS: School nutrition teachers should invest more time and resources on their core job duties such as nutrition management, production management, food safety management, and nutrition education for providing quality foodservice and nutrition education. To reflect the environmental changes of school foodservice, a reasonable staffing index of school nutrition teachers needs to be developed. In addition, hiring an assistant or implementing school nutrition teacher internship programs can be useful to reduce workloads of the nutrition teachers.
Counseling ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Education ; Food Safety ; Humans ; Internship and Residency ; Organization and Administration ; Seoul*

The value of ultrasonography and percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography in determining the site and etiology of biliary obstruction with surgical jaundice was studied in 30 patients. All diagnoses were subsequently made by surgery and pathology. The results were as follows; 1. In ultrasonography, the site of obstruction was delineated in 46%, while the etiology of the lesion was established in 40%, In comparison, percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography delineated the site in 100% and the etilogy in 93%. 2. Although the percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography is invasive to the human body, it is considered to be the single procedure of choicein the managment of the patient with biliary obstructive jaundice because of its diagnostic accuracy, technical simplicity and relative safety.
Cholangiography ; Diagnosis ; Human Body ; Humans ; Jaundice ; Jaundice, Obstructive ; Pathology ; Ultrasonography

PURPOSE: An atrophic renal scar(RS) is one of the underlying causes for childhood hypertension and chronic renal failure. The risk factors for atrophic renal scar were evaluated. METHODS: 41 children, who presented with first febrile urinary tract infection at the Ewha Womans University Hospital between 1995 and 2003 and had generalized atrophic RS on 99mTc-DMSA renal scan, were retrospectively studied. Atrophic RS was divided into severe atrophic RS(n=14) if relative uptake on renal scan was below 10%, or mild atrophic RS(n= 27) if relative uptake on renal scan was between 10-35%. RS was defined as congenital if the scar was detected on the first renal scan, and as acquired if the scar developed on the follow-up renal scan from acute pyelonephritis of the first renal scan. The control group was consisted of randomly selected 41 children with segmental RS. The risk factors for atrophic RS such as the generation time, VUR, gender and ACE gene polymorphism were evaluated. RESULTS: The age distribution of atrophic RS and segmental RS did not differ significantly (P>0.05). The rate of congenital RS in atrophic RS was 61.0%(25/41), which was significantly higher than 9.8%(4/41) of segmental RS(P<0.01). Atrophic RS developed more frequently in male children(M:F 68.3%:31.7%) than segmental RS(M:F 41.4%:58.6%)(P<0.05). Vesicoureteral reflux(VUR) was found in 92.7%(38/41) of the atrophic RS, which was significantly higher than 53.7%(22/41) of segmental RS(P<0.05). In children without VUR, the male to female ratio did not differ between atrophic RS and segmental RS(P>0.05). But in children with VUR, there was a higher proportion of males with severe atrophic RS than segmental RS(85.7%:45.5%). ACE gene polymorphism did not differ between the atrophic and segmental RS groups, irrespective of the presence of VUR(P>0.05). CONCLUSION: Most atrophic RSs were congenital which could not be preventable postnatally and the major risk factors were VUR and the male gender. ACE gene polymorphism was not the significant risk factor for an atrophic RS.
Age Distribution ; Child ; Cicatrix* ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Kidney Failure, Chronic ; Male ; Pyelonephritis ; Retrospective Studies ; Risk Factors* ; Technetium Tc 99m Dimercaptosuccinic Acid ; Urinary Tract Infections ; Vesico-Ureteral Reflux

In 1971, Harris introduced a metal backed acetabular cup to allow replacement of worn polyethylene cups and it has been popularly used now. In metal backed acetabular cup, dissociation between metal shell and polyethylene liner usually occurs with hip dislocation. We report a case of dissociation of polyethylene liner in metal bacded cup not associated with hip dislocation.
Acetabulum ; Hip Dislocation ; Hip ; Polyethylene

Spontaneous herniation of the spinal cord is a rare disease entity in which spinal cord substance is herniated through a previously uninjured and/or untouched dura. It is a cause of myelopathy that is treatable but difficult to diagnose. We report the CT and MR findings of a case of spontaneous thoracic spinal cord herniation manifesting as ventrolateral protrusion of thoracic spinal cord through a dural defect.
Rare Diseases ; Spinal Cord Diseases ; Spinal Cord*

PURPOSE: We reported the clinical results of Palmer class 1A triangular fibrocartilage complex (TFCC) injuries treated with arthroscopic partial resection. METHODS: This study included eighteen patients with Palmer class 1A TFCC injury. The results of arthroscopic partial resection were analyzed based on the preoperative and postoperative evaluation of visual analogue scale pain scale, range of motion, grip strength, Mayo wrist score, ulna grind test, ulna stress test and ulnocarpal tenderness. RESULTS: According to the Mayo wrist score, the results were excellent in 10 patients, good in 4, fair in 2, and poor in 2. There was no correlation among the worker's compensation, interval from injury to surgery, age and the treatment results. Patients with complication and scapholunate interosseous ligament tears had a poor clinical outcome. CONCLUSION: The arthroscopic TFCC partial resection is considered as an useful and effective treatment in Palmer class 1A TFCC injuries.
Exercise Test ; Hand Strength ; Humans ; Ligaments ; Range of Motion, Articular ; Triangular Fibrocartilage ; Ulna ; Workers' Compensation ; Wrist

To evaluate the visual, astigmatic results and incidence of complications in cases of no-stich, small incision cataract surgery with a square sclerocorneal tunnel and silicone flexible intraocular lens we cornpared the resuite of catarct surgery in DM patients with those of non-DM patients. 305 eyes of 284 patients including 21 eyes of 20 patients of diabetes mellitus from October, 1994 to Decernber, 1996 who underwent cataract surgery with silicone foldable intraocular lens were enrolled in this retrospective study. During follow-up examination, the change of visual acuity, astigmatism, the incidence of postoperative complications was evaluated. Early visual rehabilitation because of small surgically induced refractive change during im.mediate postoperative period can be achieved. During 2 months follow-up, no against-the-rule shift of astigmatism detected. The incidence of postoperative complication were nearly the same as previous report : decentration 0.7%, hyphema 2%, uveitis 0.4%, posterior casular opacification 4.2%. In cases of posterior capsular opacification, Nd-YAG laser posterior capsulotomy showed significant increment of vision. The visual acuities in DM patients were comparably as good as those of non-DM patients. The incidence of posterior capsular opacification and corneal edema was relatively high in DM patients. In conclusion, no stitch snaall incision cataract, surgery through which silicone foldable intraocular lens im. planted showed good visual, astigmatic results in uncomplicated and selected cases of cornplicated with DM patients.
Astigmatism ; Cataract ; Corneal Edema ; Diabetes Mellitus ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Hyphema ; Incidence ; Lasers, Solid-State ; Lens Implantation, Intraocular* ; Lenses, Intraocular* ; Plants ; Posterior Capsulotomy ; Postoperative Complications ; Postoperative Period ; Rehabilitation ; Retrospective Studies ; Silicones* ; Uveitis ; Visual Acuity

PURPOSE: To assess the characteristic features of MR imaging in the diagnosis of spinal tuberculosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed MR imaging of 27 cases with pathologically-proven spinal tuberculosis and analyzed the MR findings including the extent of the lesions on non-contrast T1, proton density, and T2*VI, and the specific contrast enhancement patterns of the lesion on Gd-DTPA enhnced TIWI. RESULTS: The inflammatory lesions showed low signal intensity on T1WI in 25 patients(93%) and high signal intensity on T2*gradient echo image in 25 patients(93%). Bone destruction was noted in 15 patients(55%), disc-space narrowing in 21 patients(77%), paravertebral abscess in 16 patients(59%), subligamentous extension in 23 patients(85%), kyphosis in 8 patients(29%), and spinal canal narrowing in 19 patients(70%). After Gd-DTPA was administrated, rim-enhancement was noted in all patients(100%). CONCLUSION: We conclude that MR imaging is an excellent imaging modality for establishing the diagnosis of spinal tuberculosis as well as delineating the extent of soft tissue involvement. Characteristic peripheral rim enhancement after injection of Gd-DTPA may provide rather specific diagnosis in spinal tuberculosis.
Abscess ; Diagnosis ; Gadolinium DTPA ; Kyphosis ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging* ; Protons ; Retrospective Studies ; Spinal Canal ; Tuberculosis, Spinal*