No abstract available.
Spinal Stenosis*

No abstract available.
Mass Screening* ; Prospective Studies*

BACKGROUND: Osteoporosis and its related fractures are increasingly being recognized as major health problems because of the rapidly increasing elderly population. In this study, we investigated the annual trend of osteoporosis-related health services utilization. METHODS: Participants aged over 50 years were identified from the Korean National Health Insurance Service database between 2008 and 2012. Health service utilization rate and treatment rate were calculated through the operational definition. RESULTS: In this period, the number of osteoporosis patients, aged over 50 years, using the medical service, increased by 33.2%. This increase was higher in males than in females. Moreover, the number of newly diagnosed osteoporosis patients increased by 4.3% in women and 20.4% in men. To estimate the proportion of osteoporosis patients who utilize medical services, we analyzed prevalence data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2008 to 2010. Less than 60% of patients with osteoporosis were estimated to have utilized medical services because of osteoporosis. Drug treatment rates were 34.1%, 31.1%, and 33.5% in 2008, 2009, and 2010, respectively. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated an increasing trend in the utilization of the osteoporosis-related health services from 2008 to 2012 in Korea. The proportion of newly diagnosed osteoporosis patients and the prevalence of access to medical services increased more in men than in women. Therefore, an increasing need for prevention and treatment of male osteoporosis was observed. The osteoporosis treatment rate was lower than that for other chronic diseases; more efforts are needed to improve awareness regarding osteoporosis treatment.
Aged ; Bone Density ; Chronic Disease ; Female ; Health Services ; Humans ; Korea ; Male ; National Health Programs ; Nutrition Surveys ; Osteoporosis ; Prevalence

Pneumocystis carinii causes serious pulmonary infection in immunosuppressed patients. This study was undertaken to observe the cytoskeletal proteins of P. carinii by immuno-electron microscopy. P. carinii infection was experimentally induced by immunosuppression of Sprague-Dawley rats for seven weeks, and their lungs were used for the observations of this study. The gold particles localized actin, tropomyosin, and tubulin. The actin was irregularly scattered in the cytoplasm of the trophic forms but was much more concentrated in the inner space of the cell wall of the cystic forms called the inner electron-lucent layer. No significant amount of tropomyosin was observed in either trophic forms or cystic forms. The tubulin was distributed along the peripheral cytoplasm and filopodia of both the trophic and cystic forms rather than in the inner side of the cytoplasm. Particularly, in the cystic forms, the amount of tubulin was increased and located mainly in the inner electron-lucent layer of the cell wall where the actin was concentrated as well. The results of this study showed that the cell wall of P. carinii cystic forms is a structure whose inner side is rich in actin and tubulin. The location of the actin and tubulin in P. carinii suggests that the main role of these proteins is an involvement in the protection of cystic forms from the outside environment by maintaining rigidity of the cystic forms.
Actins/analysis ; Animals ; Cytoskeletal Proteins/*analysis ; Fungal Proteins/*analysis ; Histocytochemistry ; Microscopy, Immunoelectron ; Pneumocystis/*chemistry/cytology ; Rats ; Rats, Wistar ; Support, Non-U.S. Gov't ; Tropomyosin/analysis ; Tubulin/analysis

PURPOSE: Automated peritoneal dialysis (APD) is increasingly used due to freedom from daytime exchanges and flexibility of prescription. In this study, we compared APD with continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) to assess the influence of mode of PD on various measures of clinical performance. METHODS: We followed 26 APD patients prospectively over a 12-month period and compared them with 16 CAPD patients in whom examinations of dialysis dose and residual renal function (RRF) at least twice during the 1st one year after dialysis were done. Weekly Kt/V urea (Kt/V) and standard creatinine clearance (SCCr) of PD, and RRF (24hr urine creatinine clearance) were measured at 1st month, 6th month and 12th month after start of dialysis. In addition, serial biochemical tests were analyzed every three months during this period. RESULTS: No statistically significant differences in baseline characteristics, RRF, SCCr and Kt/V were observed between APD and CAPD patients. Serum concentrations of bicarbonate, hemoglobin, and calcium tended to be higher in the APD group and actually serum bicarbonate levels at 9 months, calcium levels at 12 months and hemoglobin levels at 6 and 9 months were significantly higher in APD patients (p<0.05). There was no significant difference in serum sodium concentrations and peritonitis rate between the two groups. CONCLUSION: No significant differences were observed between APD and CAPD in Kt/V, SCCr and RRF for one year after start of PD. APD, however, may be advantageous in improving several biochemical markers such as blood levels of hemoglobin, bicarbonate, and calcium compared to CAPD.
Biochemistry ; Biomarkers ; Calcium ; Creatinine ; Dialysis ; Diphosphonates ; Freedom ; Hemoglobins ; Humans ; Peritoneal Dialysis ; Peritoneal Dialysis, Continuous Ambulatory ; Peritonitis ; Pliability ; Prescriptions ; Prospective Studies ; Sodium ; Urea

