Pituitary adenoma should be differentiated diagnostically from pituitary hyperplasia, which can be classified by primary, secondary & tertially caused by ectopic tumors. Two cases with marked pituitary enlargement secondary to primary hypothyroidism were reported. The volume of the sellar turcica correlates with circulating TSH level. The subsequent regression with thryoxine therapy indicated hyperplasia rather than adenoma. This observation emphasizes the importance of diagnosing and treating primary hypothyroidism prior to considering surgery for possible pituitary adenoma. A brief review of related literatures was also made.
Adenoma ; Hyperplasia* ; Hypothyroidism* ; Pituitary Neoplasms*

PURPOSE: To quantify the cardiac dose reduction during breathing adapted radiotherapy using Real-time Position Management (RPM) system in the treatment of left-sided breast cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-two patients with left-sided breast cancer underwent CT scans during breathing maneuvers including free breathing (FB), deep inspiration breath-hold (DIBH), and end inspiration breath-hold (EIBH). The RPM system was used to monitor respiratory motion, and the in-house self respiration monitoring (SRM) system was used for visual feedback. For each scan, treatment plans were generated and dosimetric parameters from DIBH and EIBH plans were compared to those of FB plans. RESULTS: All patients completed CT scans with different breathing maneuvers. When compared with FB plans, DIBH plans demonstrated significant reductions in irradiated heart volume and the heart V25, with the relative reduction of 71% and 70%, respectively (p < 0.001). EIBH plans also resulted in significantly smaller irradiated heart volume and lower heart V25 than FB plans, with the relative reduction of 39% and 37%, respectively (p = 0.002). Despite of significant expansion of lung volume using inspiration breath-hold, there were no significant differences in left lung V25 among the three plans. CONCLUSION: In comparison with FB, both DIBH and EIBH plans demonstrated a significant reduction of radiation dose to the heart. In the training course, SRM system was useful and effective in terms of positional reproducibility and patient compliance.
Breast Neoplasms* ; Cardiac Volume ; Feedback, Sensory ; Heart ; Humans ; Lung ; Patient Compliance ; Radiotherapy* ; Respiration* ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed

No abstract available.
Blister* ; Cluster Analysis* ; Skin Diseases*

BACKGROUND: As the pleural inflammation progresses, exudative pleural fluid becomes loculated rapidly with pleural thickening. Complete drainage is important 13 prevent pleural fibrosis, entrapment and depression of lung function Intrapleural urokinase instillation therapy has been advocated as a method to facilitate drainage of gelatinous pleural fluid and to allow enzymatic debriment of pleural surface. This study was designed to investigate the Predictors of effeotiveness of intrapleural urokinase in treatment of loculated pleural effusion METHOD: Thirty-five patients received a single radiographically guided pig-tail catheter ranging in size from 10 to 12 French Twenty-two patients had tuberculous pleural effusions, and 13 had non-tuberculous postpneumonic empyemas. A total of 240,000 units of urokinase was dissolved in 240 ml of normal saline and the aliquots of 80mL was instilled into the pleura1 cavity via pig-tail catheter per every 8hr. Effectiveness of intrapleural urokinase instillation therapy was assessed by biochemical markers, ultrasonography, and technical details. A greater than 50% improvement on follow-up chest radiographs was defined as success group. RESULT: Twenty-seven of 35 (77.1%) patients had successful outcome to urokinase instillation therapy. Duration of symptoms before admission was shorter in sucess group (11.8α6.9day) than in failure group (26.62α16.5day) (P<0.05). Amount of drained fluid during urokinsse therapy was larger in success group (917.1α392.7ml) than in failure group (613.8α259.7ml) (P<0.05). Pleural fluid glucose was higher in success group (89.7 α35.9mg/dl) than in failure group (41.2α47.1mg/dl) (P<0.05). Pleural fluid LDH was lower in success group (878.4α654.31U/L) than in failure group (2711.1α973.1IU/L) (P<0.05). Honeycomb septated pattern on chest ultrasonography was observed in six of eight failure group, but none of success group(P<0.05). CONCLUSION: Longer duration of symptoms before admission smaller amount of drained fluid during urokinase therapy, lower glucose value, higher LDH value in pleural fluid examination and honeycomb septation pattern on chest ultrasonography were predictors for failure group of intrapleural urokinase instillation therapy.
Biomarkers ; Catheters ; Depression ; Drainage ; Empyema ; Fibrosis ; Follow-Up Studies ; Gelatin ; Glucose ; Humans ; Inflammation ; Lung ; Pleural Effusion* ; Radiography, Thoracic ; Thorax ; Ultrasonography ; Urokinase-Type Plasminogen Activator*

