It is well-knwon that computed tomography (CT) is useful in detecting accurately the location, extent, erosion and relationshlp of angiofibroma to surrounding structures such as pterygopalatine fossa, It is well-known that computed tomography (CT) is useful in detecting accurately the location, extent, erosion and relatiohship of angiofibroma to surrounding structures such as pterygopalatine fossa, sphenoid slnus, and etc. CT of 20 patients with juvenile angiofibroma, which were examined for 5 years from Feburary, 1979 to May. 1984 at Department of Radiology, Seoul National University Hospital, were retrospectively analized. The results were as follows: 1. AII 20 patients of juvenile angiofibroma had tumors in nasopharynx and posterior nasal cavity showing homogeneously dense.enhancing soft tissue mass on CT. There was extension of the tumor from nasopharyhx and posterior nas.al cavity into Pílranasal sinus (60%, 12/20), pterygopalatine fossa (55%, 11/20), infratemporal fossa (30%, 6/20), posterior orbit (10%, 2/20) and cranial cavity (15%, 3/20). 2. Angiography usually adds Iittle diagnostic information, but is still needed to identify the precise source of blood supply to the tumor, and to perform the pre-operative embolization. The use of CT has deferred angiography until just before surgery, permitting embolization at optimal time. 3. CT is almost always necessary to reveal accurately the full extent of the tumor, especially intracranial space in the axial and coronal planes with contrast enhancement. CT is useful both in diagnosis as a guide to angiography and in planning the adequate thereapy of juvenile angiogibroma.
Angiofibroma ; Angiography ; Diagnosis ; Humans ; Nasal Cavity ; Nasopharynx ; Orbit ; Pterygopalatine Fossa ; Retrospective Studies ; Seoul

No abstract available.
Dacarbazine* ; Gabexate*

Primary hyperparathyroicism is a state of hypersecretion of PTH by the parathyroid. The etiology has not been established. The three possible etiologies of piimary hyperparathyroidism and incidences are adencena(83%), hyperplasia(15%), and carcinoma(1~2%). Parathyroid carcinoma usually presents in the fourth decades. The hallmark preoperative signs are hypercalcemia(serum calcium 15mg/dl). Palpable neck mass and bane and renal disease. Patients may present with multiple signs and syrnptoms, including recurrent nephrolithiasis, peptic ulcers, mental change, less frequently, extensive bone resorption. However, with greater awareness of the disease and wider use of screening tests, including blood calcium determinations, the diagnosis is frequently made in patients who have no symptoms and minimal, if any, signs of the disease ather than hypercalcemia and elevated levels of parathyroid Hormone. An 38-years-old woman was admitted to the hospital due to pain on the left knee joint. We experienced full-brown symptom pertaining to hyperpara- thyroidism. Thus we report a case herein and also discuss clinical anifestation, histologic features and treatment.
Bone Resorption ; Calcium ; Diagnosis ; Female ; Humans ; Hypercalcemia ; Hyperparathyroidism ; Incidence ; Knee Joint ; Mass Screening ; Neck ; Nephrolithiasis ; Parathyroid Hormone ; Parathyroid Neoplasms ; Peptic Ulcer ; Thyroid Gland

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to compare psychomotor performance related with automobile driving in patients with schizophrenia under the treatment of a typical antipsychotic agent, haloperidol, or an atypical antipsychotic agent, aripiprazole. METHODS: We evaluated driving ability of schizophrenia patients by using the cognitive perceptual assessment for driving (CPAD). Twelve patients receiving haloperidol monotherapy and 18 taking aripiprazole monotherapy participated in this study and the results of CPAD were compared with each other. RESULTS: Of 30 participants, 15 (50%) of the patients passed the CPAD to be regarded as competent to drive, 3 (10%) of the patients failed the CPAD considered to be severely impaired. Controlling for sex, age, education, duration of illness, there were no significant differences in the CPAD results between two treatment groups. We observed a trend that patients who received aripiprazole showed a higher total score of the CPAD than haloperidol-treated patients (55.2+/-4.9 vs. 45.7+/-8.4, p=0.080). CONCLUSION: There were no significant differences in the psychomotor performance relevant to driving ability between haloperidol and aripiprazole groups. But our results suggest that aripiprazole might have the neurocognitive advantage over haloperidol. Future study with a large sample size and diverse antipsychotics is warranted.
Antipsychotic Agents ; Automobile Driving ; Haloperidol ; Humans ; Imidazoles ; Nitro Compounds ; Piperazines ; Psychomotor Performance ; Quinolones ; Sample Size ; Schizophrenia ; Aripiprazole