About 5% of patients with SCLC have the ectopic production of ACTH. Ectopic ACTH production of SCLC is suspected when patients of SCLC have unexplained metabolic alkalosis and hypokalemia. Most patients lack the classic feature of Cushing's syndrome. According to the recent report, they have poor prognosis, which median survival is less than 4 months and associated with a high rate of complication during chemotherapy. Also a case of paraneoplastic CRH production with SCLC can mimic the ectopic ACTH syndrome hut it can be distinguished by immunohistochemistry or direct measurement of serum CRH level. We report here a case of small cell lung cancer associated with Cushing's syndrome of ectopic ACTH production. That is immunohistochemically provened by staining with ACTH.
ACTH Syndrome, Ectopic ; Adrenocorticotropic Hormone* ; Alkalosis ; Cushing Syndrome* ; Drug Therapy ; Humans ; Hypokalemia ; Immunohistochemistry ; Lung Neoplasms* ; Lung* ; Prognosis ; Small Cell Lung Carcinoma

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the different patterns of bone loss between the lumbar spine and the femur after ovariectomy in rats. METHODS: Twenty-four female Sprague-Dawley rats underwent a sham operation (the sham group) or bilateral ovariectomy (the ovariectomized group). Four and eight weeks after operation, six rats from each of the two groups were euthanized. Serum biochemical markers of bone turnover including osteocalcin and alkaline phosphatase (ALP), which are sensitive biochemical markers of bone formation, and the telopeptide fragment of type I collagen C-terminus (CTX), which is a sensitive biochemical marker of bone resorption, were analyzed. Bone histomorphometric parameters of the 4th lumbar vertebrae and femur were determined by micro-computed tomography. RESULTS: Ovariectomized rats were found to have higher osteocalcin, ALP and CTX levels than sham controls. Additionally, 8 weeks after ovariectomy in the OVX group, serum levels of osteocalcin, ALP and CTX were significantly higher than those of 4 weeks after ovariectomy. Bone loss after ovariectomy was more extensive in the 4th lumbar spine compared to the femur. Bone loss in the 4th lumbar spine was mainly caused by trabecular thinning, but in the femur, it was mainly caused by trabecular elimination. CONCLUSION: The present study demonstrates different patterns of bone loss between the 4th lumbar spine and the femur in ovariectomized rats. Therefore, when considering animal models of osteoporosis, it is important that bone sites should be taken into account.
Alkaline Phosphatase ; Animals ; Biomarkers ; Bone Resorption ; Collagen Type I ; Female ; Femur ; Humans ; Lumbar Vertebrae ; Models, Animal ; Osteocalcin ; Osteogenesis ; Osteoporosis ; Ovariectomy ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Salicylamides ; Spine

No abstract available.
Fatty Liver* ; Ultrasonography*

To study the correlation of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection with clinical stage in cervical abnormalities, 17 cases of normal cervical tissue and 69 cases of abnormal cervical tissue (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and invasive cervical cancer) was examined by PCR with HPV-specific consensus primers. One case (5.9%) of normal cervical tissue and 42 cases (60.9%) of abnormal cervical tissues harbored HPV. To investigate the integration of HPV genome in 24 cases of HPV 16 positive cervical cancer, E2 gene of HPV 16 was amplified. Integration of HPV 16 was found in 7 cases (29.2%) with E2 disruption. All samples with E2 disruption were from invasive cervical cancer. A multiplex PCR for the mapping of integrated HPV 16 genome with an anchor primer and indicator primers showed that 11 cases (45.8%) were disrupted somewhere in HPV genome but E6, E7, and LCR regions were conserved in all cases. Seven types of integrated HPV genome from long- (7,062 bp) to short-conserved type (3,204 bp) with various deletions were detected by the multiplex PCR. These results show that integration can be detected more accurately by multiplex PCR than by E2 PCR, and E2 disruption is not a critical event of integration
Consensus ; Genome ; Human papillomavirus 16 ; Humans* ; Multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms*