No abstract available.
Bone Marrow* ; Korea* ; Neoplasm Metastasis*

No abstract available.
Bone Marrow* ; Korea* ; Neoplasm Metastasis*

We evaluated the muscle fiber characteristics, the mean proportion of muscle fiber types and its range of individual difference in human vertebral muscle. Muscle samples used were from subjects who had a relatively brief history of spinal dysfunction such as compression fracture, disc hernia etc., and obtained from precisely defined superficial and deep sites on both sides of the vertebral column. In particular, samples were collected from three different levels of the column and flash-frozen sections of biopsied adult vertebral muscles were stained for H–E, trichrome, PAS, regular and reversed myosin ATPase, and SDH. Discrimination of muscle fiber types in H–E and trichrome stained sections was not evident. Three types of muscle fibers were, however, evident in PAS-stained sections according to the degree of positivity in observed vertebral muscles. The mean proportion of musele fiber types was different in regular and reversed myosin ATPase, and SDH stains and the majority of fiber types in human vertebral muscles was type I in three different levels of vertebral clumn. There was a decreasing tendency in percentage of type I fibers at both superficial and deep levels as the vertebral column descended. The size of muscle fibers was relatively larger in deep levels than in superficial levels of vertebral muscles. The human vertebral muscle showed moderately individual and regional differences in the mean size of fiber types. The evaluation for the combination patterns of various enzyme histochemical activities showed that the common musele fiber types(type I, II A and II B) were moderately reduced in the mean proportions and unusual rare muscle fiber types increased in number. And the decreasing tendency in the mean proportion of type as the vertebral column descended was not evident in the combination patterns of histochemical activities
Adult ; Coloring Agents ; Discrimination (Psychology) ; Fractures, Compression ; Hernia ; Humans ; Individuality ; Muscles ; Myosins ; Spine

Vibrio vulnificus infection is one of the most fatal diseases in Korea. This study was undertaken to determine the cellular fatty acid (CFA) compositions of ninety-five clinical strains of V. vulnificus isolated from Korea during 1985-1995. We compared these results with the CFA profile of V. vulnificus in the Microbial Identification System (MIS) (CLIN library version 3.9; Microbial ID Inc., Newark, Del.), and also evaluated the MIS ability to identify V. vulnificus. Subgrouping of V. vulnificus by CFA analysis was performed and its results were compared with those of serotyping. Most of the CFAs in V. vulnificus strains were similar to the CFA profile of V. vulnificus in the MIS, but some distinctive differences were observed. First, means of two major CFAs, 16:0 and 16:1w7c, were 22.16% and 18.26% in this study, but 23.52% and 25.44% in the MIS respectively. Second, all isolates had 11:Oiso3OH, which was not present in the MIS. Eighty-five strains (89.5%) disclosed the first choice identification of V. vulnificus by the MIS, but only two strains (2.1%) were identified with SI values of 0.6. Remaining ten strains (10.5%) showed 'NO MATCH' results. Cluster analysis of CFA could separate V. vulnificus into nine subgroups, and predominant subgroups were subgroup VII (45 strains) and V (36 strains). There was heterogeny between subgroups by CFA and serotypes of V. vulnificus. The strains of 04 serotype which accounted for 80% (76/95) of the isolates were distributed into six different subgroups such as VII (40 strains), V (27 strains), III (4 strains), I (2 strains) and VI (1 strain). These showed that V. vulnificus strains isolated from Korea had different characteristics in the CFA composition in comparison with the MIS V. vulnificus library. Subgrouping by the CFA analysis might be a useful tool for the epidemiological study of V. vulnificus infection in Korea.
Korea* ; Serotyping ; Vibrio vulnificus* ; Vibrio*

PURPOSE: This study was undertaken to determine the incidence of chromosome 22q11 deletion in patients with infundibular ventricular septal defect(VSD). METHODS: Sixty-two children with infundibular VSD were included in this study from January 1999 to December 2000. Chromosome 22q11 deletion was confirmed by FISH, using LSI DiGeorge/VCFS region dual color probe(Vysis, USA). RESULTS: Thirty-two patients had conotruncal cardiac defects:tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) in 15; TOF with absent pulmonary valve in 1; VSD with pulmonary atresia in 7; truncus arteriosus in 3; double outlet right ventricle in 2; interrupted aortic arch in 2; transposition of the great arteries in 2. Thirty patients had isolated infundibular VSD without conotruncal cardiac defect:perimembranous infundibular VSD in 15; subarterial infundibular VSD in 9; muscular infundibular VSD in 6. Chromosome 22q11 deletion was observed in 8 patients(male 5, female 3):TOF 2; VSD with pulmonary atresia 4; truncus arteriosus 1; perimembranous infundibular VSD 1. All of the patients with chromosome 21q11 deletion showed typical facial appearance. Low incidence was found of chromosome 22q11 deletion in patients with infundibular VSD without conotruncal cardiac defect than in those with conotruncal cardiac defect(3.3% vs 21.9%). CONCLUSION: These data indicate that a small proportion of isolated infundibular VSD is pathogenetically related to deletion of chromosome region 22q11.
Aorta, Thoracic ; Arteries ; Child ; Double Outlet Right Ventricle ; Female ; Heart Septal Defects, Ventricular* ; Humans ; Incidence ; Pulmonary Atresia ; Pulmonary Valve ; Truncus Arteriosus

