No abstract available.
Child ; Coronary Vessels* ; Echocardiography ; Humans

Intramedullary myelitis due to bacterial meningitis associated with cervical epidural abscess is very rare. Its cause and clinical features are non-specific, therefore exact diagnosis is often missed or mistaken for other disease and immediate treatment may be delayed. We report a case of intramedullary myelitis due to epidural abscess presented with prominent symptoms of meningitis and manifestations of acute cerebrovacular accident. A 69 -year-old man was admitted due to right hemicranial headache with pain on right posterior neck and febrile sensation. At first, the patient's headache was improved by conservative therapy. Three weeks later, the patient showed abrupt right hemiparesis (MRC grade 2/5) with drowsy mentality. The CSF findings of the patient were compatible with acute bacterial meningitis. Cervical spine MRI showed cervical epidural abscess and extensive intramedullary myelitis from cervical to lumbar spinal cord. After antibiotic therapy, mentality of the patient became to be alert and right hemiparesis was improved to MRC grade 4/5. Follow up cervical spine MRI after several weeks represented that the lesions of cervical epidural abscess and intramedullary myelitis were significantly diminished.
Diagnosis ; Epidural Abscess* ; Follow-Up Studies ; Headache ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Meningitis ; Meningitis, Bacterial* ; Myelitis* ; Neck ; Paresis ; Sensation ; Spinal Cord ; Spine

BACKGROUND: This study used MDS-HC 2.0 (Minimum Data Set-Home Care) to analyze the health and the state of function of the traveling health objects. This study was intended to make use of it with the basic materials for providing them with traveling health service suited for the requirement on the health of the traveling health objects. METHODS: The subjects of this study were 1160 people (over 65 years) living under management control of local Health Center from September 7th to October 3th, 2006. This study was analyzed with inter RAI program & SPSS/WIN 10.0, chi-square -test, t-test, and ANOVA. RESULTS: The result showed that 8.97 CAPs per an elderly person was identified and the subjects over 60% had an injury problem from a fall, health prevention service, vision, IADL, pain, and cognition. The number of CAPs in general was high in higher age and the less educated, and those without a job. But, in subjects that had a life partner and a spouse, the number of CAPs was low. In CAPs by the distinction of sex, CAPs which was much more in man than women in statistics were the improvement of health, the abuse of alcohol and drinking wine, bedsore, and the weak supply system. CAPs which women had much more were the function of the heart and the lungs, pain, the performance of the doctor's advice, health prevention service, and incontinence of urine and insertion of catheter. According to the results comparing CAPs by the level of the ADL, the number of CAPs was shown that the group of ADL 2 was higher than group ADL 1. The matter in which the traveling health service had to be applied in all both ADL1 and ADL2 was injury from a fall, health prevention service, and vision. Conculsion: MDS-HC is applicable to decide the care needs for health and social service supplies. The results can be further applicable for careplan, and referral criteria in continuum of care service over long-term care spectrums.
Activities of Daily Living ; Aged ; Catheters ; Cognition ; Continuity of Patient Care ; Drinking ; Equipment and Supplies ; Female ; Health Services ; Heart ; Humans ; Long-Term Care ; Lung ; Pressure Ulcer ; Referral and Consultation ; Social Work ; Spouses ; Vision, Ocular ; Wine

Apoptosis is a distinct mode of cell death that is responsible for deletion of cells in normal tissues. Apoptotic cell death plays an important role in the proliferation and turnover of cells in various tumors. Apoptosis occurs spontaneously in malignant tumors, often markedly retarding their growth, and increased in tumors responding to irradiation, cytotoxic chemotherapy, heating and hormone ablation. Flowcytometric analysis of the cellular DNA content appears to be a useful clinical prognostic indicator in colorectal cancer. The relationship of apoptotic index(AI) and proliferative indices have being investigated. We analyzed the tumor DNA content and AI in 84 patients who underwent resection for colorectal cancer between January 1989 and December 1994 in order to evaluate the prognostic significance of apoptosis, DNA ploidy and index using in situ apoptosis detection method and flowcytometry. The mean value of AI was 32.4, and median value 21. In the cellular DNA, forty-two percent of the tumors were diploidy, fifty-eight percent aneuploidy. The mean value of DNA index(DI) was 1.38, G0/G1 72%, S phase fraction 21.7%, G2/M 6.3%, and proliferative fraction 28%. There was no significant difference between AI and tumor invasion, LN metastasis, DNA ploidy, DI.(p>0.05) There was no significance between overall survival and AI, DNA ploidy, DI. But patients who had tumors with low DNA index had a significantly longer disease free survival than high DNA index.(p<0.05) As a result, this study shows that AI is a less useful as prognostic factor and DNA index is a more important prognostic factor in patients undergoing surgery for colorectal cancer.
Aneuploidy ; Apoptosis ; Cell Death ; Colorectal Neoplasms* ; Diploidy ; Disease-Free Survival ; DNA* ; Drug Therapy ; Heating ; Hot Temperature ; Humans ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Ploidies ; S Phase

