No abstract available.

Primary gastric actinomycosis is an extremely rare disease and less than 20 cases are reported in literature. We experienced a case of gastric actinomycosis in the 63-year-old woman who had subtotal gastrectomy for early gastric cancer(type IIc) 7 month ago. Endoscopic biopsy from elevated lesion on stoma was found to show the neutrophilic infiltration and sulfur granule. She placed on tetracycline for 30 days. Follow up endoscopy showed no abnormality. We report this case with literature review. (Koresn J Gastrointest Endosc 18: 757~ 760, 1996)
Actinomycosis ; Biopsy ; Endoscopy ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Gastrectomy* ; Humans ; Middle Aged ; Neutrophils ; Rare Diseases ; Stomach Neoplasms* ; Sulfur ; Tetracycline

To investigate epithelial cell proliferation reactivity in the odontogenic cysts, the expression of c-erbB-2 oncoprotein by epithelial lining was studied in odontogenic keratocyst(OKC, n=10), dentigerous cyst(DC, n=12), radicular cyst(RC, n=12) and normal dental follicle(n=7). The c-erbB-2 immunoreactivity was studied using a streptavidine- biotin- peroxidase method with polyclonal rabbit anti-human antibody to c-erbB-2 oncoprotein which is known to react with formalin fixed, paraffin-embedded sections and the intensity of staining was determined by manually. In all of 10(100%) OKCs, showed positive expression for c-erbB-2 oncoprotein compared with 10/12(83.3%) in DCs, 11/12(91.7%) in RCs and 5/7(71.4%) in normal dental follicles. The expression within OKC was higher than that of DC, RC and dental follicle but statistically not significant(p>0.05) and but may reflects underlying genetic defect. These results demonstrate differences in c-erbB-2 expression between the epithelial linings of the three major odontogenic cyst types, indicating differences in proliferation activity and differentiation processes within these lesions. And, in particular, these results are able to explain the peculiar aggressive growth pattern of OKC.
Dental Sac ; Epithelial Cells ; Formaldehyde ; Immunohistochemistry ; Odontogenic Cysts* ; Peroxidase

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Glottic incompetence from the unilateral vocal cord paralysis can be improved by medialization of the paralyzed vocal cord. There are many medialization techniques. Among them, medialization thyroplasty and injection laryngoplasty are frequently used techniques. We compared the vocal outcomes of fat injection and medialization thyroplasty in unilateral vocal cord paralysis. The aim of this study is to find out which modalities are more preferable as initial treatment of unilateral vocal cord paralysis. MATERIALS AND METHOD: From 2004 January to 2008 September, medialization thyroplasty was performed in 13 patients and fat injection in 14 patients for unilateral vocal cord paralysis. We analyzed the voice quality by several subjective and objective parameters. The parameters are visual analog scale, GRBAS scale, acoustic analysis (fundamental frequency, jitter, shimmer, noise to harmonic ratio), and aerodynamic analysis (maximum phonation time, mean flow rate, subglottic pressure). RESULTS: Visual analog scale, jitter, shimmer and maximum phonation time are improved after both medialization thyroplsty and fat injection. In GRBAS scale, fat injection showed statistically significant improvement compared with medialization thyroplasty. The mean flow rate was also significantly decreased in fat injection. CONCLUSION: Both medialization thyroplasty and fat injection improved voice quality. But injection laryngoplasty with fat may be superior to silastic medialization in short-term voice outcome.
Acoustics ; Dimethylpolysiloxanes ; Humans ; Laryngoplasty ; Noise ; Phonation ; Vocal Cord Paralysis ; Vocal Cords ; Voice ; Voice Quality