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to compare the psychosocial characteristics among patients with functional gastrointestinal disorder (FGID), adults with functional gastrointestinal symptoms, and normal control group and investigate factors related to quality of life (QoL) of FGID patients. METHODS: 65 patients diagnosed with FGID were selected. 79 adults were selected as normal control group based on the Rome III diagnostic criteria, and 88 adults who showed functional gastrointestinal symptoms were selected as “FGID positive group”. Demographic factors were investigated. Psychosocial factors were evaluated using the Korean-Beck Depression Inventory-II, Korean-Beck Anxiety Inventory, Korean-Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Multi-dimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale and WHO Quality of Life Assessment Instrument Brief Form. A one-way ANOVA was used to compare differences among groups. Pearson correlation test was used to analyze correlations between QoL and psychosocial factors in patients with FGID. RESULTS: There were group differences in the education level. Depression (F=29.012, p<0.001), anxiety (F=27.954, p<0.001) and Childhood trauma (F=7.748, p<0.001) were significantly higher in FGID patient group than in both FGID-positive and normal control group. Social support (F=5,123, p<0.001), Resilience (F=9.623, p<0.001) and QoL (F=35.991, p<0.001) were significantly lower in the FGID patient group than in others. QoL of FGID patients showed a positive correlation with resilience (r=0.475, p<0.01), and showed a negative correlation with depression (r=−0.641, p<0.01), anxiety (r=−0.641, p<0.01), and childhood trauma (r=−0.278, p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: FGID patients have distinctive psychosocial factors compared to the both FGID-positive and normal control group. Therefore, the active interventions for psychosocial factors are required in the treatment of patients with FGID.
Adult ; Anxiety ; Demography ; Depression ; Education ; Gastrointestinal Diseases ; Humans ; Psychology ; Quality of Life

PURPOSE:Urine examination for microalbuminuria during the clinical silent years can help to identify those patients most likely to progress to overt nephropathy. The normalization of the AER(Albumin Excretion Rate) by alteration of glomerular hemodynamics may be the key to preventing or delaying overt nephropathy. The prognostic and therapeutic implications have led to attempts to identify patients with microalbuminuria as early as possible.Because diagnosis of microalbuminuria has required a 12 or 24 hour urine collection,there has been interested in developing tests that might serve as a first-stage screen for microalbuminuria. Most reports have dealt with the usefulness of either the albumin concentration or the albumin/creatinine ratio in a timed or randomly collected urine specimen. Exercise induced albumin excretion is increased compared to resting and could unmask latent glomerular damage. The purpose of this study is to evaluate diagostic significance of urinary albumin measurement after exercise in children with insulin dependent diabetes. METHODS:Fifty-seven patients with IDDM collected their overnight urine from 22:00 to 6:00 in following morning. Exercised method for urine examination was 100M running and collected 2 hour urine after exercise. The AER and Albumin/ creatinine ratio(ACR) were measured in the urine and compared with before and after exercise. RESULTS:Mean ages of diabetic children was 13.7 yrs old and duration of diabetes was 4.1+/-2.7yrs, HbA1c 8.6+/-1.9%,Systolic BP 107+/-10mmHg and Diastolic BP 67+/-8mmHg. The exercise induced AER was increased compared to before exercise(10.3+/-10.5 vs 18.1+/-16.0 mg/24hr). The exercise induced ACR also increased too(1.4+/-1.5 mg/g.Cr vs 4.1+/-3.6mg/g.Cr)(P<0.01). Two(3.5%) children with IDDM was positive for microalbuminuria in terms of AER before exercise and 8 children(14%) after exercise. No one positive for microalbuminuria in terms of Alb/cr before and after exercise. The charateristics of 8 children with microalbuminuria after exercise was no specific difference between positive and negative microalbuminuria. There was specific correlation between microalbuminuria and HbA1c(P<0.05) but sex, ages, duration of diabetes & blood pressure were not correlated with incidence of microalbuminuria. CONCLUSION: The mean timed urinary albumin excretion after exercise was significantly higher than before exercise. Measurement of timed urinary albumin excretion after exercise will be helpful for detecting microalbuminuria earlier.
Blood Pressure ; Child* ; Creatinine ; Diabetes Complications ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1 ; Diabetic Nephropathies ; Diagnosis ; Hemodynamics ; Humans ; Incidence ; Insulin ; Running

PURPOSE: To study the microscopic anatomic relation of capsulopalpebral fascia, orbital septum, and tarsus of the lower eyelid in Korean. METHODS: Foureteen normal Korean lower eyelids from 14 formalin-fixed cadavers (mean age of 66.5 years) were harvested and studied with light microscopy after staining with hematoxylin and eosin. Dimensions of the structures and distances between them was measured by analyzing the digital photographs. RESULTS: There was no fusion of the orbital septum and the capsulopalpebral fascia at the lower border of the tarsal plate in 10 specimens and limited fusion of these tissue in 4 specimens. The average distance from the inferior tarsal border to the first identifiable smooth muscle nuclei of the inferior tarsal muscle was 1.38 mm. The average tarsal plate thickness was 0.98 mm and the average tarsal plate height was 3.96 mm. CONCLUSIONS: The Korean lower lid anatomy differs from that of their non-Asian counter parts. Furthermore, there was a difference in tarsal plate thickness in comparison to Chinese lower lids. There was no consistent fusion between the capsulopalpebral fascia and the orbital septum. No extension of the capsulopalpebral fascia to the skin was observed.
Ankle ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Cadaver ; Eosine Yellowish-(YS) ; Eyelids* ; Fascia ; Hematoxylin ; Humans ; Microscopy ; Muscle, Smooth ; Orbit ; Skin