Pathogenic Acanthamoeba spp. cause granulomatous amoebic encephalitis and keratitis. Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK) is a rare but serious ocular infection that can result in permanent visual impairment or blindness. However, pathogenic factors of AK remain unclear and treatment for AK is arduous. Expression levels of proteins secreted into extracellular space were compared between A. castellanii pathogenic (ACP) and non-pathogenic strains. Two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis revealed 123 differentially expressed proteins, including 34 increased proteins, 7 qualitative increased proteins, 65 decreased proteins, and 17 qualitative decreased proteins in ACP strain. Twenty protein spots with greater than 5-fold increase in ACP strain were analyzed by liquid chromatography triple quadrupole mass spectrometry. These proteins showed similarity each to inosine-uridine preferring nucleoside hydrolase, carboxylesterase, oxygen-dependent choline dehydrogenase, periplasmic-binding protein proteinases and hypothetical proteins. These proteins expressed higher in ACP may provide some information to understand pathogenicity of Acanthamoeba.
Acanthamoeba castellanii ; Acanthamoeba Keratitis ; Acanthamoeba ; Blindness ; Carboxylesterase ; Choline Dehydrogenase ; Chromatography, Liquid ; Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel ; Encephalitis ; Extracellular Space ; Eye Infections ; Keratitis ; Mass Spectrometry ; Peptide Hydrolases ; Virulence ; Vision Disorders

Palatal myoclonus is a rare condition in which there are rhythmic jerky movements of the soft palate and sometimes of the other muscles innervated by the brainstem A particularly annoying symptom is a rhythmic clicking sound in the ear due to the opening and closing of the Eustachian tube. Orofacial buccal dystonia is a focal dystonia with sustained spasms of the masticatory, facial or lingual muscles. The frequent symptoms of this disease have mainly been reported to be involuntary and possibly painful jaw opening, closing, deflecting and retruding, or a combination of the above. However, the subtle and unnoticeable involuntary movement of multiple facial muscles, which might be an infrequent symptom of orofacial buccal dystonia, makes this disease hard to diagnose. Understanding the functional orofacial anatomy that is responsible for the clinical signs and symptoms is necessary for making a proper diagnosis. Here we report on a rare case of palatal myoclonus that was associated with orofacial buccal dystonia, and such a case has not been previously reported. We describe the diagnostic approach and excellent treatment results after Botulinum toxin A (Dysport) injection and proper counseling.
Botulinum Toxins ; Brain Stem ; Counseling ; Dyskinesias ; Dystonia ; Dystonic Disorders ; Ear ; Eustachian Tube ; Facial Muscles ; Jaw ; Muscles ; Myoclonus ; Palate, Soft ; Spasm ; Tinnitus

