A 66-year-old female patient had a firm, non-tender, dome shaped mass on the scalp. The lesion had enlarged slowly for 2 years, and measured about 4 × 6 cm. The histologic finding of the skin biopsy specimen demonstrated an infiltration of immature plasma cells in the dermis, which express monoclonal cytoplasmic lambda light chain by immunohistochemical stainings, and staging work-up after the biopsy revealed no evidence of disease in other foci. The mass on the scalp was treated successfully by radiation therapy, with the diagnosis of primary cutaneous plasmacytoma.
Aged ; Biopsy ; Cytoplasm ; Dermis ; Diagnosis ; Female ; Humans ; Plasma Cells ; Plasmacytoma* ; Scalp ; Skin

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of IL-10 on development of collagen-induced arthritis, on humoral and cellular immunity and on the endogenous production of IL-10 in DBA/1J mice. METHODS: DBA/1J mice were immunized with chicken type II collagen in Freund s complete adjuvant. Murine recombinant IL-10 was given intraperitoneally twice a week from the day of second immunization (week 3) in doses of 0.002ug, 0. 02ug and 0. 2ug for 3 different groups, respectively. Dexamethasone was injected in one group to suppress the arthritis development and this group was used as negative control group. Levels of anti-collagen antibodies, serum IL-10 and stimulation indices of splenic monocytes to collagen were measured at the end of study. RESULTS: The 0. 02ug IL-10 and 0. 2ug IL-10 treated groups developed earlier and more severe arthritis (week 6 and 8) compared to that of the control group while the 0. 002ug IL-10 group has shown similar course to the control group in terms of incidence and severity of arthritis, At week 10, all groups with or without IL-10 injections developed arthritis with similar degree of severity while dexamethasone group showed far less incidence and severity of arthritis. The serum levels of anti-collagen antibody, IL-10 and spleen monocyte stimulation indices to collagen antigen showed no difference among control group, IL-10 injected groups and dexamethasone injected group. CONCLUSION: This study shows IL-10 could worsen the arthritis in CIA with the dosage used in this study without significant influence on the level of anti-collagen antibodies or stimulation indices of spenic monocyte to collagen.
Animals ; Antibodies ; Arthritis ; Arthritis, Experimental* ; Chickens ; Collagen ; Collagen Type II ; Dexamethasone ; Immunity, Cellular ; Immunization ; Incidence ; Interleukin-10* ; Mice ; Monocytes ; Spleen

OBJECTIVE: The standard vocabularies need to cover a diverse and enriched field of medical content, thereby facilitating semantic information retrieval, clinical decision support and efficient care delivery. SNOMED-CT(Systematized Nomenclature of Human and Veterinary Medicine-Clinical Term) is a comprehensive and precise clinical reference terminology that provides unsurpassed clinical content and expressivity for clinical documentation and reporting. To investigate whether the SNOMED-CT can serve this function in Seoul National University Hospital(SNUH) environment, we evaluated the coverage of SNOMED-CT as compared with clinical terms in the discharge summary at SNUH. METHODS: We tested for discordance of clinical terms between SNUH discharge summary and those from SNOMED-CT. We extracted 9,554 concepts from 1,000 discharge summaries. From these concepts, we obtained 3,545 unique concepts which are normalized to map with SNOMED-CT. These normalized terms are mapped to concepts of SNOMED-CT with semi-automatic method. RESULTS: We found a degree of concordance between SNOMED-CT and the clinical terms used in the discharge summary. Approximately, 89% of medical terms in the discharge summary are matched and 11% of the concepts are not mapped to those of SNOMED-CT. CONCLUSION: Through this study, we confirmed that SNOMED-CT is appropriate reference terminology in SNUH environment.
Humans ; Information Storage and Retrieval ; Semantics ; Seoul ; Vocabulary

To determine effects of the direction of the rotational work shifting on the circadian rhythm and adaptation of physiological and psychological components were investigated with nursing students. Two groups of seven volunteers participated as experimental subjects, and eight nursing students participated as a control group. The directions of rotation work shift were as follows : CW(clockwise)-shift system rotation in the direction of day shift(3 lays), evening shift(3days), off duty(1day) and night shift(5days). and CCW(counterclockwise)-shift system rotation in the reverse direction. Urinary free cortisol and 17-hydroxycorticoster oids in the urine were measured by the solid-phase radioimmunoassay and the colorimetry methods, re spectively. Plasma melatonin was measured by radioimmunoassay. The urinary free cotisol rhythm changed to ir-regular on the evening and night shift in the CCW shift system, whereas the rhythm seems to adapt on night shift in the CW shift system. The daily rhythms of urinary 17-OHCS indicate that they are well synchronized to shift work. These results show that the rotation of shift in the CW direction is more acceptable in terms of the adaptation of hormonal rhythms. These results indicate that the CCW rotation of shift work makes it more difficult for the workers to adapt on a physiological level, and has many more negative effects on nurses when compared with the CW rotation. Thus, a clockwise rotating shift systern seems to be more desirable for the optimal health and performance of nurses.
Circadian Rhythm* ; Colorimetry ; Humans ; Hydrocortisone* ; Melatonin ; Plasma ; Radioimmunoassay ; Students, Nursing ; Volunteers

