Urticaria is a common disease and a well known reaction pattern of the skin eharacterized by erythema or wheals and edema, that is the results of a local leakage ef plasma, from minute vessels into the connective tissue of the dermis. Seven hundred and sixty cases of urticaria visited to this department from January 1973 to December 1974 were studied clinically in various ways. Patients were classified as acute and chronic urticaria-acute form when the hives have been present for less than 8 weeks and chronic form when the hives lasted longer. In all patients, a detailed history, a complete physical examination, a total and differential leukocyte count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate and routine stool examination were performed. Foods were incriminated as the exciting causes of urticaria by history, diet elimination test and ingestion test. An ice cube test was done for corroboration of cold allergy. Cholinergic urticaria, was diagnosed by the appearance of small wheals surrounded by erythema after exercise, emotional disturbances or hot drinks. The diagnosis of urticaria due to drug was based on the history of urticaria following the taking of a certain drug. Infection as the inciting cause was determined by history and physical examination. The results: 1. The incidence of urticaria is 4. 6% to total number of dermatologic patients. 2. Among the 760 urticaria patients, acute cases were 498 which were 2 times more than chronic cases, and female patients were 474 cases that revealed marked high incidences than male patients. 3. The age of the patients ranged from 2 months to 87 years, and the patients between 20 and 39 years occupied more than half of the all patients. 4. Abnormal hematologic findings were more marked in acute form; leukocytosis and neutrophilia were dominate in acute form, and lymphocytosis and eosinophilia were more marked in chronic form. 5. Among the etiologic factors, the bacterial infection was the most frequent which occupied 22. 4% of the all urticaria patients. 6. Seven cases of urticaria due to parasites were clonorchis sinensis, in which I had experienced the complete recovery with the treatment of subcutaneous injection of clonorchis sinensis antigen (1: 10,000) 0.01- 0.1ml at the interval of one week. 7. In this study, the inciting or perpetuating causes could not be found in 50.8% of patients-46.2% of acute form and 59.5% of chronic form.
Affective Symptoms ; Bacterial Infections ; Blood Sedimentation ; Clonorchis sinensis ; Connective Tissue ; Dermis ; Diagnosis ; Diet ; Eating ; Edema ; Eosinophilia ; Erythema ; Female ; Humans ; Hypersensitivity ; Ice ; Incidence ; Injections, Subcutaneous ; Leukocyte Count ; Leukocytosis ; Lymphocytosis ; Male ; Parasites ; Physical Examination ; Plasma ; Skin ; Urticaria*

Weber-Christian disease is a relapsing, febrile, nodular, nonsuppurative inflammation of the subcutaneous fat tissue. Many authors reported these cases which illustrate the great variability of the clinical manifestation, such as acute or chronic, fulminating or transient, febrile or non febrile, systemic or cutaneous. Two of our cases have had recurrent painful subeutaneous nodules without fever for several years. Biopsy showed a nonspecific inflammatory panniculitis with lymphocytes chiefly, and small amount of histiocytes and foamy cells. It should be suggested Weber-Christian disease when subcutaneous nodules appear recurrently same areas of the whole body surface except anterior aspects of tibia even if no fever as systemic manifestation. Treatment with steroid and chloroquine diphosphete produced good improvement.
Biopsy ; Chloroquine ; Fever ; Histiocytes ; Inflammation ; Lymphocytes ; Panniculitis ; Panniculitis, Nodular Nonsuppurative* ; Subcutaneous Fat ; Tibia

Livedo vasculitis or vasculitis of atrophie blanche is a clinical entity which can be distinguished from cutaneous vasculitis by distinctive pathology and immunopathologic study. A 18-year-old female with erythematous, telangiectatic, purpuric or hyperpigmented patches, intermingled with white atrophic ivory patches on her legs of 3 years duration was seen in June 3, 1982. The histologic examination of an atrophic patch showed proliferation and occlusion of blood vessels in the upper dermis with patchy atrophy of the epidermis. The immunopatbologic features of an atrophic patch revealed deposits of IgM, Ca and fibrin as a definitive immunofluorescence vessel pattern. This suggests that the livedo va.sculitis or vasculitis of atrophie blanche may he considered one of the immune vasculitides. This patient had received aspirin and persantine for 4 months, and moderate therapeutic effects could be noticed.
Adolescent ; Aspirin ; Atrophy ; Blood Vessels ; Dermis ; Dipyridamole ; Epidermis ; Female ; Fibrin ; Fluorescent Antibody Technique ; Humans ; Immunoglobulin M ; Leg ; Pathology ; Vasculitis*

