PURPOSE: Recent studies suggest that the symptomatic improvement in benign prostatic hyperplasia significantly related with transition zone volume (TZV). The purpose of this study was to determine the clinical significance of TZV and transition zone index (TZI) in changes of prostate volume (PV) and clinical parameters following finasteride therapy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 140 patients over 50 years of age with symptomatic benign prostatic hyperplasia were treated with finasteride (5mg/d) for 12 months and underwent transrectal ultrasound evaluation of PV and TZV prior to initiating therapy and after 12 months. Patients were grouped according to the results of PV (> OR =40ml or <40ml), TZI (> OR =0.45 or <0.45) and PSA level (> OR =2.5 or <2.5). The responders was determined as improvement in peak flow rate more than 3mL/sec. RESULTS: PV decreased by 14.11% in patients with TZI less than 0.45, while the decrease was 19.25% for men with TZI greater than 0.45 (p<0.01). In addition, PV was significantly decreased by 16.72% in patients with PV less than 40cc and TZI greater than 0.45 (p<0.01). PV decreased by 17.37% in patients with PSA less than 2.5, while the decrease was 18.92% in men with PSA greater than 2.5. In responders, only TZI was significantly different among PSA, PV and TZI (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Treatment effect of finasteride on symptomatic benign prostatic hyperplasia patients was increased in proportion to enlarged PV, increased TZI, increased PSA. TZI was a useful proxy for predicting clinical outcomes in initiating finasteride therapy on benign prostatic hyperplasia.
Finasteride* ; Humans ; Male ; Prostate ; Prostatic Hyperplasia* ; Proxy ; Ultrasonography

Colorectal cancer consists of 8.2 percent of all malignancy in korea, and shows more increaing tendency. Despite the advances in the detection of calorectal cancer no single screening technique has achieved both high degree of diagnostic accuracy and minimal patient morbidity. We studied 24 patients, who underwent colonoscopy, with clinical suspicious colon cancer at Presbyterian Medical Center between Jan and Sep.1995, and evaluated the diagnostic feasibility of colon lavage cytology using oral cleansing solution.(continue...)
Colon* ; Colonic Neoplasms* ; Colonoscopy ; Colorectal Neoplasms ; Diagnosis* ; Humans ; Korea ; Mass Screening ; Protestantism ; Therapeutic Irrigation

Colorectal cancer consists of 8.2 percent of all malignancy in korea, and shows more increaing tendency. Despite the advances in the detection of calorectal cancer no single screening technique has achieved both high degree of diagnostic accuracy and minimal patient morbidity. We studied 24 patients, who underwent colonoscopy, with clinical suspicious colon cancer at Presbyterian Medical Center between Jan and Sep.1995, and evaluated the diagnostic feasibility of colon lavage cytology using oral cleansing solution.(continue...)
Colon* ; Colonic Neoplasms* ; Colonoscopy ; Colorectal Neoplasms ; Diagnosis* ; Humans ; Korea ; Mass Screening ; Protestantism ; Therapeutic Irrigation

BACKGROUND: In these days of increasing need for medical treatment, and the trend of changing lifestyles for personal health care, the position of medical treatment has led to the increase of careful and various services to every member of the community. But the reality of medical treatment, including the present situation of the emergency room in general hospital is recognized as the cause of those dissatisfactions and complaints of both patients and their caregivers. So this study aims at contributing to the harmonious relation between doctor and patient. METHODS: This study has been carried out by the questionnaire method on the basis of the relatively reasonable 331 papers among 430 questionnaire papers of the patients and their caregivers hospitalized by way of the emergency room in Cheonju Yeong Dong Hospital from Sep. 1994 to Apr. 1995. RESULTS: Among 331 subjects of this questionnaire, there were 121 male patients(36.6%), 76 female patients(23.0%), 80 male caregivers(24.2%), 54 female caregivers. The subjects were compaced of 23 teenagers(7.8%), 74 in their twenties(22.4%), 135 in their thirties(40.8%), 52 in their fourties(15.7%), 29 in their fifties(8.8%), 12 in their sixties(3.6%), 6 in their seventies(1.8 %). Both patients and their caregivers seemed to have a great dissatisfactions and complaints, which can be extraneous to medical treatment. Many patients complained of the unbearable situations such as delayed pain control before after a first-aid treatment, as well as various poor condition of medical treatment in emergency room. Their caregives complained of the lack of a thought explanation of diagnosis and prognosis, as well as the tedious waiting time before taking medical teratment. There were many cases where the emergent patients took medical treatment with some dissatisfa'ctions and complaints of medical staffs or medical donditions. CONCLUSIONS: When using the emergency room in a general hospital, both patients and their caregivers experiance a great deal of dissatisfactions and complaints, which can be followed by a distrust of the hospital and an obstacle of medical treatment. The medical staff, such as the hospital authorities, doctors, and nurses should make various improvements upon the medical conditions of the emergency room in general hospital.
Caregivers ; Delivery of Health Care ; Diagnosis ; Emergencies* ; Emergency Service, Hospital* ; Female ; Hospitals, General ; Humans ; Life Style ; Male ; Medical Staff ; Prognosis ; Surveys and Questionnaires

Kinship testing in forensic casework is largely based on a likelihood ratio (LR) approach with short tandem repeat (STR) markers; however, in order to efficiently identify potential relatives in a specific population, the threshold values for kinship prediction should be determined by analyzing the kinship index distributions of the population in question. In this study, 250,000 DNA profiles were simulated using allele frequencies at 20 autosomal STR loci in Koreans, then the LRs were calculated for true close relatives and unrelated pairs. The LR distributions in related and unrelated pairs under a given relationship were compared in 2 sets of 13 Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) and 20 STR profiles. Using 13 CODIS STRs, true relatives in parent/child and full-sibling relationships were sufficiently discriminated from unrelated pairs with LR thresholds of 1,000 and 100, respectively. However, the CODIS STRs lacked the discriminatory power to differentiate between related and unrelated pairs in uncle/nephew and first cousin relationships due to high false-positive and false-negative rates with a LR threshold of 10. Increasing the number of STR loci to 20 increased discrimination of close relatives, but high false results remained in uncle/nephew and first cousin relationships. The kinship index data from this study will help make decisions on various kinship testing and familial searching in Koreans.
Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Discrimination (Psychology) ; DNA ; Gene Frequency ; Humans ; Microsatellite Repeats

No abstract available.
Korea* ; Moyamoya Disease*

PURPOSE: Long term oral medications of anticonvulsants are inevitable in pediatric epilepsy patients. Therefore special attention is needed for the complications caused by these medications. Hyponatremia is a well known complication of carbamazepine(CBZ) and oxcarbazepine(OXC), but researches in pediatric patients are rare. This is a study about the development of hyponatremia during the use of these two anticonvulsants in pediatric epilepsy patients and other factors also involved in it. METHODS: We studied serum sodium levels of 267 pediatric patients who were treated with either CBZ or OXC in our hospital from January 2003 to December 2006. Hyponatremia was defined as Na+<138 mEq. Moderate hyponatremia was defined as Na+<130 mEq. Factors thought to be involved in the development of hyponatremia were studied also. These included age, sex, EEG and radiologic test results, use of any other medications, etc. RESULTS: Among the 267 pediatric patients treated with CBZ or OXC, there were 18 cases (6.7%) of moderate hyponatremia and 28 cases(10.5%) of mild hyponatremia. Sex, age, type of seizure, EEG and radiologic test results did not affect the development of hyponatremia. But combination therapy with other anticonvulsants resulted in an increase of hyponatremia. CONCLUSION: We recommend that serum sodium levels should be checked regularly of the pediatric patients taking CBZ or OXC, especially patients treated with additional drugs (combination therapy).
Anticonvulsants ; Carbamazepine ; Electroencephalography ; Epilepsy ; Humans ; Hyponatremia ; Seizures ; Sodium

The patients with abdominal surgery usually have acute pain. It is important for a patient's quality of life and for good recovery after surgery to control the postoperative pain. The purpose of this study is to identify the relationship between emotional state of preoperative patients and postoperative pain. The participants in this study were the 100 patients receiving abdominal surgery who received Intravenous Patient Controlled Analgesia (IV-PCA) at the end of the operation. The data were collected using questionnaires and the period of the data collection was from March to August, 2001. The instruments used for this study were The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) Developed by Spielberger (1972), The Center for Epidemeologic Studies-Depression (CESD) scale and Visual Analog scale (VAS). The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA and Pearson Correlation coefficient with the SPSS program. The results are as follows. 1.For general characteristics there were significant differences in the degree of trait anxiety according to gender (p= 0.0010), marital status (p=0.0122), religion (p=0.0040), education (p=0.0001), occupation (p=0.0002), monthly income (p=0.0001), diagnosis (p=0.0001), and operation title (p=0.0001). 2.For general characteristics there were significant differences in the degree of state anxiety according to gender (p= 0.0023), education (p=0.0073), monthly income (p=0.0001), diagnosis (p=0.0005), and operation title (p=0.0063). 3.For general characteristics there were significant differences in the degree of depression according to gender (p= 0.0073), occupation (p=0.0469), monthly income (p=0.0001), diagnosis (p=0.012), and operation title (p=0.0033). 4.For general characteristics there were significant differences in the degree of postoperative pain according to gender (p=0.0213), marital status (p=0.0082), education (p=0.0016), occupation (p=0.0128), monthly income (p=0.0008), diagnosis (p=0.0007), and operation title (p=0.0008). 5.The relationship between trait anxiety and postoperative pain revealed a significant positive correlation (r=0.51, p=0.0001), and the relationship between state anxiety and postoperative pain revealed a significant positive correlation (r=0.50, p=0.0001), and the relationship between Depression and pain revealed a significant positive correlation (r=0.49, p=0.0001).
Acute Pain ; Analgesia, Patient-Controlled ; Anxiety ; Data Collection ; Depression ; Diagnosis ; Education ; Humans ; Marital Status ; Occupations ; Pain, Postoperative ; Quality of Life ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Visual Analog Scale

No abstract available.
Heart* ; Thoracic Surgery* ; Thyroid Gland*

In this study, we determined proMMP-2 activating capacity of membrane extract prepared from the tissue of invasive ductal carcinoma of breast by zymogram gel analysis. We compared the effect of membrane extract on the activation of the latent type IV collagenases with that of the organic mercurial compound leg, APMA)-induced self cleavage of the latent type IV collagenases. We also compared the expression levels of MT1-MMP between invasive carcinoma and normal tissue by Western blot, Northern blot and semi-quantitative RT-PCR analysis. Our result demonstrated that the specificity of processing by breast carcinoma membrane activator corresponds to the specificity of MT1-MMP, which clearly showed the conversion of 72-kDa proMMP-2 to the activated form while APMA processed both 72- and 92-kDa proMMPs to their activated forms. MT1-MMP protein and mRNA were expressed both in invasive carcinoma and normal tissues, and the expression levels in both tissues were comparable. Quantitative analysis of the mRNA level by RT-PCR revealed that the difference of MT1-MMP mRNA between carcinomas and normal tissues was not statistically significant on Wilcoxon signed-ranks test (P>0.05). The results from the study on the expression of MT1-MMP gene suggest that the cellular activation of MMP-2 in breast tissue, requires additional effects in addition to up-regulation of MT1-MMP.
Blotting, Northern ; Blotting, Western ; Breast Neoplasms* ; Breast* ; Carcinoma, Ductal ; Collagenases ; Humans ; Leg ; Matrix Metalloproteinase 14 ; Matrix Metalloproteinase 2* ; Membranes* ; RNA, Messenger ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Up-Regulation