No abstract available.
Autografts*

No abstract available.
Skull Base* ; Skull*

As the productive activities have vastly increased following industrialization and urbanization in the modem society, the resulting high mobility of people and goods have caused a sharp increase in the accidents in the work places as well as traffic accidents. In particular, deaths caused by injuries are generally concentrated in the economically active young peoples, producing incalculable losses to the society and nation as a whole. Advanced nations with superior medical care systems have succeeded in reducing incidents of such deaths by operating trauma centers. Especially noteworthy is the case of the United States where such specialized trauma centers have greatly contributed to reducing deaths from injuries in the non-urban areas with less access to medical facilities. At present Korea has no medical centers specializing in injuries. In large cities, the injuries are being treated tertiary medical facilities while in the provinces they are referred to small and medium-sized hospitals that constitute secondary medical facilities. Currently in Korea the Trauma patients are treated at general hospitals that consist of 726 secondary medical facilities and 40 tertiary medical centers nationwide. The secondary medical facilities which tend to take most responsibility for the treatment of trauma are generally deficient in medical staff and facilities (including operating and intensive care facilities). Despite such deficiency and limitations, no regulations exist regarding treatment or transportation of trauma patients. This article reports the outcome of a comparative analysis of the results of trauma treatments among different types of medical facilities based on objective data in the hope that such study would facilitate a comparison with the treatment systems of advanced countries and thereby contribute to a precise formulation of problems that must be addressed in this area.
Accidents, Traffic ; Hope ; Hospitals, General ; Humans ; Critical Care ; Korea ; Medical Staff ; Modems ; Social Control, Formal ; Transportation ; Trauma Centers ; United States ; Urbanization ; Workplace ; Industrial Development

No abstract available.
Abortion, Spontaneous* ; Female ; Humans ; Incidence* ; Pregnancy

There have been many reports on cerebrovascular disease in Korea, almost all of which were done at the Department of Neurosurgery, Neurology, and Internal Medicine. It is established that hemorrhagic stroke(HS) occurs at a higher rate than ischemic stroke(IS) compared to Western societies. However, many patients with IS visit to Oriental Medicine in Korea. Because of the paucity of published information including stroke data of Oriental Medicine, it was our purpose to analyse characteristic pattern of stroke occurrence, clinical data, and outcome for 762 patients visited to emergency room or admitted to the University Hospital and Oriental Medicine for a twelve month period. The incidence of IS was at least 1.5 times that of HS(IS: 309, HS: 453). Among age groups, those in sixties and seventies were the most predominant. The distribution of patients according to each Departments and Oriental Medicine was 118(HS: 2, IS: 116) in Department of Internal Medicine, 286(HS: 251, IS: 35) in Neurosurgery, and 358(HS: 56, IS: 302) in Oriental Medicine. The overall outcome for HS are much poorer than those for IS: in HS, 69.6% good, 10.7% morbidity, and 19.7% mortality, and in IS, 83.2%, 13.0% and 3.8%, respectively. Considering the fact that many IS patients with mild symptoms and signs tend to visit private clinics, these results suggest the actual incidence of Is is much higher than HS in Korea, compared with previous reports. We expect that a multicentered cooperative study including Oriental Medicine will be motivated by this study for establishing more accurate characteristics of stroke in Korea in the future.
Emergency Service, Hospital ; Hemorrhage ; Humans ; Incidence ; Internal Medicine ; Ischemia ; Korea ; Medicine, East Asian Traditional ; Mortality ; Neurology ; Neurosurgery ; Stroke

Hemangiopericytoma is a rare vascular tumor arising from pericytes. The tumor usually develops in the skin or subcutaneous tissue, particularly in the extremities.4 pulmonary origin of hemangiopericytoma is known to be quite rare. It has the potential to become a highly malignant lesion, so wide excision is the treatment of choice. We present a case of primary malignant hemangiopericytoma of the lung and discuss the clinical symptoms, diagnosis, therapy and prognosis within the context of a brief review.
Diagnosis ; Hemangiopericytoma* ; Lung* ; Pericytes ; Prognosis ; Skin ; Subcutaneous Tissue

