Undifferentiated sarcoma of the liver is a highly malignant neoplasm that occurs almost exclusively in children. We present a case of adult undifferentiated sarcoma in a 33-year-old man. The neoplasm was typically hypovascular on hepatic angiography and a globular, cystic and mucoid mass separated from the adjacent liver by a psedocapsule was removed from the left lobe of the liver. Necrosis and hemorrhage were found. Microscopically the neoplasm consisted of myxoid and cellular areas and the basic neoplastic cells were stellate cells showing variable degree of anaplasia and pleomorphism. Eosinophilic globules were PAS-positive and immunohistochemically negative for alpha-fetoprotein. Extramedullary hematopoiesis was present and normal-appearing bile ducts and hepatic cell cords were noted.
Child ; Adult ; Male ; Female ; Humans

OBJECTIVE: Evaluation of embryos using early cleavage to 2-cell stage has been proposed, but a critical time-point for selecting embryos is unclear. The aim of the present study is to provide a guideline including critical time-point in the selection of early cleaving embryo for the reduction of multiple pregnancies as well as the increase of pregnancy rate in human IVF. METHODS: This prospective study was performed in 116 cycles from 85 patients who underwent conventional IVF or ICSI at the infertility clinic of Good Moonhwa Hospital from January 2002 to December 2003. Early cleavage (EC) of embryos to 2-cell stage was assessed at 25 h and 27 h postinsemination/microinjection. Embryos that had early cleaved at each time point were designated as EC-1 and EC-2, respectively, while others were designated as non-early cleavage (NEC). RESULTS: At least one early cleavage embryo was observed in 54 (46.6%) for the EC-1 and 84 (72.4%) for the EC-2 of the 116 cycles assessed. Clinical pregnancy rates (PR) were significantly higher in the EC-1 group (66.7%) compared to the EC-2 group (53.6%) or the NEC group (31.2%) (p<0.05). Significant improvement of the pregnancy rate was found when at least two or more embryos were early cleaved at 25 h postinsemination or when the proportion of early cleavage embryo at 25 h postinsemination was higher than 20% (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The critical time-point for the selection of early cleavage embryos with high implantation potential is more effective in 25 h postinsemination/microinjection compared to 27 h. The proportion as well as number of early cleavage embryos is also an important factor for the prediction of pregnancy outcome and the chance of multiple pregnancies. These results demonstrated that the evaluation of early cleavage embryos to 2-cell stage is an easy, simple, and objective method for the selection of good quality embryos suitable for embryo transfer.
Embryo Transfer ; Embryonic Structures* ; Female ; Humans* ; Infertility ; Pregnancy Outcome ; Pregnancy Rate* ; Pregnancy* ; Pregnancy, Multiple ; Prospective Studies ; Sperm Injections, Intracytoplasmic

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the changed parenting experiences of mothers of elementary school kids living in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak in Korea. Methods: From July to August in 2020, 10 mothers parenting elementary school students under the COVID-19 were interviewed in depth. For data analysis, a phenomenological research methodology suggested by Colaizzi was used. Results: According to the analysis, the experiences of mothers consisted of four categories: the ‘pain from the uncontrollable COVID-19’, ‘the problem of family relations due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation’, ‘standing firm against the drastic changes’, and ‘accepting the world changed by the COVID-19’. Conclusion The findings in this study vividly represent the parenting experiences of mothers of elementary school students after the outbreak of COVID-19. As the pandemic persists, mothers parenting elementary school students feel complex emotions and experience exhaustion, but in the process, they found family members growing positively and trying to adjust to each other to overcome the crisis. To support positive adaptation to catastrophic situations, an institutional and political foundation is needed to develop a systematic crisis management program customized for mothers and families of elementary school students. The results of this study can be used as basic data when establishing national policies and support systems so that mothers parenting elementary school students can better adapt to and overcome crisis situations.

This study was performed to determine the effects of nitric oxide on human sperm cell function. Semen samples were obtained from normal healthy volunteers. Motile spermatozoas collected by swim-up method were incubated up to 24 hours in Ham's F-10 medium supplemented with a various concentration of sodium nitroprusside (nitric oxide releasing agent). Sperm motility, hyperactivation, acrosome reaction rate, and acrosin activity were determined. The results are as follows; 1. 1mM of SNP resulted in a significant decrease in sperm motility (44.8%+/- 8.9%:78.1%+/-6.3%, and hyperactivation (10.4%+/-6.4%:477%+/-9.5%) after incubation for 3 hours compared with the control group (Ham's F-10 alone), but had no effect on acrosome reaction. 2. At 100muM SNP, sperm motility was reduced after incubation for 6 hours (54.8%+/- 3.2%) compared with that of the control group (82.7% +/- 8.9%), but hyperactivation and acrosome reaction were not affected. 3. However, a lower concentration (less than 101M) of SNP had no effect on sperm motility and hyperactivation for 8 hours of incubation but significantly decreased them when incubation periods were increased up to 24 hours compared with the control group. On the other hand, 1muM and l0muM SNP significantly increased the acrosome reaction rate in both acrosomal status (17.3%+/-5.2%,23.5%+/-4.7%, respectively) and acrosin activity (34.3muIU+/- 10.5muIU, 45.6muIU+/-5.6muIU, respectively) as compared with the control group (7.0%+/-4.0%, 9.5muIU+/-3.4muIU). These results indicate that SNP, NO releasing agent, has a dose-dependent effects on the sperm cell function. Therefore it may positively affect the fertilization by promoting acrosomal reaction at a lower concentration (less than 101M).
Acrosin ; Acrosome Reaction ; Fertilization ; Hand ; Healthy Volunteers ; Humans* ; Nitric Oxide* ; Nitroprusside ; Semen ; Sperm Motility ; Spermatozoa*