Local anesthesia for arthroscopic procedure of the knee is an increasinglv popular technique that avoids the use of general anesthesia and the associated risks of respiratory depression, aspiration, and postoperative sedation. Many authors, for example McGinty etc., Martin, Yoshiya etc., advocated local anesthesia as safe and efficient method for arthroscopic procedures of the knee. We performed arthoroscopy of the knee under local anesthesia on 150 patients for diagnostic and operative purposes between January l993 and December l996. The technique of local anesthesia that we used was that 20cc of 0.5%; bupivacaine with I:200,000 epinephrine was injected into superolateral portal of the knee joint and additional 10-20cc ot 1% lidocaine into the arthroscopic portals. Pnevmatic tourniquet wa, not applied in all cases. We analysed the 150 cases and the results were as follows; The diagnostic arthroscopy was performed in 50 cases and the operative arthroscopy was in 100 cases. The duration ot local anethesia was from 4 hours to 12 hours, with an average of 6 hours. In 35 cases arthroscopy was performed as outpatient procedure and average hospital stay excluding other problem was 5 days. No complication related to systemic toxicity by local anesthetics was observed. Conclusively arthroscopy of the knee under local anesthesia is safe and effective procedure to avoid the risks of general anesthesia but patients selection is very important.
Anesthesia, General ; Anesthesia, Local* ; Anesthetics, Local ; Arthroscopy* ; Bupivacaine ; Epinephrine ; Humans ; Knee Joint ; Knee* ; Length of Stay ; Lidocaine ; Outpatients ; Respiratory Insufficiency ; Tourniquets

Confluent and reticulated papillomatosis(CRP) is a rare dermatosis. The lesions are hyperkeratotic, verrucous papules and plaques, resulting in a confluence of lesions centrally and a reticulated pattern at the periphery. It is more common in women and during puberty. The histopathological findings show papillomatosis, hyperkeratosis and a sparse superficial perivascular lymphocytic infiltrate. We report a case of CRP that responded to oral etretinate in an 18-year-old man.
Acitretin* ; Adolescent ; Etretinate* ; Female ; Humans ; Papilloma* ; Puberty ; Skin Diseases

A 52-year-old women, suffering from generalized pruritus due to intrahepatic and common hepatic duct stones, was treated with astemizole, 30mg daily. Sixty one days later, convulsions and syncope developed suddenly during hospitalization. She had no history of arrhythmia, heart disease, electrolytes imbalance, or CNS disorders. As another case, a 44-year-old man suffering from pruritus due to liver cirrhosis, was treated with astemizole, 30mg daily. Thirty two days later, palpitations and syncope also developed suddenly during hospitalization. He was diagnosed liver cirrhosis, 3 years ago and there was no history of arrhythmia, heart disease, electrolytes imbalance, or CNS disorders. Administration of astemizole was stopped immediately. The laboratory investigations revealed the normal range of serum potassium, calcium and magnesium in both cases. The ECG finding showed the prolongation of QTc interval, frequent VPCs and intermittent polymorphic drugs. On 1st and 3rd day, after discontinue of astemisole, the ECG abnormalities disappeard. It is suggested that astemizole overdose can induce prolongation of QTc interval and torsade de pointes, especially in the patient with liver disease.
Adult ; Arrhythmias, Cardiac ; Astemizole* ; Calcium ; Electrocardiography ; Electrolytes ; Female ; Heart Diseases ; Hepatic Duct, Common ; Hospitalization ; Humans ; Liver Cirrhosis ; Liver Diseases ; Magnesium ; Middle Aged ; Potassium ; Pruritus ; Reference Values ; Seizures ; Syncope ; Torsades de Pointes*