No abstract available.
Leukemia, Myelogenous, Chronic, BCR-ABL Positive*

Diffuse neonatal hemangiomatosis is an uncommon disease that is characteristed by a diffuse nature of the lesions, and distinguished form a single or few, or superficial or deep, capillary, cavernous, or mixed hemangiomas occuring in early or adult life. We report an autopsy case of multiple hemangiomatosis, which is associated with massive osteolysis of right humerus and arteriovenous fistulae in surrounding soft tissues. The patient is a 23 day old female infant and had a 2.0x1.5 cm sized cystic destructive bony lesion which was located in the proximal shaft of right humerus. Right arm was hypertrophied, compared to the normal looking left. There were multiple hemangiomas in right humerus, lung, cutaneous skeletal muscles and nerves. This case shares clinical characteristics of Gorham's disease.
Infant ; Adult ; Male ; Female ; Infant, Newborn ; Humans ; Hemangioma

No abstract available.
Korea* ; Nontuberculous Mycobacteria*

PURPOSE: Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) is the principal physiological urokinase-type plasminogen activator and is thought to regulate the overall invasive and metastatic behaviors of cancer cells. Although the occurrence of bone marrow micrometastases is an independent prognostic factor in breast cancer, its pathomechanism is not yet fully revealed until. We hypothesize that PAI-1 has a major role in the development of bone marrow micrometastases in breast cancer. Accordingly, we attempted to establish a correlation between PAI-1 activity in tumor tissues and bone marrow micrometastases in breast cancer. Additionally, we studied the relationship between PAI-1 level and selected clinicopathological characteristics such as tumor size, lymph node metastases, and steroid receptor positivity. METHODS: we used the RT-PCR targeting mRNA of cytokeratin 19 to detect bone marrow micrometastases and an ELISA kit to estimate PAI-1 activity in frozen tumor tissues. RESULTS: (1) The median PAI-1 level was 13.55 ng/ml+/- 16.38 in the cases with bone marrow metastases, and 6.02 ng/ml+/-10.85 in the cases without bone marrow micrometastases. The difference was statistically significant (p-value= 0.0165). (2) PAI-1 levels did not show any significant differ-ences according to lymph node status, variation of tumor size or the expression status of the steroid receptors. CONCLUSION: PAI-1 is considered to have a role to hematogenous metastases of breast cancer cells. However, further study is recommended to reveal its significance as an independent prognstic factor for breast cancer.
Bone Marrow* ; Breast Neoplasms* ; Breast* ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay ; Keratin-19 ; Lymph Nodes ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Neoplasm Micrometastasis ; Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor 1 ; Plasminogen Activators ; Plasminogen* ; Receptors, Steroid ; RNA, Messenger ; Urokinase-Type Plasminogen Activator

BACKGROUND: When central venous catheter (CVC) related sepsis is suspected based on clinical symptoms, removal of catheter is both diagnostic and therapeutic, but this approach leads to wastage of many sterile lines. Therefore, a reliable method to diagnose or exclude CVC sepsis without catheter removal is desirable. We performed differential quantitative blood cultures for the diagnosis of CVC related sepsis, in catheterized patients who had previous positive blood cultures. METHODS: Differential quantitative blood cultures were performed by collecting the blood specimens simultaneously via catheter and peripheral vein in 1.5 mL Isolator tubes (Wampole, USA). Sixty-three samples from 61 catheterized patients were taken and the colony counts from catheter blood samples were compared with those from peripheral samples. RESULTS: In 17 samples (27%), the colony counts from catheter blood samples were 5-fold higher than those from peripheral samples (the C/P ratio, > OR =5), suggesting CVC related sepsis; in 7 samples the C/P ratio was below 5, suggesting that sepsis was not CVC related. Of 35 samples (56%) in which no organisms were cultured, 2 samples were diagnosed as CVC related sepsis by the catheter tip culture. In 19 cases with proven CVC related sepsis, Candida spp. (n=8) and Gram-negative rods (n=7) were the predominant causative organisms and 16 cases (84%) were improved after catheter removal. CONCLUSIONS: This data show that quantitative blood culture method using Isolator may be very useful for diagnosing CVC related sepsis, especially in patients with positive blood cultures.
Candida ; Catheters ; Central Venous Catheters ; Diagnosis* ; Humans ; Sepsis* ; Veins