No abstract available.
Cell Line* ; Humans*

To know the amplification pattern according to relative concentration ratio in mixed samples, two STRloci, vwF locus and MBP locus and two VNTR loci, D1S80 locus and d17S5 locus were amplified in DNA with various concentration of two individuals were easily identified. But when the concentration of one person were lowered to 1/20-1/40 of the other's the intensity of product bands diminshed and hardly discernible. Also different amplification efficiency according to the template length was noted, especially in VNTR loci. Using automatic sequencer and RFLP scan program, the intensity OD of each PCR product band could be calculated, and this correlates the felative amplification efficiency of each allele. By using this we could construct quantitative PCR for the mixed samples. This could be used in practical case work for forensic purpose, and also be a valuable candidate for 'chimerism detection' in case of bone marrow transplatation.
Alleles ; Bone Marrow ; DNA ; Humans ; Minisatellite Repeats ; Polymerase Chain Reaction* ; Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length

A 31-year-old woman with surgically proven spinal extradural granulocytic sarcoma was examined with magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. This patient had no evidence of systemic leukemia. The signal intensities of the mass on T1-weighted and gradient echo images were higher than those of spinal cord, which were different from iso-intensity of cases reported by other authors.
Adult ; Female ; Humans ; Leukemia ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging* ; Sarcoma, Myeloid* ; Spinal Cord

There are two major types of vascular birthmarks, hemangiomas, those demonstrating endothelial hyperplasia, and malformation, those with normal endothelial turnover. Venous malformations have previously been treated by surgical excision, where possible. Although not a panacea for all such tumors, the use of sclerosing agents is decidedly preferable in some cases to extirpation with a scapel. The method involves the direct injection of absolute alcohol into the lesion on the fluoroscopic guide. The effect of treatment is satisfactory and there appears tobe no long term complication. We report 2 cases of surgically irresectable and deep-seated venous malformation which were treated sclerotherapy using ethanol.
Ethanol ; Hemangioma ; Hyperplasia ; Sclerosing Solutions ; Sclerotherapy*

OBJECTIVES: Lipocortin-1 (LC-1), a member of annexin family of calcium-binding proteins induced by corticosteroid, originally evoked interest as one of the secondary messengers in the antiinflammatory action of corticosteroid, But the exact mechanism of LC-1 responsible for antiinflammatory effect is still unclear. We investigated the potential role of LC-1 in the effect of corticosteroid on amelioration of collagen induced arthritis (CIA) in mice. METHODS: Four groups of DBA/1j mice were immunized by intradermal injection of 5mg/kg of type 2 collagen with complete Freunds adjuvant which was boostered on day 21 and 42. Group 1 received no treatment and group 2 received 1mg/kg dexamethasone intraperitoneally twice weekly from day 21. Group 3 and 4 were treated with 50 and 0.5microgram/kg of anti LC-1 monoclonal antibody subcutaneously and dexamethasone from day 21 twice weekly, respectively. The prevalence of arthritis and arthritis score were assessed twice weekly. At week 10, we measured serum anticollagen antibody levels and splenic mononuclear cell stimulation indices (SI) to collagen. RESULT: CIA started to develop after 4 weeks of collagen treatment in all groups. All mice of group 1 developed arthritis by the 9 week. Treatment with dexamethasone markedly inhibited arthritis development (P<0.05). Cotreatment of anti LC-1 monoclonal antibody and dexamethasone abolished the antiinflammatory effect of dexamethasone (P<0.05). But there was no significant difference in the serum levels of anticollagen antibody or splenic mononuclear cell SI among the groups. CONCLUSION: These findings support the hypothesis that LC-1 is involved, at least in part, in the antiinflammatory actions of corticosteroid in chronic inflammation, although the mechanism of which is unclear.
Animals ; Arthritis* ; Calcium-Binding Proteins ; Collagen* ; Dexamethasone ; Freund's Adjuvant ; Humans ; Inflammation ; Injections, Intradermal ; Mice ; Prevalence

BACKGROUND: Epidermal grafting using cryotherapy for recipient sites is in widespread use. However the peripheral hypopigmented haloes that occur around the recipient sites require prolon gation of the treatment period. OBJECTIVE: We used a CO2 laser to remove the epidermis of the recipient sites for betteri results. METHODS: We treated lie localized vitiligo patients with CO2 laser to remove t.he epidermis and grafted suction blister rooves. We observed repigmentation and complications 1 month later. RESULTS & CONCLUSIONS : The superiority of this method is demonstrated by the fact 1) all prodedures can be completed on the day of operation 2) the incidence of hypertrophic scar and peripheral hypopigmented halos can be observed.The problems of this method are 1) uneven repigmentation of recipient. sites 2) hyperpigrnentation of recipient sites
Blister ; Cicatrix, Hypertrophic ; Cryotherapy ; Epidermis* ; Humans ; Incidence ; Lasers, Gas* ; Suction ; Transplants* ; Vitiligo*