BACKGROUND: Epidural narcotics are now widely used for postoperative pain relief, but their side effects are problematic. Thus, this study was undertaken to evaluate the analgesic effects and to minimize the side effects of the combination of epidural morphine and ketamine versus epidural morphine alone in pateints with postoperative pain. METHODS: The value of using a combined infusion of morphine with a variable dose of ketamine for postoperative analgesia following subtotal gastrectomy was assessed in a double-blind randomised study of 30 patients. Three groups of 10 patients received an infusion of morphine at 2 mg/day, either alone, or combined with ketamine at a rate of 0.4 or 0.6 mg/kg/day. RESULTS: Postoperative anlagesia, sedation, and side effects were not statistically significantly different between groups I and II. Postoperative sedation, and side effects were not statistically significantly different between groups I and III. VAS of group III at 1-2 h was lower than in group I. CONCLUSION: The addition of ketamine to a continuous infusion of morphine dose not significantly improve postoperative analgesia. In addition, increasing the dose of ketamine does not significantly improve postoperative analgesia, Nor does it increase sedation, or side effects.
Analgesia ; Gastrectomy* ; Humans ; Ketamine ; Morphine* ; Narcotics ; Pain, Postoperative*

BACKGROUND: The 7-Minute screen (7MS) test consists of four individual tests (Benton orientation test, Enhanced cued recall, Clock drawing and Category fluency). It can be used in the early detection of dementia in the primary care setting. The aim of this study is to develop the Korean version of 7MS and to obtain normal values for the Korean elderly population. METHODS: The 7MS was translated into Korean and modified by a group of several neurologists, psychi-atrists and family physicians. Some pictures that were considered less familiar with Korean elderly people were replaced by familiar items. The Korean version was administered to 330 elderly people who visited one Health Promotion Center. Of these, nineteen subjects were excluded in the final analysis because they did not meet the inclu-sion criteria for normal elderly. RESULTS: The mean age and education level of the subjects were 64.2 +/-5.4 years and 1 1 . 5 +/-4.8 years, respectively. Mean K-MMSE (Korean version of minimental examination) score was 27.63 +/-1 . 7 4 . Mean scores of 4 individual tests of the Korean version of 7MS significantly correlated with education level(for each, p < 0.01), but not with age. The mean score of clock drawing test in men was significantly greater than that of women ( p < 0.00). CONCLUSIONS: We provide normal values of Benton orientation test, Enhanced cued recall and Category flu-ency according to educational level (more than 6 years and 6 years or less than it), and those of Clock drawing test according to gender and education level.
Aged ; Dementia ; Education ; Female ; Health Promotion ; Humans ; Male ; Mass Screening ; Physicians, Family ; Primary Health Care ; Reference Values

PURPOSE: Recent studies have suggested that p53 regulates the G2 checkpoint in the cell cycle and this function is required for the maintenance of genomic integrity. In this study, we addressed a role of p53 in escaping from cell cycle G2 arrest following DNA damage. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Cell cycle checkpoint arrest in the human colon cancer cell line HCT116 and its derivatives carry p53 or p21 deletions, were examined by FACS analysis, immunoprecipitation, Western blot and IP-kinase assay. RESULTS: While the cells with functional p53 were arrested at both the G1 and G2 checkpoints, the p53-deficient cells failed to arrest at G1, but they were arrested at G2. However, the p53-deficient cells failed to sustain G2 checkpoint arrest and they entered mitosis earlier than did the p53-positive cells and so this resulted in extensive cell death. Cdc2 kinase becomes reactivated in p53-deficient cells in association with entry into mitosis, but not in the p53-positive cells. Upon DNA damage, the p21-deficient cells, like the p53-negative cells, not only failed to repress cdk2- dependent NF-Y phosphorylation, but they also failed to repress the expression of such cell cycle G2-regulatory genes as cdc2, cyclin B, RNR-R2 and cdc25C, which have all been previously reported as targets of NF-Y transcription factor. CONCLUSION: p53 is essential to prevent immature escaping from cell cycle G2 checkpoint arrest through p21-mediated cdk2 inactivation, and this leads to inhibition of cdk2-dependent NF-Y phosphorylation and NF-Y dependent transcription of the cell cycle G2-rgulatory genes, including cdc2 and cyclin B.
Blotting, Western ; CCAAT-Binding Factor ; CDC2 Protein Kinase ; Cell Cycle Checkpoints ; Cell Cycle* ; Cell Death ; Cell Line ; Colonic Neoplasms ; Cyclin B ; DNA Damage ; G2 Phase ; Humans ; Immunoprecipitation ; Mitosis ; Phosphorylation* ; Phosphotransferases ; Transcription Factors ; Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 ; United Nations*

