Dental maturity is associated with skeletal maturity, which is advanced in girls with central precocious puberty (CPP). We investigated the performance of dental maturity as a screening method for CPP using mandibular second premolar and molar calcification stages, assessed the associated anthropometric and laboratory factors, and evaluated pubertal response predictors using the gonadotropin-releasing hormone stimulation test (GnRHST) in prepubertal and pubertal girls. A prospective case-control study was conducted in girls, aged 7.0–8.9 years, classified into pubertal (peak luteinizing hormone [LH] after GnRHST ≥ 5 IU/L), prepubertal (peak LH < 5 IU/L), and control groups. Auxological and biochemical tests, panoramic radiographs, and GnRHSTs in participants with breast development were conducted. Dental maturity was assessed using the Demirjian index (DI). We included 103 girls (pubertal, 40; prepubertal, 19; control, 44). Chronological age (CA) was not significantly different between groups. Bone age (BA) and BA advancement was higher in the pubertal and prepubertal groups. Increased DI values at the mandibular second premolar and molar were significantly associated with CA, BA, BA advancement, height standard deviation score (SDS), peak LH after GnRHST, and insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) (all P < 0.05). Moreover, odds ratio (OR) of the mandibular second premolar and molar (a DI value of ≥ E) for predicting a positive response to GnRHST was 8.7 (95% confidence intervals [CI], 2.9–26.1) and 5.2 (95% CI, 2.2–12.7), respectively. Dental maturity was a strong predictor for diagnosing CPP. Determining dental maturity in girls with suspected precocious puberty might help determine the performance of GnRHSTs.
Bicuspid ; Breast ; Case-Control Studies ; Diagnosis ; Female* ; Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone* ; Humans ; Luteinizing Hormone ; Mass Screening ; Methods ; Molar ; Odds Ratio ; Prospective Studies ; Puberty, Precocious*

PURPOSE: An understanding of the immunological process is required if primary prevention of atopic diseases is to be developed in early childhood. But, it is too hard to distinguish atopy from nonatopy under the age of two clinically, because the expression of phenotype and cytokines is vague in early childhood. We evaluated DNA methylation changes at Th2 interleukin-4 gene in peripheral blood from atopic children. METHODS: We selected 15 allergic children (mild: eight, moderate to severe: seven) and seven normal controls by using family allergy scores and clinical histories. We measured Total IgE and Der f II specific IgE levels and cultured peripheral blood mononuclear cells with Der f II stimulation and extracted DNA from Der f II specific T cells. We examined the change of CpG methylation in DNA from atopic and nonatopic children. RESULTS: In T cells from normal children, IL-4 DNA were predominantly methylated; otherwise, CpG demethylation occurred in Der f II specific T cells from allergic children. CONCLUSION: IL-4 DNA methylation changes occurred in T genes from allergic children and DNA methylation assay in early childhood.
Child* ; Cytokines ; DNA Methylation* ; DNA* ; Humans ; Hypersensitivity ; Immunoglobulin E ; Interleukin-4* ; Methylation ; Phenotype ; Primary Prevention ; T-Lymphocytes

Aspergilloma and Allergic Bronchopulmonary Aspergillosis(ABPA) are different types of the pulmonary aspergillosis spectrum of diseases. ABPA is an inflammatory disease that causes hypersensitivity to Aspergillus spores growing in the bronchi, which is characterized by asthma, recurrent pulmonary infiltrations or mucoid impaction, eosinophilia and central bronchiectasis. Aspergilloma is a simple colonization of fungus within a cavitary lung lesion, but these diseases rarely coexist. A case of ABPA, coexistent with Aspergilloma, was experienced in a 31 year-old female. The diagnosis was confirmed by the immediate cutaneous reactivity to Aspergillus fumigatus, elevated total IgE antibodies, peripheral eosinophilia, bronchiectasis, growth of Aspergillus species in a sputum culture and radiographic infiltration. Treatment, with prednisone and itraconazole, led to improvement of the respiratory symptoms, reduction of the cavitary lesion and in the total serum IgE level.
Adult ; Antibodies ; Aspergillosis, Allergic Bronchopulmonary* ; Aspergillus ; Aspergillus fumigatus ; Asthma ; Bronchi ; Bronchiectasis ; Colon ; Diagnosis ; Eosinophilia ; Female ; Fungi ; Humans ; Hypersensitivity ; Immunoglobulin E ; Itraconazole ; Lung ; Prednisone ; Pulmonary Aspergillosis ; Spores ; Sputum