Blunt trauma to the chest may result in various cardiac injuries. But traumatic myocardial infarction with coronary artery fistula as a complication of chest trauma has been reported in very few cases. The etiology of myocardial infarction is not entirely clear. A 40 years old male was admitted after a traffic accident. He complained of acute retrosternal pain of about one hours duration. There was an area of contusion over the right sternal border. The ECQ showed deep Q wave and elevated ST segments in leads 2, 3 and aVF. There was a considerable increase in creatine kinase(CK) peak level and a CK-MB fraction. Coronary angiography revealed a total proximal occlusion of the right coronary that communicated directly with the right atrium. The left ventridulogram showed hypokinesia of the inferior wall. He was managed with conservative treatments and has remained well sebsequently. We reported a middle aged man who developed an acute transmural inferior wall myocardial infarction associated with coronary artery fistula secondary to blunt cheat trauma in an automobile accident.
Accidents, Traffic ; Adult ; Automobiles ; Contusions ; Coronary Angiography ; Coronary Vessels* ; Creatine ; Fistula* ; Heart Atria ; Humans ; Hypokinesia ; Inferior Wall Myocardial Infarction* ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Myocardial Infarction ; Thorax*

Degenerative spondylolisthesis, which occurs frequently in middle-aged women, is a disease that causes canal stenosis of the lumbar spine and low back pain. Although the clinical features have been described characteristically, its pathogenic mechanism and therapeutic principles are still to be clarified. Some investigators have claimed that the disease originates from morphologic abnormalities of laminae and facet joints or that it is primarily due to degeneration of the intervertebral disks and degenerative changes of the facet joints. We selected two groups of patients retrospectively. The one was a group of patient who had normal findings on their magnetic resonance imaging(Group I ) and the other was a group of patients who showed degenerative spondylolisthesis at L4-5 and had been managed surgically(Group II ). We measured the total lordosis from Ll to S 1 and segmental lordosis of L3-4, L4-5 and LS-S 1 in both groups by Cobbs method. In group 3, we measured the degree of slippage of the L4 vertebral body and investigated the associated congenital anomalies of the lumbosacral vertebra on simple anteroposterior and lateral radiographs in both groups. And we measured the facet joint angles of the L3-4, L4-5 and L5-Sl at both side on MRI. Then we analysed the results statistically and got the following conclusions. 1. In Group I, total lordosis decreased significantly. The segmental lordosis of L4-5 and LS-S1 decreased, too, but the segmental lordosis of L3-4 increased. 2. The facet joint angles of L4-5 in Group I increased significantly in both sides. 3. The intercrestal line was lower in Group I than in Group II. 4. The degree of slip was not related with the facet joint angles of L4-5.
Animals ; Constriction, Pathologic ; Female ; Humans ; Intervertebral Disc ; Lordosis ; Low Back Pain ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Research Personnel ; Retrospective Studies ; Spine ; Spondylolisthesis* ; Zygapophyseal Joint

No abstract available.
Prognathism

A total of 23 human fetal hearts from 18 to 40 weeks of gestation were provided for histologic and morphometric studies. The fetuses were the products of spontaneous or artificial abortions and were found to have no congential anomalies or associated lesions at autopsy. Maxima thickness of the left anterior, left lateral, left posterior, right anterior, right lateral, right posterior ventricular wall, and of the interventricular septal wall were measured and the left / right wall thickness ratio was calculated. The cross-sectional area of each ventricle parallel to the base of the heart at about 3-5mm below from the origin of the aorta was measured under drawing attachment-equipped light microscope with the application of point counting or cut-and-weigh method. Data were analyzed by the Anderson-ell ABSTAT dBASE ll statistical package program. The ventricular wall consisted of endocardium, myocardium and epicardium. The myocardium showed epithelial character by stratification of barrel-shaped myocardial cells, but the epithelial character progressively changed to as in adult myocardial tissue from the myocardial area close to the epicardium with increasing fetal age. However, any significant histologic difference between the left and the right ventricular wall at the same fetal age was not found. The growth pattern of both ventricular wall, the interventricular septal wall, and of the cross sectional area were linear (p<0.01). However, there was no significant difference in the wall thickness between the left and right ventricle at the same fetal age, and the left / right thickness ratio was nearly constant with increasing fetal age. The cross sectional area was greater in the right than in the left ventricle in the fetuses after 18 weeks of gestation (p<0.01), and there was no significant difference in the morphometric values between point counting and cut-and-weigh method (p>0.1).
Adult ; Aorta ; Autopsy ; Endocardium ; Fetal Heart* ; Fetus ; Gestational Age ; Heart ; Heart Ventricles ; Humans* ; Methods ; Myocardium ; Pericardium ; Pregnancy