Cellular senescence is a tumor-suppressive process instigated by proliferation in the absence of telomere replication, by cellular stresses such as oncogene activation, or by activation of the tumor suppressor proteins, such as Rb or p53. This process is characterized by an irreversible cell cycle exit, a unique morphology, and expression of senescence-associated-beta-galactosidase (SA-beta-gal). Despite the potential biological importance of cellular senescence, little is known of the mechanisms leading to the senescent phenotype. p41-Arc has been known to be a putative regulatory component of the mammalian Arp2/3 complex, which is required for the formation of branched networks of actin filaments at the cell cortex. In this study, we demonstrate that p41-Arc can induce senescent phenotypes when it is overexpressed in human tumor cell line, SaOs-2, which is deficient in p53 and Rb tumor suppressor genes, implying that p41 can induce senescence in a p53-independent way. p41-Arc overexpression causes a change in actin filaments, accumulating actin filaments in nuclei. Therefore, these results imply that a change in actin filament can trigger an intrinsic senescence program in the absence of p53 and Rb tumor suppressor genes.
Actin Cytoskeleton/metabolism ; Actin-Related Protein 2-3 Complex/*metabolism ; *Cell Aging ; Cell Cycle Proteins/metabolism ; Cell Line, Tumor ; Cell Nucleus/metabolism ; Fibroblasts/physiology ; Humans ; Recombinant Proteins/genetics/*metabolism ; Retinoblastoma Protein/*deficiency/genetics ; Tumor Suppressor Protein p53/*deficiency/genetics

Acute necrotizing esophagitis (AEN), also called "black esophagus," is a rare disorder with an unknown pathogenesis. Endoscopic findings generally show black pigmentation throughout the esophagus. This case also offered rare views of the gross anatomy of this disorder. Histological examination revealed that the mucosal and submucosal layers of the esophagus were involved in the severe necrotizing inflammation. The chief manifestation of this disease is hematemesis from hemorrhage of the upper gastrointestinal tract with a typically multifactorial etiology. AEN is also characterized by a clear boundary at the gastroesophageal junction where the necrosis stops. In this study, we report an autopsy case of a 61-year-old man with necrotizing inflammation throughout the esophagus and esophageal necrosis from the laryngopharynx to the gastroesophageal junction. The patient was a disabled person with a history of alcohol abuse who was also diagnosed with mild coronary arteriosclerosis and fatty liver on the basis of the underlying diseases. In this case, the main etiology for poor perfusion from the distal esophageal area was likely underlying illness, history of alcoholism, and malnutrition.
Alcoholism ; Autopsy* ; Coronary Artery Disease ; Disabled Persons ; Esophagitis* ; Esophagogastric Junction ; Esophagus ; Fatty Liver ; Hematemesis ; Hemorrhage ; Humans ; Hypopharynx ; Inflammation ; Malnutrition ; Middle Aged ; Necrosis ; Perfusion ; Pigmentation ; Upper Gastrointestinal Tract

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of food consumption monitoring based on a digital photography method using a mobile phone on food consumption and weight reduction. Eighteen female college students (>30% body fat) participated in the weight control program using a mobile-phone for 4 wks. The energy intake was reduced significantly after 3 wks compared to baseline (P<0.05, baseline: 1,453.0 kcal, 3rd wk: 1,171.1 kcal, 4th wk: 1,130.8 kcal). The subjects lost 2.8 kg of body weight, 1.4% of % body fat, and 1.1 kg/m2 of body mass index (BMI) after 4 wks. There were also significant differences in blood pressure (P<0.001) and serum cholesterol (total cholesterol: P<0.05, LDL-cholesterol: P<0.01) before and after the self-regulated diet program. In this study, the digital photography method using a mobile-phone influenced weight control through trained consumption monitoring, which helps individuals reduce discrepancies between perceived and actual consumption levels. Therefore, effective monitoring by taking food pictures using a mobile-phone can lead individuals to rely more heavily on easy-to-monitor visual cues.
Adipose Tissue ; Blood Pressure ; Body Mass Index ; Body Weight ; Cellular Phone ; Cholesterol ; Cues ; Diet ; Energy Intake ; Female ; Humans ; Photography ; Weight Loss