PURPOSE: Analyzing of the causes of childhood death will provide us with the basis to understand prevalent diseases and to make the best possible health plan according to the studies. The National Statistical Office (NSO) of Korea has released an annual report of nationwide death. However, it could have underestimated the death toll of children because of delayed or missing reports of infants who died during the neonatal period. The death reports by pediatricians at hospitals could compensate for the dropped number of infantile death reported by the NSO. METHODS: We collected the death records for children under 15 years of age from the 136 secondary or tertiary referral hospitals over the country from January 1 through December 31, 1995. Then we tried to make a compilation of the records from both the NSO and our committee to finalize the cause of death. RESULTS: According to the records of the 136 hospitals, the total number of childhood death was 3,900 in 1995, including 1,790 deaths in the first 28 days of life. Most deaths occurred in the hospital (89.0%), which were confirmed either by a pediatrician (6.2%) or by a pediatric resident (58.8%). We were compiling 6,735 deaths according to the NSO and 3,415 of our own, with 846 overlaps. Seventeen deaths recorded by the NSO occurred in the first 6 days of life, compared to 1,292 from our own. After the first year, 4,762 deaths recorded by the NSO and 790 of ours were observed. CONCLUSION: The death records from hospitals could be enough to compensate for the dropped number of neonatal deaths recorded by the NSO, depicting more accurately the real pattern of death for Korean children in 1995.
Cause of Death* ; Child* ; Death Certificates ; Humans ; Infant ; Korea ; Tertiary Care Centers

PURPOSE: Analyzing of the causes of childhood death will provide us with the basis to understand prevalent diseases and to make the best possible health plan according to the studies. The National Statistical Office (NSO) of Korea has released an annual report of nationwide death. However, it could have underestimated the death toll of children because of delayed or missing reports of infants who died during the neonatal period. The death reports by pediatricians at hospitals could compensate for the dropped number of infantile death reported by the NSO. METHODS: We collected the death records for children under 15 years of age from the 136 secondary or tertiary referral hospitals over the country from January 1 through December 31, 1995. Then we tried to make a compilation of the records from both the NSO and our committee to finalize the cause of death. RESULTS: According to the records of the 136 hospitals, the total number of childhood death was 3,900 in 1995, including 1,790 deaths in the first 28 days of life. Most deaths occurred in the hospital (89.0%), which were confirmed either by a pediatrician (6.2%) or by a pediatric resident (58.8%). We were compiling 6,735 deaths according to the NSO and 3,415 of our own, with 846 overlaps. Seventeen deaths recorded by the NSO occurred in the first 6 days of life, compared to 1,292 from our own. After the first year, 4,762 deaths recorded by the NSO and 790 of ours were observed. CONCLUSION: The death records from hospitals could be enough to compensate for the dropped number of neonatal deaths recorded by the NSO, depicting more accurately the real pattern of death for Korean children in 1995.
Cause of Death* ; Child* ; Death Certificates ; Humans ; Infant ; Korea ; Tertiary Care Centers

BACKGROUND/AIMS: We evaluated whether manometric subtype is associated with treatment outcome in patients with achalasia treated by peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM). METHODS: High-resolution manometry data and Eckardt scores were collected from 83 cases at two tertiary referral centers where POEM is performed. Manometric tracings were classified according to the three Chicago subtypes. RESULTS: Among the 83 cases, 48 type I, 24 type II, and 11 type III achalasia cases were identified. No difference was found in pre-POEM Eckardt score, basal lower esophageal sphincter (LES) pressure, or integrated relaxation pressure (IRP) among the type I, type II, and type III groups. All three patient groups showed a significant improvement in post-POEM Eckardt score (6.1±2.1 to 1.5±1.5, p=0.001; 6.8±2.2 to 1.2±0.9, p=0.001; 6.6±2.0 to 1.6±1.4, p=0.011), LES pressure (26.1±13.8 to 15.4±6.8, p=0.018; 32.3±19.0 to 19.2±10.4, p=0.003; 36.8±19.2 to 17.5±9.7, p=0.041), and 4s IRP (21.5±11.7 to 12.0±8.7, p=0.007; 24.5±14.8 to 12.0±7.6, p=0.002; 24.0±15.7 to 11.8±7.1, p=0.019) at a median follow-up of 16 months. CONCLUSIONS: POEM resulted in a good clinical outcome for all manometric subtypes.
Esophageal Achalasia* ; Esophageal Sphincter, Lower ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Manometry ; Relaxation ; Tertiary Care Centers ; Treatment Outcome

This study was conducted to investigate which food items are perceived as HANSIK (Korean food) in Korea. 562 males and females aged 20-70 were surveyed on 512 most frequently consumed dish items from 4th Korean National Health and Nutrition Survey if they perceive it as HANSIK. Dish items in kimchi, namul - sukchae (cooked and seasoned vegetable) and jeotgal (salt-fermented food) category showed high response rate to be perceived as HANSIK. The response rate of twigim (frying foods) as HANSIK was low showing less than 70%. The response rate as HANSIK for foreign origin foods such as ramen and jjajangmyeon (black bean paste noodle) were lower than 25%. In jang . yangnyum (seasoning) category, doenjang (soybean paste) and gochujang (red pepper paste) showed high response rate as HANSIK more than 90%. Females showed a higher response rate as HANSIK than males for most food items except several items of myen . mandu (noodle and dumpling). The younger age group had higher HANSIK perception on many items of recently consumed foods, especially budae-jjigae (spicy sausage stew) (p < 0.001) and jwipo-jorim (braised dried filefish) (p < 0.001), implying that they already accept the common foods as HANSIK regardless of the origin. These results provide an information on the foods perceived as HANSIK among currently consumed common foods in Korea and these results can be utilized for establishment of HANSIK concept reflecting transition of dietary life in Korea.
Adult ; Aged ; Female ; Humans ; Korea ; Male ; Nutrition Surveys ; Seasons

Background/Aims: Endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) is a curative treatment modality for early gastric neoplasms; however, ESD can be a time-consuming process. To overcome this pitfall, we developed the one-step knife (OSK) approach, which combines an endoscopic knife and injection needle on a single sheath. We aimed to evaluate whether this approach could reduce the ESD procedure time. Methods: This single-blinded randomized multicenter trial at four tertiary hospitals from June 2019 to June 2020 included patients aged 19 to 85 years undergoing ESD. Patients were randomly assigned to two groups (OSK or conventional knife [CK]). The injection time, total procedure time, resected specimen size, submucosal fluid amount, degree of device satisfaction, and adverse events were evaluated and compared between groups. Results: Fifty-one patients were analyzed (OSK: 25 patients and CK: 26 patients). No baseline differences were observed between groups, with the exception of a higher portion of males in the OSK group. The mean injection time was significantly reduced in the OSK group (39.0 seconds) compared to that in the CK group (87.5 seconds, p<0.001). A decrease of more than 10 minutes in the total procedure time (18.0 minutes vs 28.1 minutes, p=0.055) in the OSK group compared to the CK group was observed. Second-look esophagogastroduodenoscopy revealed two delayed bleeding cases in the OSK group that were easily controlled by endoscopic hemostasis. Conclusions OSK reduced the injection time and showed a decrease in total procedure time compared with the CK approach. OSK can be a feasible tool for ESD, especially in difficult cases.

Background/Aims: Endoscopic submucosal dissection is a widely used treatment for gastric epithelial neoplasms. Accurate delineation of the horizontal margins is necessary for the complete resection of gastric epithelial neoplasms. Recently, image-enhanced endoscopy has been used to evaluate horizontal margins of gastric epithelial neoplasms. The aim of this study was to investigate whether I-SCAN-optical enhancement (I-SCAN-OE) is superior to chromoendoscopy in evaluating the horizontal margin of gastric epithelial neoplasms. Methods: This was a multicenter, prospective, and randomized trial. The participants were divided into two groups: I-SCAN-OE and chromoendoscopy. For both groups, we first evaluated the horizontal margins of early gastric cancer or high-grade dysplasia using white-light imaging, and then evaluated, the horizontal margins using I-SCAN-OE or chromoendoscopy. We devised a unique scoring method based on the pathological results obtained after endoscopic submucosal dissection to accurately evaluate the horizontal margins of gastric epithelial neoplasms. The delineation scores of both groups were compared, as were the ratios of positiveegative horizontal margins. Results: In total, 124 patients were evaluated for gastric epithelial neoplasms, of whom 112 were enrolled in the study. A total of 112 patients participated in the study, and 56 were assigned to each group (1:1). There was no statistically significant difference in the delineation scores between the groups (chromoendoscopy, 7.80±1.94; I-SCAN-OE, 8.23±2.24; p=0.342). Conclusions I-SCAN-OE did not show superiority over chromoendoscopy in delineating horizontal margins of gastric epithelial neoplasms.

Benign metastasizing leiomyoma is usually detected years after hysterectomy or myomectomy and characterized by well-circumscribed, singular or, often, multiple nodules. The patient was a 33-year-old woman who presented with cough. She underwent a myomectomy for a large uterine leiomyoma 9 years ago. And now she has recurrent uterine myoma. Multiple nodular lesions in both whole lung fields were incidentally found on a routine chest radiograph. Video-assisted thoracoscopy (VATs) was performed. The resected small nodular lesions composed of extremely well- defferentiated smooth muscle cells with collagen. On immunohistochemical stain, they are positive for smooth muscle markers (desmin and actin). There is no definite evidence of malignancy. Therefore, these multiple nodules are considered as benign metastasizing leiomyoma from a uterine leiomyoma. We report this case with review of literatures.
Adult ; Collagen ; Cough ; Female ; Humans ; Hysterectomy ; Leiomyoma* ; Lung Neoplasms ; Lung* ; Muscle, Smooth ; Myocytes, Smooth Muscle ; Radiography, Thoracic ; Thoracoscopy