OBJECTIVES: Despite increasing use of antipsychotic polypharmacy (APP), few studies have investigated APP for Korean patients with schizophrenia. The aim of this study was to identify the sociodemographic and clinical correlates and recent prescription profiles of APP in schizophrenia patients. METHODS: A total of 297 schizophrenia patients were recruited and interviewed using standardized assessment instruments in Seoul National Hospital. Differences in demographic and clinical characteristics between APP and antipsychotic monopharmacy (APM) groups were analyzed. The prescriptions of psychotropic drugs were collected by a review of medical records. RESULTS: In comparison with the APM group, the APP group showed association with earlier onset, lower employment rate, and higher scores for Clinical Global Impression-Severity and Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) (p<0.001). In particular, the BPRS positive (p<0.001) and affective symptom scores (p<0.001) of the APP group were higher those of the APM group. The most frequent combination pattern of APP was second generation antipsychotics (SGA)+SGA, followed by SGA+first generation antipsychotics (FGA), and SGA+SGA+FGA. For antipsychotics, it was risperidone+quetiapine, followed by clozapine+risperidone, risperidone+sulpiride, and risperidone+haloperidol. CONCLUSION: The current study suggests that the usage of APP for schizophrenia could be related to symptom severity affected by positive and affective symptoms. The prescription profile reflects that the proportion of atypical antipsychotics on APP has increased.
Affective Symptoms ; Antipsychotic Agents ; Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale ; Employment ; Humans ; Medical Records ; Polypharmacy* ; Prescriptions ; Psychotropic Drugs ; Schizophrenia* ; Seoul

OBJECTIVES: Sexual dysfunction is said to affect the compliance of drug and quality of life. This study is a research to investigate the prevalence of sexual dysfunction and affecting factors that can occur when schizophrenic and schizoaffective patients have taken drugs. METHODS: Subjects were 300 patients who have been taken inpatient or outpatient treatment in national seoul hospital. We used UKU-S, ASEX scale for evaluating the prevalence of sexual dysfunction and CGI-S, PANSS negative scale and CES-D for investigating the influence of psychopathology and depressive symptoms on sexual dysfunction. RESULTS: It was reported sexual dysfunction 82.7% in male and 92.2% in female with 7 items of UKU-S. The prevalence of sexual dysfunction with criteria of ASEX was 47.72% in male and 65.05% in female. Sexual dysfunction was more prevalent in patients taking prolactin-elevation drugs. In the factor analysis for the sexual dysfunction it was investigated that age, onset time, CGI-S, PANSS negative scale, and CES-D can affect the sexual dysfunction in both male and female. CONCLUSION: This study reported that many patients complained of sexual dysfunction. On considering the influence of sexual dysfunction to compliance and quality of life, clinicians evaluate sexual side effects more actively because patients are more likely not spontaneously tell the sexual side effects in comparison to others.
Antipsychotic Agents* ; Compliance ; Depression ; Female ; Humans ; Inpatients ; Male ; Outpatients ; Prevalence* ; Psychopathology ; Quality of Life ; Schizophrenia ; Seoul

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:Electrocochleography is the only proven investigation and diagnostic tool to demonstrate the endolymphatic hydrops at this time. We designed this study to assess the characteristics of transtympanic electrocochleographic findings and to estimate the clinical value of the test results in the patients with Meniere's disease. MATERIALS AND METHOD:Electrocochleographic duration and amplitude were measured in a clinically defined definite Meniere's disease group and the results were compared with those from a normal hearing control group. RESULTS:The summating potential (SP)/action potential (AP) amplitude ratio was significantly different among study groups with 0.40+/-.10 in the bilateral Meniere's group, 0.34+/-.08 in the unilateral Meneire's group and 0.22+/-.08 in the normal group (p<0.01). The elevated SP/AP ratio in the patients with such a relatively long duration of Meniere's disease in this study was mainly due to the decreased AP amplitude rather than the enhanced SP amplitude. CONCLUSION:Measuring electrocochleography and demonstrating the elevated SP/AP ratio could be quite valuable to diagnose the patients with Meniere's disease. The recognition of decreased AP amplitude might be helpful to understand the cochlear pathologic status in the patients with Meniere's disease.
Audiometry, Evoked Response* ; Endolymphatic Hydrops ; Hearing ; Humans ; Meniere Disease*

No abstract available.
Hepatitis C* ; Interferons* ; Polymyositis*