Animals ; Cell Survival ; Cells, Cultured ; GTP-Binding Proteins ; metabolism ; Isoproterenol ; adverse effects ; Myocytes, Cardiac ; cytology ; drug effects ; metabolism ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Receptors, Adrenergic, beta-2 ; metabolism

Desensitization, Immunologic ; methods ; Humans ; Injections, Subcutaneous

PURPOSE: This study was done to identify the factors of decisional balance for smoking cessation among middle aged men in Korea. This was composed of a set of variables at the level of decision making when middle aged men decide to stop smoking. It was used to classify and identify the characteristics of the stages of change for smoking cessation to which the middle aged men belong, and was used to identify the variables of decisional balance which influenced the stages of change for smoking cessation in middle aged men. METHODS: A convenience sample of 169 men who had smoked and were smoking, were between age 30 and 60 and lived in Seoul(mean age=44), were selected from the community. The data was collected from December 10, 1999 to February 28, 2000. The research instrument was the Decisional Balance Measure for Smoking Cessation (Velicer et al., 1985), and Stage of Change Measure(DiClemente et al., 1991). The data were analyzed using the SAS Program. RESULTS: 1. According to stage of change measure, the 169 subjects were distributed in each stage of change for smoking cessation: in the pre-contemplation stage 63 subjects (32.7%), contemplation stage 60 subjects (35.5%), preparation stage 17 subjects (10.1%), and maintenance stage 29 subjects(17.2%). 2. Factor analysis identified 4 factors of decisional balance as appropriate factors for smoking cessation of middle aged men. There were named by the researchers; 1)'Perceived Burden to Self', 2) 'Perceived Benefit to Others' 3)'Perceived Approval to Others', and 4)'Perceived Disapproval to Self'. 3. Analysis of variance showed that the three components, 1)'Perceived Burden to Self(F=8.50, P=0.0001)', 2) 'Perceived Benefit to Others(F=3.19, P=0.025)' and 3)'Perceived DisApproval to Self(F=2.87, P=0.038)were significantly associated with stage of change. 4. Through discriminant analysis, it was found that 'Perceived Burden to self' was the most influential variable in discriminating the four stages of change(pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, and maintenance). CONCLUSION: The results are consistent with the application of the Transtheoretical model, which has been used to understand how people change health behavior. Even though this study is a cross-sectional, not a longitudinal study, the findings of this study give useful information for smoking cessation intervention for the middle aged men.
Decision Making ; Health Behavior ; Humans ; Korea ; Male ; Middle Aged* ; Smoke* ; Smoking Cessation* ; Smoking*

BACKGROUND: Silver has been used for disinfection and sterilization. We aimed to confirm the in-vitro antibacterial effects of nanocrystalline silver-coated gauze. METHODS: Fourteen clinical isolates each of Escherichia coli and Acinetobacter baumannii were used. Bacterial suspensions made in tryptic soy broth were exposed to Ordinary and silver-coated gauze. Bacteria were then harvested from the gauze immediately and after 24 h incubation, cultured on blood agar plates and eunmerated for viable counts. The number of colonies was converted into common logarithms for comparison. RESULTS: The number of colonies recovered from silver-coated gauze was significantly lower than those recovered from ordinary gauze when harvested immediately after exposure (E. coli, 3.06 vs 1.73; A. baumannii, 3.13 vs 1.98; P<0.001). After 24 h incubation of exposed gauze, silver-coated gauze produced less than 1 CFU/mL, whereas ordinary gauze produced a number of colonies significantly higher than it did immediately after exposure (E. coli, 4.13; A. baumannii, 4.46; P<0.001). Conclusion: Compared with ordinary gauze, silver-coated gauze was shown to have 99.99% antibacterial effect.
Acinetobacter baumannii ; Agar ; Bacteria ; Disinfection ; Escherichia coli ; Silver ; Sterilization ; Suspensions

Lung cancer is one of the most common types of malignancy in western nations with serious health problem, and it has become the leading cause of cancer death of males, second only to stomach cancer, in Korea. A review of the histopathology of 1363 cases (1231 patients) of lung carcinoma, diagnosed at the Keimyung University Medical center from 1987 to 1996, was performed to reclassify the type of carcinomas and to investigate the change in the distribution of histologic types of lung carcinoma according to age, sex and year. Among the 1363 cases, 132 patients underwent a surgical operation after biopsy. The diagnosis of each case was proven by histopathologic analysis of surgical specimens (13.2%) and biopsy materials (86.8%). The histologic types in our study were basically based on modified WHO classification (1982) and on new WHO classification (1999). The classification of small cell carcinoma was based on International Association for the Small Cell Lung Cancer (IASLC, 1988). Of the 1231 patients with lung carcinoma, 1012 were male and 219 were female (male to female ratio was 3.6:1). According to the analysis of age distribution, the most prevalent age group was 60~69 years in both sex as (n=516, 42.0%). Changing trends in sex distribution of lung carcinoma patients showed that the proportion of men had decreased throughout the years, whereas the proportion of women had significantly increased. Histologically, squamous cell carcinoma was the most common (n=624, 50.7%), followed by small cell carcinoma (21.1%), adenocarcinoma (18.1%), large cell undifferentiated carcinoma (2.1%), adenosquamous carcinoma (0.4%), and large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (0.4%), in order of frequency. In men, squamous cell carcinoma was the most frequent type (55.1%). In women, adenocarcinoma was the most frequent type (39.7%). In both sexes, adenocarcinoma was the most common type in patients under the age of 40 (n=12, 41.4%), while squamous cell carcinoma proved the most frequent type in patients over the age of 40 (n=617, 51.3%). Changing trends of histologic types of lung cancer showed that the incidences of squamous cell carcinoma had significantly decreased throughout the years, whereas those of adenocarcinoma and small cell carcinoma had increased. In conclusion, the results showing increases in the percentage of female patients and in the number of cases of adenocarcinoma were noteworthy, and well correlated with other related reports.
Academic Medical Centers ; Adenocarcinoma ; Age Distribution ; Biopsy ; Carcinoma ; Carcinoma, Adenosquamous ; Carcinoma, Neuroendocrine ; Carcinoma, Small Cell ; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell ; Classification ; Diagnosis ; Female ; Humans ; Incidence ; Korea ; Lung Neoplasms ; Lung* ; Male ; Sex Distribution ; Small Cell Lung Carcinoma ; Stomach Neoplasms

Benign lichenoid keratosis is an asyrnptomatic, isolated, plaque-like lesion frequently mistaken for basal cell carcinoma, Bowens disease, and actinic or seborrheic keratosis because of its variable clinical appearance. We present two cases of benign lichenoid keratosis. The first case was a 44-year-old female who had mild pruritic, ll x15rnrn sized, single, slightly elevated brownish plaque with fine scaling on the right zygornatic area of 5 years' duration. The second case was a 35-year-old female who had mild prutitic, single, pea- sized erythernatous patch on the left ala nasi of one month's duration. On histologic examination, these two cases showed same histologic findings, such as focal parakeratosis, moderate hyperkeratosis, irregular acanthosis and liquefaction degeneration of basal cells in the epidermis and band-like mononuclear infiltration and colloid bodies in the dermis.
Actins ; Adult ; Bowen's Disease ; Carcinoma, Basal Cell ; Colloids ; Dermis ; Epidermis ; Female ; Humans ; Keratosis* ; Keratosis, Seborrheic ; Parakeratosis

OBJECTIVETo investigate extracellular splitting pattern of mitochondria and the depressant effects of CsA on the process and explore the mechanism of post-traumatic SIRS and its therapeutic strategy.

METHODSTen male SD rats with 60 to 70 days age and 240 to 280 g weight were used for mitochondrial isolation. Freshly isolated mitochondria were randomly divided into two groups, which were cultured in blood plasma with or without CsA respectively for 8 h. COX and MDH were assayed by ELISA every 30 min. Meanwhile, Rat macrophage cell line NR8383 were treated as follows, control (group A): cultivation with normal medium; NR8383+CsA co-culture group (group B): culture medium was supplemented with CsA of 10 mmol/L; NR8383+intact mitochondria co-culture group (group C): culture medium was supplemented with intact mitochondria (mtDNA=5 g/ml); NR8383+intact mitochondria+CsA co-culture group (group D): culture medium was supplemented with intact mitochondria (mtDNA=5 μg/ml)and CsA of 10 mmol/L; NR8383+disrupted mitochondria co-culture group (group E): culture medium was supplemented with disrupted mitochondria (mtDNA=5 μg/ml); NR8383+disrupted mitochondria+CsA co-culture group (group F): culture medium was supplemented with disrupted mitochondria (mtDNA=5 μg/ml)and CsA of 10 mmol/L. TNF-α and IL-6 concentrations in supernatant were assessed at 1, 3, 5 h after culture.