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Onion, particularly onion peel, is a quercetin-rich food with, anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects. However, the effect of onion peel extract (OPE) in humans is unclear. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate whether OPE improves natural killer (NK) cell activity and cytokine concentration in a randomized doubleblind placebo-controlled trial. SUBJECTS/METHODS: Eighty participants aged 19–64 yrs old with a white blood cell count of 4,000–10,000 cells/µL, symptoms of upper respiratory infection at least once within the previous 12 mon, and perceived stress scale (PSS) over 14 were included. Participants were randomly assigned to take either 1,000 mg/day OPE or a placebo for 8 weeks. RESULTS: Compliance were 87.4 ± 8.6% and 86.9 ± 79.0% in OPE and placebo groups.Compared to the placebo, OPE supplementation improved “Hoarseness” (P = 0.038) of the Wisconsin Upper Respiratory Symptom Survey (WURSS)-21 symptom, and stress scores (P = 0.001; 0.021) of PSS. Supplementation of OPE had no significant effect on NK cell activity and concentrations of cytokines such as interleukin (IL)-2, IL-6, IL-12, IL-1β, interferon-γ, and tumor necrosis factor-α. At baseline, the WURSS-21 symptom and PSS score (P = 0.024;0.026) were higher in the OPE group than the placebo group. Among participants with higher than median WURSS-21 symptom score, OPE supplementation increased NK cell activity (P = 0.038). Supplementation of OPE had no significant effects on safety measurements and adverse events. CONCLUSIONS The present study suggested that OPE supplementation improves NK cell activity in participants with moderate upper respiratory symptoms without any significant adverse effects.

PURPOSE: To determine whether initial corrected anion gap (C(o)AG), base excess caused by unmeasured anions (BEua), and strong ion gap (SIG) can predict the morbidity of critically ill patients admitted to emergency department (ED). METHODS: 138 patients who visited the critical section of the ED and were admitted to intensive care unit (ICU) were enrolled. We calculated the C(o)AG, BEua, and SIG from the initial blood samples of the patients and initial logistic organ dysfunction score (LODS) also. Then we measured the LODS at the last day of ICU stay again. Comparing with the initial LODS, we divided the patients into two groups based on the changes of the values: favorable group and poor group. RESULTS: There was a significant difference in the mean AGcorr (p=0.007), BEua (p=0.008), SIG (p=0.037) between favorable and poor group. The area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curves for morbidity prediction were relatively small: 0.66 (95% CI, 0.56-0.77) for C(o)AG, 0.65 (95% CI, 0.54-0.76) for BEua, and 0.59 (95% CI, 0.49-0.70) for SIG. CONCLUSION: We found the initial unmeasured anions at the ED of the patients who eventually showed improved LODS during ICU period are significantly different to those of the other patients. But they failed to show enough capability of discriminating the morbidities between two groups.
Acid-Base Equilibrium ; Anions* ; Critical Illness* ; Emergencies* ; Emergency Service, Hospital* ; Humans ; Intensive Care Units ; Organ Dysfunction Scores ; Organization and Administration ; ROC Curve

PURPOSE: Platycodon grandiflorum (PG) is known to have effective antimicrobial and anticancer activity. The main bioactive components of PG are saponins, and these could contribute to anti-inflammatory activity. However, little is known about the anti-inflammatory effect of PG. In this study, we aim to assess the anti-inflammatory response to Red PG Extract (RPGE) in splenocytes under ex vivo conditions. METHODS: The cell viability of isolated splenocytes taken from mice was analyzed by performing a Cell Counting Kit-8 assay. The productions of nitric oxide (NO) and cytokines (specifically interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interleukin-10 (IL-10)) were measured utilizing Griess reagent and ELISA, respectively. RESULTS: We found that co-treatment with RPGE and Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) decreased isolated splenocyte proliferation as compared with that of the LPS-stimulated control. We also observed that RPGE markedly suppressed NO synthesis and IL-6 production that was induced by LPS. There were no significant differences of IL-10 production between co-treatment with RPGE plus LPS and treatment with LPS alone. CONCLUSION: When taken together, our data has shown that RPGE mitigates LPS-induced inflammation in splenocytes isolated from mice. Further research is surely needed to confirm the anti-inflammation effects of RPGE in an in vivo model.
Animals ; Cell Count ; Cell Survival ; Cytokines ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay ; Inflammation ; Interleukin-10 ; Interleukin-6 ; Mice ; Nitric Oxide ; Platycodon ; Saponins