OBJECTIVES: The aims of this study were to find and compare the effect of directional (DIR) processing of two different hearing aids via both subjective and objective methods, to determine the association between the results of the subjective and objective evaluations, and to find out individual predictive factors influencing the DIR benefit. METHODS: Twenty-six hearing aid users fitted unilaterally with each two different experimental hearing aid performed modified Korean Hearing in Noise Test (K-HINT) in three DIR conditions; omnidirectional (OMNI) mode, OMNI plus noise reduction feature, fixed DIR mode. In order to determine benefits from DIR benefit within a hearing aid and compare performance of the DIR processing between hearing aids, a subjective questionnaire was administrated on speech quality (SQ) and discomfort in noise (DN) domain. Correlation analysis of factors influencing DIR benefit was accomplished. RESULTS: Benefits from switching OMNI mode to DIR mode within both hearing aids in K-HINT were about 2.8 (standard deviation, 3.5) and 2.1 dB SNR (signal to ratio; SD, 2.5), but significant difference in K-HINT results between OMNI and OMNI plus noise reduction algorithm was not shown. The subjective evaluation resulted in the better SQ and DN scores in DIR mode than those in OMNI mode. However, the difference of scores on both SQ and DN between the two hearing aids with DIR mode was not statistically significant. Any individual factors did not significantly affect subjective and objective DIR benefits. CONCLUSION: DIR benefit was found not only in the objective measurement performed in the laboratory but also in the subjective questionnaires, but the subjective results was failed to have significant correlation with the DIR benefit obtained in the K-HINT. Factors influencing individual variation in perceptual DIR benefit were still hard to explain.
Hearing Aids* ; Hearing Loss ; Hearing* ; Noise ; Signal-To-Noise Ratio ; Speech Intelligibility

OBJECTIVE: A number of studies to improve in vitro culture conditions have been tried over past ten years by using co-culture system with helper somatic cells. However, the mechanism of coculture is poorly understood. This study was designed to understand the mechanism for the mode of actual action of co-culture system of ICR strain's 1-cell embryos with human oviduct epithelial cells by examining the effect of conditioned medium and contactless coculture using a cell culture insert on the embryo development and by measuring the level of superoxide anion from conditioned medium after co-culture. METHODS: ICR strain's zygote embryos were cultured in medium alone (control), coculture, conditioned medium, or contactless coculture system for 6 days. Conditioned media (CM) were prepared as following 5 groups. All CM were collected after culturing oviduct cells for 2 days. CM-1 was stored at -20degrees C until use, and CM-2 was prepared just before use as a culture medium. CM-3 was cocultured with embryos and retrieved just before use. CM-4 and CM-5 were derives from the microfilteration of CM-2 and CM-3, respectively, using Microcon-10 (10 kDa molecular weight cut-off). The percentage of the embryos developed to hatched blastocyst stage and the level of superoxide anion in supernatant from medium alone culture (control), coculture, and contactless coculture were measured. RESULTS: The rates of embryo development to the hatched blastocyst stage were significantly higher in coculture (43%) than in control (0%) (p<0.05). The CM-1 group had no embryo development since 2-cell embryonic stage, whereas the CM-2, CM-3, CM-4 and CM-5 groups had the improved development to 4 or 8 cell embryo stage, but the similar rate of development to hatched blastocyst compared to control. The effect of coculture on embryo develpment was disappeared in the contactless coculture group. The level of superoxide anion was significantly reduced in coculture group compared to control. CONCLUSION: It is concluded that the present coculture system overcomes the 2-cell block in vitro and improves the embryo development. This beneficial effect may be due to the direct cell-cell contact between embryo and helper cells or the removal of deleterious components from medium rather than the embryotrophic factors.
Animals ; Blastocyst ; Cell Culture Techniques ; Coculture Techniques* ; Culture Media, Conditioned ; Embryonic Development ; Embryonic Structures ; Epithelial Cells ; Female ; Humans ; Molecular Weight ; Oviducts ; Pregnancy ; Superoxides ; T-Lymphocytes, Helper-Inducer ; Zygote

Since it has been proposed that chorionic villus sampling could be an etiology of limb reduction defect, the relation between limb defect and chorionic villus sampling remains controversial. We experienced a case of limb reduction defect after chorionic villus sampling at 9 gestational weeks and report the case with brief review of literature.
Chorion* ; Chorionic Villi Sampling* ; Chorionic Villi* ; Extremities* ; Female ; Pregnancy