OBJECTIVE: Because endometriosis is difficult to diagnose and has a high recurrence rate after treatment, a reliable serum marker of endometriosis is necessary. Therefore, the aim of this study is to measure the serum levels of CA125 and CA19-9 in patients with endometriosis before and after treatment and during recurrence, and to assess the usefulness of these levels in the diagnosis, clinical follow up and prediction of recurrence in endometriosis. METHODS: Eighty-eight patients who visited the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of Ewha Mokdong Hospital from January 1994 to December 1998 and were diagnosed as endometriosis by laparoscopy or explo-laparotomy were enrolled as subjects. A retrospective analysis of serum CA125 and CA19-9 levels at 1 month before and 3 to 6 months after initiation of treatment was done. RESULTS: The serum CA125 and CA19-9 levels of endometriosis group(81.0+/-252.5, 36.6+/-53.4 ; mean+/-2SD, U/ml) before treatment was significantly higher than control group(11.6+/-12.8, 9.4+/-8.6)(p<0.05). Overall sensitivity rate for CA125, CA19-9 levels and both was 53.4%, 42.9% and 64.3% respectively. The sensitivity rate for endometriosis, stage 3 and 4(85.4%, 55.0%) was significantly higher than that, stage 1 and 2(p<0.05). The serum CA125 level in endometriosis group showed a significant increment according to stages(p<0.05) while the serum CA19-9 level showed an increasing trend(p=0.055) and both levels decreased significantly after treatment(p<0.05). The serum CA125 level was also higher at recurrence after treatment(p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The serum CA125 and CA19-9 levels are a useful marker for diagnosing severity of disease, monitoring efficacy of treatment and predicting recurrence in endometriosis.
Biomarkers ; Diagnosis ; Endometriosis* ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Gynecology ; Humans ; Laparoscopy ; Obstetrics ; Recurrence ; Retrospective Studies

No abstract available.
Humans ; Infant* ; Streptococcal Infections*

The Her-2/neu protooncogene encodes a transmembrane tyrosine kinase that is structurally homologous to the receptor for epidermal growth factor. Its amplification and overexpression are associated with poor prognosis in breast cancer patients. Neu differentiation factor is a ligand for Her-2/neu protooncogene and was detected in ras-transformed rat fibroblasts. Heregulin (human homologue of neu differentiation factor) is a 44-kilodalton glycoprotein that stimulates tyrosine phosphorylation and induces growth arrest or stimulation and differentiation in human breast cancer cell lines. In this study we examined the expression of heregulin mRNA by nested reverse transcription (RT) PCR with fresh tissue, Her-2/neu protein, ICAM-1 and steroid receptors by immunohistochemistry, and DNA ploidy pattern by flow cytometry with paraffin-embedded tissue in invasive breast carcinoma. We compared the data with nodal status, lymphovascular invasion, steroid receptor status and DNA ploidy pattern. For RT-PCR to heregulin mRNA, 38 cases of fresh breast cancer tissue were obtained. Total 68 cases of invasive breast carcinoma tissue were fixed in formalin, which were used for routine histology, immunohistochemistry and flow cytometry. The results are as follows; 1) Heregulin mRNA was expressed in 86.1% of patients with invasive breast carcinoma and 100% of patients with benign breast lesion using nested RT-PCR analysis. 2) Her-2/neu protein was overexpressed in 50.0% of tumors using immunohistochemistry. The expression of Her-2/neu protein was significantly correlated with high counts of lymph nodes with metastasis (p<0.05), and high nuclear grade (p<0.05). 3) Her-2/neu protein overexpression was significantly correlated with a high DNA index(p<0.05). All of the tumors showing Her-2/neu protein overexpression and no heregulin mRNA expression revealed near tetraploid DNA content. However, both Her-2/neu overexpression and heregulin mRNA expressing tumors revealed near tetraploidy in 38.9% and diploidy in 50.0%. Based on these results, heregulin mRNA expression rate was 86.1% in human invasive breast carcinoma. Her-2/neu protein overexpression is associated with high positive lymph node number and DNA index. Statistically significant reverse correlation with lymph node metastasis is not present.
Animals ; Breast Neoplasms* ; Breast* ; Cell Line ; Diploidy ; DNA* ; Epidermal Growth Factor ; Fibroblasts ; Flow Cytometry ; Formaldehyde ; Glycoproteins ; Humans* ; Immunohistochemistry ; Intercellular Adhesion Molecule-1 ; Lymph Nodes ; Neoplasm Metastasis* ; Neuregulin-1* ; Phosphorylation ; Ploidies* ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Prognosis ; Protein-Tyrosine Kinases ; Rats ; Receptors, Steroid ; Reverse Transcription ; RNA, Messenger* ; Tetraploidy ; Tyrosine

We report a case of dedifferentiated liposarcoma of retroperitoneum as a recurrent form in a 41 year old male. The patient received a extirpation for retroperitoneal mass and diagnosed as myxoid liosarcoma 4 years ago. The patient experienced 3 recurrences over a period of 4 years and diagnosed as myxoid liposarcoma in the second, third recurrence also. Histologically, the mass was composed of several clearly distinct elements : well differentiated liposarcoma, myxoid liposarcoma, myxoid malignant fibrous histiocytoma, poorly differntiated sarcoma, and fibrosarcoma. Immunohistochemically, S-100 protein was expressed in the area of spindle cell sarcoma, well differentiated liposarcoma, and malignant fibrous histiocytoma but alpha-1-antichymotrypsin was only expressed in the area of myxoid malignant fibrous histiocytoma.