RESULTSIn the mitochondria plasma cultures, MDH and COX levels were increased with the time and peaked at about 3 h and 3.5 h; CsA can delay the appearance of peak to 4.5 h. Among different treated groups,there was no significant difference in TNF-α and IL-6 between group A and group B; there was significant difference in TNF-α and IL-6 other groups. After 1 h culture, compared with group C, no significant difference of TNF-α and IL-6 was observed in group D, while TNF-α and IL-6 were significant higher in group E; after 3 h culture, compared with group C, TNF-α and IL-6 were significantly lower in group D, while TNF-α and IL-6 were significantly higher in group E; after 5 h culture, compared with group C, TNF-α and IL-6 were significantly lower in group D, while no significant difference of TNF-α and IL-6 were observed in group E. At each time point, there was no significant difference in TNF-α and IL-6 between group F and group E.

CONCLUSIONMitochondria can split in serum with time, which will further activate macrophages. CsA has depressant effect to mitochondrial splitting on the process and will therefore inhibit the activation of macrophages.

Animals ; Cells, Cultured ; Cyclosporine ; pharmacology ; Interleukin-6 ; secretion ; Male ; Mitochondria ; drug effects ; Prostaglandin-Endoperoxide Synthases ; analysis ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome ; drug therapy ; etiology ; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha ; secretion

Three rare tumors of the oral cavity are presented. Lingual chondromas, approximately twenty to thirty cases appear to have been reported since the lesion was first described by Berry in 1892, which are usually seen on the lateral borders in the anterior two thirds of the tongue, while the ventral surface and the posterior third are rarely involved. Chondromas of the tonsil are of very rare occurrence, which are thought to arise as a result of metaplasia, rather than from embryonic rests, with chronic fibrosing inflammation being the inciting factor. Because of its rarity, the following cases of chondroma of the tongue and tonsil are being added to small list of such case reported in the literature.

Behavior-modification approaches are among the most widely used methods for losing weight. The most important concern in these approaches is that the client is helped to achieve long-term weight loss. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of nutritional counseling for weight reduction in office workers. Sixteen overweight office workers (BMI=25.8+/-.5 age=34.1+/-.0) were selected from Poscohuls. Prior to nutritional counseling, their dietary intakes were assessed using the 24-hour recall method, and survey questionnaires for lifestyle and dietary habits were collected. Nutrient intakes were calculated using the Food Processor II program modified for Korean foods. Nutritional counseling sessions were conducted every 2-3 weeks for 5 months. Various techniques tailored to the individual participants were used to facilitate weight loss. After 5 to 6 counseling sessions, questionnaires for lifestyle and dietary habits were re-evaluated. Daily energy intake showed great individual differences. The energy intake of every client decreased by about 15% (p=0.08). Fat consumption was lowered by 39.3%, but consumption of carbohydrate and protein was not changed. The common dietary and lifestyles problems were overeating, binges, dinning out, snacking, and drinking alcohol. Before counseling began, clients ate out an average of 2.8 times per week, and they ate high-fat foods such as belly pork. After counseling, they consumed low-fat dishes such as fish and lean meat in fewer dinning-out sessions. Also, the number of binges decreased slightly, and clients consumed smaller meals. Similar changes occurred with respect to the consumption of alcohol. During the counseling sessions, 25 percent of clients lost weight by approximately 2kg, while 75 percent maintained their weight. In conclusion, multiple nutritional counseling sessions are an effective and efficient approach to change eating pattern to keep losing weight. Furthermore, through multiple nutritional counseling sessions, clients can gain good dietary habits and learn to control their weight through behavior modification. However, clients need to have patience and trust to lose weight since it takes longer periods to show losing weight multiple nutritional counseling sessions.
Behavior Therapy* ; Counseling* ; Drinking ; Eating ; Energy Intake ; Food Habits ; Hyperphagia ; Individuality ; Life Style ; Meals ; Meat ; Overweight ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Snacks ; Weight Loss

BACKGROUND: Intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP)is well known for its hemodynamic benefit but still has its own complications.Proper use of IABP is the best way t o obt ai n maximum benefit with low complication rate. MATERIALS AND METHOD: Twenty one(men 10,female 11) patients were included in this study among the 100 consecutive adult cardiac surgery patients in our hospital.Eighteen(85.7%)were ischemic heart disease patients.They all received IABP therapy due to postcardiotomy cardiogenic shock according to the well-known indications.Their preoperative conditions,intraoperative factors including hemodynamics, postoperative conditions and IABP-related complications were analyzed. RESULT: Nineteen patients(90.5%)were successfully weaned from IABP.There were 2 patients of operative death and the mortality rate was 9.5%.Duration of IABP use was 40.7+/-24.3 hours.There were 2 cases(9.5%)of IABP-related vascular complications that required surgical intervention. CONCLUSION: We concluded that IABP could be used effectively and safely for postcardiotomy cardiogenic shock patients with low complication rate.
Adult ; Hemodynamics ; Humans ; Mortality ; Myocardial Ischemia ; Shock, Cardiogenic* ; Thoracic Surgery