No abstract available.
Hemangioma*

Due to their high degree of freedom to transfer and acquire light, fiber optics can be used in the presence of strong magnetic fields. Hence, optical sensing and imaging based on fiber optics can be integrated with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) diagnostic systems to acquire valuable information on biological tissues and organs based on a magnetic field. In this article, we explored the combination of MRI and optical sensing/imaging techniques by classifying them into the following topics: 1) functional near-infrared spectroscopy with functional MRI for brain studies and brain disease diagnoses, 2) integration of fiber-optic molecular imaging and optogenetic stimulation with MRI, and 3) optical therapeutic applications with an MRI guidance system. Through these investigations, we believe that a combination of MRI and optical sensing/imaging techniques can be employed as both research methods for multidisciplinary studies and clinical diagnostic/therapeutic devices.

BACKGROUND: Obesity and decreased pulmonary function increase mortality and morbidity of diseases. Obesity is a major factor of decreased pulmonary function. There are variable results of how much body mass index (BMI) and body fat percent influence pulmonary function. There arefew data between obesity and pulmonary function in Korea. This study observed the association of BMI, body fat percent and pulmonary function, and quantified the impact of obesity to pulmonary function. METHODS: 603, non-smoking women in their forbles visited the Health Promotion Center of Inha University Hospital from January 3, 2000 to December 31 2000. Questions concerning smoking, exercise, and past medical history were made. Body fat percent and pulmonary function were measured. Correlation, simple linear regression and multiple linear regression between obesity indices and pulmonary function were used executed. RESULTS: BMI has no correlation with FVC, FEV1 and FEV1/FVC ratio. Body fat percent was negatively correlated with FVC and FEV1 (r=-0.162; P<0.01, r= -0.195; P<0.01), and was not correlated with FEV1/FVC ratio. In a multiple linar regression, body fat percent was inversely related to FVC and FEV1 (beta=-10.380; P<0.01, beta=-11.379; P<0.01). CONCLUSION: Increased body fat percent has association with decreased pulmonary function and has more impact on FEV1 than FVC. FVC was decreased by 10.380 mL and FEV1 was decreased by 11.379 mL when body fat percent increased by 1%.
Adipose Tissue* ; Body Mass Index* ; Female ; Health Promotion ; Humans ; Korea ; Linear Models ; Mortality ; Obesity ; Smoke ; Smoking

No abstract available.
Pancreatitis* ; Parathyroid Neoplasms*

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between job strains and absenteeism from work. METHODS: The study design was cross-sectional, and the study subjects consisted of 1,166 workers who were employed in the small-sized industries. A self administered questionnaire was used to measure the general characteristics, job characteristics(job demand, job control), and social support(coworker support, supervisor support) at work. The Job Content Questionnaire(JCQ) was used to assess job demand(2 items) and decision lattitude(10 items). Social support at work (10 items) was measured using JCQ. Sick absence was collected using self-report and were rechecked by the attendance record of their company. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals for the association between job strain and sick absence were estimated. The modifying effect of social support was evaluated by stratification. Logistic regression was used to estimate the relationship between job strain and sick absence. RESULTS: In the bivariate analysis, the variables related to sick absence were age, marital status, occupation, job demand. Four distinctly different kinds of level of job strain were generated by the combination of job demand and job control: low strain group, high strain group, active group, and passive group. The crude odds ratio of high job strain was 1.78(95% CI: 1.26-2.53), and those of active group and passive group were 1.33(95% CI: 1.07-1.66) and 1.13 (95% CI: 0.88-1.47), respectively. The odds ratio of high job strain after adjusting for age and occupation were still significant. The odds ratio of high job strain in low social support was 5.96(95% CI: 2.45-14.51), but that in high social support was 0.73(95% CI: 0.26-2.01). CONCLUSIONS: Job strain was associated with increased risk of absenteeism from work, and social support at work modified the association between job strain and sick absence.
Absenteeism* ; Logistic Models ; Marital Status ; Occupations ; Odds Ratio ; Surveys and Questionnaires

Posterior fossa injury is a relatively infrequent in all craniocerebral injuries, which may be a rapidly fatal disease unless the diagnosis and prompt treatment are made. Delay in operation or failure to make the diagnosis early may result in death from medullary decompensation. An injury to the occipital region, followed by signs and symptoms of cerebellar or medullary nerve dysfunction, should cause one to suspect the existence of this lesion. It is well to remember that neither the surgically demonstrated presence of a supratentorial clot nor the roentgenological failure to demonstrate an occipital fracure excludes the presence of a mass lesion in the posterior fossa. Authors studied 104 cases of posterior fossa injury admitted at Department of Neurosurgery, Kyung Hee Medical Center from October 5 th, 1971 to August 30 th, 1974. The results were as follows: 1) The incidence of posterior fossa injury was 5.7% of all craniocerebral injuries. 2) The age incidence was greatest in the age group between 10 and 20. 27.9% of all cases were belonged in this group. 3) Common causes were traffic accident(82 cases:78.8%), falls from(14 cases:13.5%) and direct blow(6 cases:5.8%). 4) Male outnumbered female by almost 2 to 1. 5) Common symptoms were disturbance of consciousness(67 cases:64.4%), headache(43 cases:41.3%) and vomiting(24 cases:21.3%). 6) Scalp injuries were demonstrated in 95 cases and occipital, bone fracture in 58 cases under gross and radiological examination of posterior fossa. 7) Time interval between injury and operation was greatest at 3 to 6 hours. 8) In 30 cases of operation, massive cerebellar contusion was 13 cases, extradural hematoma was 7 cases and subdural hematoma was 2 cases and negative exploration was 6 cases. 9) The overall mortality rate was 25%.
Contusions ; Craniocerebral Trauma ; Diagnosis ; Female ; Fractures, Bone ; Hematoma ; Hematoma, Subdural ; Humans ; Incidence ; Male ; Mortality ; Neurosurgery ; Scalp

OBJECTIVES: To integrate the results of studies which assess an association between blood lead and blood pressure. METHODS: We surveyed the existing literature using a MEDLINE search with blood lead and blood pressure as key words, including reports published from January 1980 to December 2000. The criteria for quality evaluation were as follows: 1) the study subjects must have been workers exposed to lead, and 2) both blood pressure and blood lead must have been measured and presented with sufficient details so as to estimate or calculate the size of the association as a continuous variable. Among the 129 articles retrieved, 13 studies were selected for quantitative meta-analysis. Before the integration of each regression coefficient for the association between blood pressure and blood lead, a homogeneity test was conducted. RESULTS: As the homogeneity of studies was rejected in a fixed effect model, we used the results in a random effect model. Our quantitative meta-analysis yielded weighted regression coefficients of blood lead associated with systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure results of 0.0047 (95% confidence interval [CI]: -0.0061, 0.0155) and 0.0004 (95% CI: -0.0031, 0.0039), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The published evidence suggested that there may be a weak positive association between blood lead and blood pressure, but the association is not significant.
Blood Pressure*

The EST Knowledge Integrated System, EKIS (http://ekis.kribb.re.kr), was established as a part of Korea's Ministry of Education, Science and Technology initiative for genome sequencing and application research of the biological model organisms (GEAR) project. The goals of the EKIS are to collect EST information from GEAR projects and make an integrated database to provide transcriptomic and metabolomic information for biological scientists. The EKIS constitutes five independent categories and several retrieval systems in each category for incorporating massive EST data from high-throughput sequencing of 65 different species. Through the EKIS database, scientists can freely access information including BLAST functional annotation as well as Genechip and pathway information for KEGG. By integrating complex data into a framework of existing EST knowledge information, the EKIS provides new insights into specialized metabolic pathway information for an applied industrial material.
Data Mining ; Expressed Sequence Tags ; Genome ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways ; Metabolomics ; Models, Biological

BACKGROUND: Immunologic and inflammatory responses of cardiopulmonary bypass(CPB) influence postoperative mortality and morbidity with multiple organ injury. It has been reported that ischemia/reperfusion induced-myocardial injury during CPB is causative of release of inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin-6(IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha). The purpose of this study was to detect the time course of the activated cytokine and troponin-T(TnT), and to examine the correlation between such parameters during CPB. MATERIAL AND METHOD: The serial samples were collected from arterial blood via radial arterial catheter in 23 patients who are underwent open heart surgery (OHS) with CPB, the IL-6, TNF-alpha and TnT were checked. RESULT: (1) IL-6, TNFalpha- and TnT concentration increased significantly during CPB with a peaking level of CPB-off (p 0.05). (2) IL-6 had highly positive correlation with aortic cross clamping time and total bypass time(r=0.80, 0.78; p 0.05, respectively). (3) There was no correlation among IL-6, TNF-alpha and TnT. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, these data showed that elevated production of serum IL-6 during CPB was attributable to ischemia/reperfusion induced-myocardial damage. IL-6 will become a new and sensitive biological marker in assessment of myocardial damage during OHS with CPB. However, further studies will be needed to apply IL-6 in more patient population.
Biomarkers ; Cardiopulmonary Bypass* ; Catheters ; Constriction ; Cytokines ; Heart* ; Humans ; Interleukin-6* ; Mortality ; Thoracic Surgery* ; Trinitrotoluene ; Troponin T* ; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha*

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to independently evaluate the beneficial effects of a high dose of transamine administrated prior to CPB on the postoperative hematologic aspect and bleeding. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study included randomly selected groups of 40 adult patients undergoing OHS with CPB. All patients were divided into 2 groups: transamine group (T-group, n=20) and placebo group (P-group, n=20). The T-group received a high-dose of transamine (10 g) before and during CPB. The P-group received normal saline at the same times and served as a control group. RESULTS: The results of comparative studies between the 2 groups in the same hematologic variables were summarized as follows. (1) During CPB, the fibrinogen concentrations and platelet counts were significantly lower in the P-group than in the T-group (p<0.01). (2) During CPB, production of D-dimer occurred in 18 patients (90%) in the P-group and did not occur in the T-group (0%) (p<0.0001). (3) At CPB-off, the % concentration of fibrinogen (70.2+/-3.9%) and the % platelet counts (72.4+/-4.5%) of the T-group were significantly higher than those (54.5+/-3.8%, 64.3+/-2.9%) of the P-group (p<0.01). (4) Postoperative values of PT (14.0+/-0.03 sec.) and aPTT (27.6+/-0.1 sec.) of the T-group were significantly lower than those (16.0+/-0.02sec., 30.1+/-0.1sec.) of the P-group (p<0.05). (5) Postoperative bleeding and requirement of whole blood and other blood products were significantly less in the T-group than in the P-group (p <0.05). (6) There were no significant hypercoagulability signs such as cerebral em bolism, myocardial infarction, pulmonary embolism, or any other neurological prob lems in either group. CONCLUSIONS: We concluded that a high dose of transamine administered prior to CPB prevents the activation of fibri nolytic system and has beneficial effects of reducing the postoperative bleeding t endency without apparent hypercoagulability signs.
Adult ; Cardiopulmonary Bypass* ; Fibrinogen ; Hemorrhage ; Humans ; Myocardial Infarction ; Platelet Count ; Pulmonary Embolism ; Sensitivity Training Groups ; Thrombophilia ; Tranexamic Acid* ; Tranylcypromine*