No abstract available.
Humans ; Siblings* ; Thrombasthenia*

BACKGROUND: Inadequate preoperative evaluation leads to delay or cancellation of elective surgery. To minimize this problem, we launched an anesthesia preoperative evaluation clinic. We analyzed major causes of referral, requested departments and distribution of age to make guidelines of management and laboratory tests. METHODS: The data was collected based on 6,902 patients referred to the anesthesia preoperative evaluation clinic from August 1997 to February 2002. The number of patients each year, distribution of sex, age, requested departments and clinical causes of referral were analyzed retrospectively. RESULTS: The sex ratio (M/F) was 42:58. Twenty-three percent of the patients were in their 7th decade. Obstetrics and gynecology (24.3%), general surgery (20.7%), and orthopedic surgery (15.4%) were the main requested departments. Major causes of referral were cardiovascular problems (27.5%) and pulmonary problems (21.0%). Irrespective of age and department, the most common consultations were related to cardiovascular or pulmonary problems. Nineteen percent of patients had more than two problems that included diabetes mellitus and hypertension. CONCLUSIONS: We concluded that increases in the number of referral patients and making guidelines related to cardiovascular and pulmonary problems will contribute to reduce delay or cancellation of elective surgery.
Anesthesia* ; Diabetes Mellitus ; Gynecology ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Obstetrics ; Orthopedics ; Referral and Consultation ; Retrospective Studies ; Sex Ratio

To study the relationship between the urinary hippuric acid and subjective symptoms in toluene exposed workers, urinary hippuric acid was measured and subjective symptoms questionnarire was surveyed in 93 toluene exposed male workers and 96 non-exposed office male workers. The results are as follows: 1. Mean concentration of urinary hippuric acid, which is significantly higher in exposed group than in non-exposed group, was 1.3 g/l, 1.2(GM, GSD respectively) in exposed group and 0.6 g/l, 1.2(GM, GSD respectively) in non-exposed group. 2. Mean concentration of toluene in the air in the workplace, which is significantly higher in the department of coater than in the department of mixing, was 23.4 ppm, 6.2(GM, GSD respectively) in the department of mixing and 59.8 ppm, 3.4(GM, GSD respectively) in the department of coater. 3. Complained rates of subjective symptoms were significantly higher in exposed group than in non exposed group in all items. 4. In exposed group, complained rate of CNS related symptoms was higher than that of irritation related symptoms in the first part but there was no significant difference and complained rate of irritation related symptoms in the second part was significantly higher than that of CNS related symptoms. 5. In exposed group, complained rates of subjective symptoms were not compatible with dose-response relationship by the concentration of urinary hippuric acid, duration of work, department of work, and age group retrospectively.
Humans ; Male ; Retrospective Studies ; Toluene*

Purpose: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the most frequent cancer with limited therapeutic achievements. Recently, adoptive cellular immunotherapy has been developed as an antitumor therapy. However, its efficacy has not been tested in CRC. This study investigated the ability of an immune cell cocktail of dendritic cells (DCs), T cells, and natural killer (NK) cells to overcome immunological hurdles and improve the therapeutic efficacy of cell therapy for CRC. Methods: CRC lysate-pulsed monocyte-derived DCs (Mo-DCs), CRC antigen-specifically expanded T cells (CTL), and in vitro-expanded NK cells were cultured from patient peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). The ability of the combined immune cells to kill autologous tumor cells was investigated by co-culturing the combined immune cells with patient-derived tumor cells. Results: The Mo-DCs produced expressed T cell co-stimulating molecules like CD80, CD86, human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DR and HLA-ABC, at high levels and were capable of activating naive T cells. The expanded T cells were predominantly CD8 T cells with high levels of CD8 effector memory cells and low levels of regulatory T cells. The NK cells expressed high levels of activating receptors and were capable of killing other cancer cell lines (K562 and HT29). The immune cell cocktail demonstrated a higher ability to kill autologous tumor cells than single types. An in vivo preclinical study confirmed the safety of the combined immune cell adaptive therapy showing no therapy-related death or general toxicity symptoms. Conclusion The results suggested that combined immune cell adaptive therapy could overcome the limited efficacy of cell immunotherapy.