Despite advances in surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, the survival of patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma has not significantly improved over the past several decades. Gene therapy is currently under investigation and shows us new possibility of cancer curing method. This experiment was undergone to find out the cell growth inhibition effect and evidence of apoptosis by HCCS-1(human cervical cancer suppressor-1), one of the candidates of tumor suppressor gene, transducted to human oral cancer cell line. To determine the efficiency of the adenovirus as a gene delivery vector cell line was transducted with LacZ gene and analysed with X-gal staining. Northern blot was performed to confirm the transfection with HSCC-1 gene and cell viability was assessed by cell cytotoxicity assay using cell count kit(CCK). To show the evidence of apoptosis, DNA fragmentation assay and flow cytometry(FACS) were performed. We had successfully construct the recombinant HSCC-1 adenovirus(Ad5CMV-HCCS-1), and importation efficiency was 20% at 2 MOI(multiplicity of infection), 80% at 20 MOI. Northern blot analysis showed that a single 0.6kb mRNA transcript was expressed in Ad5CMV-HCCS-1 transducted cell lines. As a result of CCK, when comparing to control subjects, transducted group showed 50% growth inhibition. In DNA fragmentation assay, according to increasing of MOI, DNA volume was diminished. In FACS analysis, DNA distribution showed fragmentation.This results imply that HCCS-1gene has growth inhibition effect in human oral cancer cell lines through apoptosis induction.
Adenoviridae* ; Apoptosis* ; Blotting, Northern ; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell ; Cell Count ; Cell Line* ; Cell Survival ; DNA ; DNA Fragmentation ; Drug Therapy ; Genes, Tumor Suppressor ; Genes, vif ; Genetic Therapy ; Humans ; Lac Operon ; Mouth Neoplasms* ; Radiotherapy ; RNA, Messenger ; Transfection ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms

Loss of E-cadherin (E-cad) expression has been found in multiple cancers and is postulated to facilitate tumor cell dissociation and metastais. Promotor methylation may provides an alternative pathway for loss of gene function. This study evaluated the role of hypermethylation in the down-regulation of E-cad in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). We examined the E-cad expression by immunohistochemical staining and detected methylation status by methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (MSP) in 20 OSCC tissues. Overally, 12 (60 %) cases of hypermethylation of E-cad were detected and we found there were no correlation between methylation and age, histologic grade, lympn node metastasis, tumor size and clinical stage. However, Eleven (73.3 %) of 15 samples which was negative for E-cad staining showed hypermethylation of E-cad promotor region. On the other hand, only one (20 %) of 5 E-cad positive sample was observed with methylated status. The underexpression of E-cad was found to be related to promotor hypermethylation (p=0.035). In conclusion, we suggest that hypermethylation play a role in inactivation of E-cad gene and may be a appreciable biomarker for diagnosis and treatment of OSCC.
Cadherins ; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell ; Dissociative Disorders ; Down-Regulation ; Hand ; Methylation ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Promoter Regions, Genetic

Loss of E-cadherin (E-cad) expression has been found in multiple cancers and is postulated to facilitate tumor cell dissociation and metastais. Promotor methylation may provides an alternative pathway for loss of gene function. This study evaluated the role of hypermethylation in the down-regulation of E-cad in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). We examined the E-cad expression by immunohistochemical staining and detected methylation status by methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (MSP) in 20 OSCC tissues. Overally, 12 (60 %) cases of hypermethylation of E-cad were detected and we found there were no correlation between methylation and age, histologic grade, lympn node metastasis, tumor size and clinical stage. However, Eleven (73.3 %) of 15 samples which was negative for E-cad staining showed hypermethylation of E-cad promotor region. On the other hand, only one (20 %) of 5 E-cad positive sample was observed with methylated status. The underexpression of E-cad was found to be related to promotor hypermethylation (p=0.035). In conclusion, we suggest that hypermethylation play a role in inactivation of E-cad gene and may be a appreciable biomarker for diagnosis and treatment of OSCC.
Cadherins ; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell ; Dissociative Disorders ; Down-Regulation ; Hand ; Methylation ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Promoter Regions, Genetic