OBJECTIVE: The measurement of liver size can be used for the diagnosis of the fetal growth abnormality (FGR, macrosomia etc.). The purpose of this study was to evaluate a mathematical relationship between the fetal liver size(liver length or volume) and the gestational age in the normal pregnancies. Brief comparisons were also tried on the base of the degree of the correlation between liver length and its volume. METHODS: We collected 54 singleton pregnancies of 20 to 36weeks of gestation for measuring fetal liver length and 57 singleton pregnancies for measuring fetal liver volume. We used Combison 530 utrasonic machine(Kreztechnik AG, Zipf, Austria). RESULTS: There was significant correlation between liver size( length and volume) and gestation age. And the liver volume better correlated with gestational age than liver length(r=0.93 : r=0.78, p<0.0001, p<0.0001). CONCLUSION: Ultrasonic measurement of fetal liver size is a reliable indicator of fetal growth, especially liver volume. Therefore these data may have a potential value for the prediction of abnormal fetal growth(FGR, macrosomia).
Diagnosis ; Fetal Development ; Gestational Age* ; Liver* ; Pregnancy* ; Ultrasonics

BACKGROUND: The orthostatic hypotension in response to the assumption of an upright posture is regulated by activation of sympathetic nerves. Role of the vestibular system and neural pathway on orthostatic hypotension were investigated. METHODS: Changes of arterial blood pressure produced by head-up tilting, rotatory stimulation of the vestibular system, or electrical stimulation to the vestibular nerve, vestibular nuclei, and rostral ventrolateral medulla (RVLM) were measured in Sprague-Dawley rats. Also, field potentials were recorded in the vestibular nuclei and RVLM and c-Fos expression was evaluated in the brain stem in order to investigate the vestibulosympathetic pathways. RESULTS: The three phasic blood pressure responses were elicited by head-up tilting: initial fall, early recovery, and late sustained pressure at near control levels, the magnitude of the pressure fall was parallel with the degree of head-up tilting in normal rats. Return position from head-up tilting recovered control level of blood pressure after a brief rapid elevation. However, bilateral labyrinthectomy resulted in exaggerated initial falling and devoid of early recovery phase during postural change. Sinusoidal rotation about off-vertical axis of the vestibular system elicited more elevation of blood pressure than rotation about earth vertical axis. Electrical stimulation of the vestibular nerve, vestibular nucleus, and RVLM produced elevation of blood pressure, which was the most prominent by stimulation of RVLM. Field potentials composed of P, N1, N2 waves in the vestibular nuclei were recorded by stimulation of the vestibular nerve, while weak potentials in RVLM were recorded by stimulation of the vestibular nuclei. An electrical stimulation of the vestibular nuclei expressed c-Fos immunoreactive cells in RVLM. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that the otolith organ of the vestibular system plays a major role in control of orthostatic hypotension, and the pathway of vestibulosympathetic reflex in control of blood pressure involves the vestibular nuclei, RVLM, intermed-iolateral nuclei of the thoracic spinal cord.
Animals ; Arterial Pressure ; Axis, Cervical Vertebra ; Blood Pressure ; Brain Stem ; Electric Stimulation ; Hypotension, Orthostatic* ; Neural Pathways ; Otolithic Membrane ; Posture ; Rats* ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Reflex* ; Spinal Cord ; Vestibular Nerve ; Vestibular Nuclei

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The distribut ion of HCV genotypes varies with geographical area, and genot ypes can affect t he nat ur al course of HCV infection, but adequate genot yping data were not accumulat ed in Korea. This study was des igned to det ermine the pattern of distribution of HCV genotypes in Korea and it's clinical implications. METHODS: 100 cons ecut ive anti- HCV( +), RT-PCR(+) cases were recruited. Genotype specific oligonucleotide primers were made according to the sequence variation of NS5 region of HCV genome. Heminested PCR with mixed primersets was per formed, and genotype specific PCR products of different size were verified. Sequencing of cloned PCR products was done in cases with representative genotypes. Clinical profiles of genotype 1b and 2a were compared. RESULTS: Genotyping was done in 78 among 100 cases. Genotype 1b (48/ 78, 57.7%) and 2a (25/ 78, 32.1%) were most prevalent , and 1a (1/ 78, 1.3%) and mixed form (7/ 78, 9.0%) were also found. Milder cases with persistent normal ALT levels were more frequently seen in genotype 2a ( 9/ 25, 36.0%) than in genot ype 1b (3/ 45, 6.7%) (p< 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Genotype 1b and 2a were major ones in anti- HCV( +) Korean adults, and the tendency of milder clinical course of genotype 2a was suggested.
Adult ; Clone Cells ; DEET ; DNA Primers ; Genome ; Genotype ; Hepacivirus* ; Hepatitis C* ; Hepatitis* ; Humans ; Korea ; Polymerase Chain Reaction*