Behcet's disease (BD) is a multisystemic chronic inflammatory disease. It is characterized by recurrent oral and genital ulcers, uveitis, skin lesions and other manifestations, including neurologic, vascular, joint, and gastrointestinal ulcers of variable severity. Recurrent aphthous ulcer (RAU) represents a very common, but poorly understood, mucosal disorder. If a patient of RAU without any other typical symptoms of BD has gastrointestinal symptoms, it is difficult to distinguish this RAU from true BD with gastrointestinal involvement. Because pathognomonic clinical features and tools are absent, the differential diagnosis of these two diseases relies on the characteristic clinical features and the judgement of an experienced physician. Sixty-five out of a total 960 RAU patients and forty-four of 556 BD patients with gastrointestinal symptoms between January 1996 and December 2003 participated in this study. All were evaluated with esophagogastroduodenoscopy and colonoscopy. Clinical, endoscopic and histopathologic findings were analyzed and ELISA tests were conducted to detect serum levels of ASCA and pANCA. No significant difference was found between the two groups. Differential diagnosis between RAU with gastrointestinal symptoms and BD with gastrointestinal involvement requires further prospective, large-scale study.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Antibodies, Antineutrophil Cytoplasmic/blood ; Antibodies, Fungal/blood ; Behcet Syndrome/*diagnosis/immunology/pathology ; Comparative Study ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Endoscopy ; Female ; Gastrointestinal Diseases/*diagnosis/immunology/pathology ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Saccharomyces cerevisiae/immunology ; Serologic Tests ; Stomatitis, Aphthous/*diagnosis/immunology/pathology

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The use of diagnostic laparoscopy has been changed because of the development of lesser invasive radiologic tools, which is more useful in the diagnosis of diffuse liver diseases recently. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical value of laparoscopy in diagnosis of diffuse liver diseases during laparoscopic surgery and to find the relationship between laparoscopic gross finding and liver biopsy. METHOD: Sixty-five patients were performed laparoscopic cholecystectomy from March 1. 2001 to July 30 . 2001. We prospectively compared the result of liver biopsy with preoperative serum liver function test, ultrasonographic finding and liver surface characteristics as observed during laparoscopic surgery. RESULTS: The results of liver biopsy obtained in 59 cases were normal liver; 57.6%, mild steatosis; 15.4%, moderate to severe steatosis; 16.9%, chronic liver disease; 1.5%, cholangitis; 3.1% and cirrhosis; 1.5%. There was no correlation between preoperative liver function test and liver biopsy. However, the ultrasonographic finding was more correlated with liver diseases. The sensitivity of laparoscopic liver surface characteristics was 76.0%. The liver surface characteristics was well correlated with liver biopsy finding, especially in color of liver surface and contuor of liver margin. Importantly, when one more abnormal findings in liver surface characteristics were found, the positive predictability of liver disease was 56%. CONCLUSIONS: Diagnostic laparoscopy is a safe and accurate method for evaluating the diffuse liver diseases. If the abnormal findings of liver surface characteristics is found during laparoscopic surgery, one shoud confirm liver disease by liver biopsy.
Biopsy ; Cholangitis ; Cholecystectomy, Laparoscopic ; Diagnosis* ; Fibrosis ; Humans ; Laparoscopy* ; Liver Diseases* ; Liver Function Tests ; Liver* ; Prospective Studies

OBJECTIVES: There are emerging evidences suggest that the development of tardive dyskinesia (TD) is related to the oxidative stress, excitotoxicity, and immune activation. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha genes are associated with the susceptibility of TD and schizophrenia. METHODS: We investigated two hundred and eighty Korean schizophrenic patients. The schizophrenic participants consisted of patients with (n=105) and without (n=175) TD who were matched for antipsychotic drug exposure and other relevant variables. The TNF-alpha gene -308G/A SNPs were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based methods. RESULTS: The frequencies of genotype (chi2=0.33, p=0.848) of the TNF-alpha gene -308 G/A SNP did not differ significantly between schizophrenic patients with and without TD. The difference of allele frequencies (chi2=0.28, p=0.594) of the TNF-alpha gene between the schizophrenic patients with and without TD were not significant. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that the TNF-alpha gene -308 G/A SNPs are not associated with TD and schizophrenia in a Korean population. Further association studies of TD with other candidate genes for cytokines would help us understand the pathophysiological mechanisms of TD.
Cytokines ; Gene Frequency ; Genotype ; Humans ; Movement Disorders ; Oxidative Stress ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Polymorphism, Genetic ; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide ; Schizophrenia ; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha