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

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

No abstract available.
Pancreatitis* ; Parathyroid Neoplasms*

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*

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

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: With open heart surgery(OHS), it has been recognized that many postoperative complications and postperfusion syndrome are associated with the activations of complements and leulocytes. Recently, some investigators also demonstrated that interlukin-6(IL-6) linked highly with postperfusion syndrome. The puropose of this study was to investigate the sequential changes of the IL-6 and to clarify each IL-6 relationship to the complements(C3, C4) and inflammatory response following cardiopulmonary bypass(CPB). MATERIAL AND METHOD: To determine serum levels of IL-6, complements, leukocytes, and biochemistric markers of liver and renal function, blood samples were taken from th radial artery in 30 adult patients undergoing OHS with CPB. RESULT: Serum IL-6 levels incrased significantly at 10 minutes after CPB-on(CPB-10) in comparison with the control levels and reached the peak at CPB-off(p<0.05). Serum complement levels declined rapidly at CPB-10 and remained at the lower levels during CPB(p<0.01). Sequential changes of IL-6 levels had positive correlations with the changes of total leukocytes and neutrophil fractions(p<0.05), but had negative correlations with lymphocyte fractions(p<0.05). Changes of C3 related postively to monocyte fractions(p<0.05). Postoperative levels of total protein and albumin, decreased significantly in comparison with the control levels(p<0.01), while the postoperative levels of AST(aspartate transaminase) and bilirubin increased (p<0.01). At CPB-off, IL-6 levels had negative correlations with total protein and albumin levels(r=-0.60, -0.47 respectively, p<0.05), whereas C3 levels had positive correlations with albumin levels(r=0.40, p<0.05). IL-6 levels, as well as neutrophil fractions, had positive correlations with aortic clamp time(ACT) and total bypass time(TBT) (IL-6; r=0.82, 0.79 respectively, neutrophil fractions; r=0.50, 0.56 respectively, p<0.05), wheres lymphocyte frations and albumin levels had negative correlations whith ACT and TBT(lymphocyte fractions; r=-0.52, -0.58 respectively, albumin; r=-0.58, -0.55 respectively, p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: These data showed that elevated production of serum IL-6 during CPB may play a pivotal role in systemic inflammatory responses and prologed CPB period may be assosiated with more sever postperfusion syndromes.
Adult ; Bilirubin ; Cardiopulmonary Bypass* ; Complement Activation ; Complement System Proteins ; Heart ; Humans ; Interleukin-6* ; Leukocytes ; Liver ; Lymphocytes ; Monocytes ; Neutrophils ; Postoperative Complications ; Radial Artery ; Research Personnel

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Propofol is usually used for anesthesia in the case of day surgery. We studied the effects of propofol plus fentanyl for sedation and the effect of oxygenation during gastroscopy. METHODS: 154 patients who asked conscious sedation during gastroscopy were randomly divided into three groups. The first group (PF-O group, 50 patients) and the second group (PF group, 48 patients) were received an initial bolus dose of propofol (40 mg) plus fentanyl (50 microgram) intravenously, followed by additional doses of propofol at one minute interval until conscious sedation. PF-O group was received preoxygenation (3 L/min) via nasal canula, and PF group was not. The third group (56 patients) received an initial bolus dose of midazolam (3 mg) intravenously, followed by additional doses of midazolam at two minutes interval (M group). RESULTS: In PF-O group, time to achieve sedation, regain orientation, and recover walking ability were 118.0 85.2 sec, 67.5 91.2 sec and 11.1 5.3 min. Gag reflex during the procedure was absent or nearly absent in 96% of patients. Despite the changes of blood pressure and heart rate compared to the values taken prior to the procedures were observed, all values were not clinically significant. In PF-O group, transient oxygen desaturation (SaO2<90%) was observed in four (8.0%) patients. CONCLUSIONS: Propofol plus fentanyl with oxygenation seems to be more acceptable and suitable method for sedation during outpatient gastroscopic examination.
Ambulatory Surgical Procedures ; Anesthesia ; Blood Pressure ; Conscious Sedation ; Endoscopy, Gastrointestinal* ; Fentanyl ; Gastroscopy ; Heart Rate ; Humans ; Midazolam ; Outpatients ; Oxygen* ; Propofol ; Reflex ; Walking