No abstract available.
Chromatography* ; Mass Screening* ; Porphobilinogen*

The extent of utilization of computers at clinics (physicians'office) setting in Korea has not yet been studied. Lack of such information hinders developing effective strategic plans for implementing Information and Communication Technology(ICT) to physicians office practice. Therefore this study was conducted to elucidate current status of computer use in physicians office practice. A mail survey was carried out to randomly selected 2,000 members of Korean Medical Association and 26.3% responded. The results showed that percent of clinics currently using computers and internet for the clinical practice was 98.0% and 85.2%, respectively. With recent gain of popularity in using computers and internet in public, more than 50% of respondents thought that transmission of sensitive medical information through internet was acceptable. Ninety six percent of respondents utilized computerized health insurance claims and electronic medical record system. However, 36.3% of respondents was keeping paper form patients medical records in addition to the computerized records to meet regulatory requirements. Overall, this study seems to indicate that physicians in practice show a strong interest in computerization, although the adaption of ICT in the field of medicine is relatively slow. In conclusion, physicians office practice can be a potential area for future ICT application.
Surveys and Questionnaires ; Electronic Health Records ; Humans ; Insurance, Health ; Internet ; Korea* ; Medical Informatics Computing ; Medical Records ; Physicians' Offices* ; Postal Service

BACKGROUND: The purpose of the study was to investigate prospectively the relation of lipoprotein(a)[Lp(a)],apoproteins and serum lipid parameters to restenosis after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasyt(PTCA). METHODS: One hundred and forty-five patients who received successful PTCA were enrolled and their serum levels of lipids, apoproteins and Lp(a) were measured before PTCA. After 6 months of follow-up, the patients were reevaluated for the development of restenosis by coronary angiography, treadmill test or thallium scan. RESULTS: A total 137 patients could be followed. Restenosis occurred in 71 patients(52%). Clinical parameters(e.g. age, sex, hypertension, diabetes, smoking) and angiographic parameters(e.g. lesion site, type and degree of stenosis) were not significantly different between the group without restenosis and the group with restenosis. Lipid parameters and apoproteins were not associated with restenosis. Lp(a) and Lp(a) phenotype analysis showed no significant difference between the two gruops. CONCLUSION: Serum lipid parameters, apoproteins and Lp(a) concentration are not associated with restenosis after PTCA and cannot be used as predictios of restenosis.
Angioplasty, Balloon, Coronary* ; Apoproteins ; Coronary Angiography ; Exercise Test ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Lipoprotein(a)* ; Phenotype* ; Prospective Studies ; Thallium

Gastric cancer is the third most common cancer and the third most frequent cause of cancer mortality in Asia. It is predicted that gastric cancer will remain an important cause of death at least during the next half century because of the increasing number of new cases in an aging population. However, little has been revealed about the role of gastric microbes and their reaction to gastric cancer. In this study, we identified differences in the microbial communities between gastric cancer and normal gastric mucosa by comparing the microbiomes of tissues from the same patients. The clustering analysis results showed different bacterial communities between normal gastric mucosa and gastric cancer. A comparison of bacterial communities at the species level revealed that Helicobacter pylori was significantly reduced in cancer tissue compared to that in normal gastric mucosa in the same patient. A comparison at the genus level showed that Propionibacterium spp., Staphylococcus spp., and Corynebacterium spp. had significantly reduced populations in cancer tissue, whereas Clostridium spp. and Prevotella spp. had significantly increased populations in cancer tissue.
Aging ; Asia ; Cause of Death ; Clostridium ; Corynebacterium ; Gastric Mucosa ; Helicobacter pylori ; Humans ; Microbiota ; Mortality ; Mucous Membrane* ; Prevotella ; Propionibacterium ; Staphylococcus ; Stomach Neoplasms ; Stomach*

Medication adherence is generally defined as the extent of voluntary cooperation of a patient in taking medicine as prescribed. Adherence to long-term treatment with chronic disease is essential for reducing disease comorbidity and mortality. However, medication non-adherence in chronic disease averages 50%. This study was conducted a genome-wide association study to identify the genetic basis of medication adherence. A total of 235 medication non-adherents and 1,067 medication adherents with hypertension or diabetes were used from the Korean Association Resource project data according to the self-reported treatment status of each chronic disease, respectively. We identified four single nucleotide polymorphisms with suggestive genome-wide association. The most significant single nucleotide polymorphism was rs6978712 (chromosome 7, p = 4.87 x 10-7), which is located proximal to the GCC1 gene, which was previously implicated in decision-making capability in drug abusers. Two suggestive single nucleotide polymorphisms were in strong linkage disequilibrium (r2 > 0.8) with rs6978712. Thus, in the aspect of decision-making in adherence behavior, the association between medication adherence and three loci proximal to the GCC1 gene seems worthy of further research. However, to overcome a few limitations in this study, defining the standardized phenotype criteria for self-reported adherence should be performed before replicating association studies.
Chronic Disease* ; Comorbidity ; Drug Users ; Genome-Wide Association Study* ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Linkage Disequilibrium ; Medication Adherence* ; Mortality ; Phenotype ; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide

HL-60 cells (human promyelocytic leukemia cells) differentiate into the monocyte/macrophage like cells that die spontaneously by apoptosis when treated with 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA). It is known that inhibitors of apoptosis proteins (IAP) bind to and inhibit caspase 3, 7, 9 activity and the induction of apoptosis. In this study, we examined the expression of IAP genes during TPA induced differentiation of HL-60 cells. During the differentiation, HIAP-1, HIAP-2, and XIAP expressions were decreased in protein levels. The pan-caspase inhibitor z-VAD-fmk blocked the decrease of HIAP-1 and HIAP-2, which indicates HIAP-1 and HIAP-2 could be caspase substrates. These findings suggest that the decrease of IAP proteins is related to the induction of apoptosis that is associated with TPA- induced HL-60 cell differentiation.
Apoptosis ; Caspase 3 ; HL-60 Cells* ; Humans ; Leukemia

To investigate a specific mechanism of apoptosis induced by sonication, we applied 20 kHz ultrasound to leukemia cell line HL-60 with different intensities (0-60 W/cm2) and time durations (0-100 sec). In accordance with previous reports, ultrasound treatment in HL-60 cells induced immediate cell death and delayed cell death which are associated with cell lysis and apoptosis, respectively. Delayed cell death of HL-60 was also detected 5 hours after sonication in our experiment. Detection of caspase activation by Western blot and sub-G1 accumulation by flow cytometry confirmed that apoptosis plays a role in delayed cell death induced by sonication in HL-60 cells. In addition, we found that decrease in lysosomes of HL-60 cells after sonication suggesting lysosomal rupture is involved in the mechanism of cell death induced by sonication.
Apoptosis* ; Blotting, Western ; Cell Death ; Cell Line ; Flow Cytometry ; HL-60 Cells* ; Humans ; Leukemia ; Lysosomes ; Rupture ; Sonication* ; Ultrasonic Therapy ; Ultrasonography

Neuroinflammation such as reactive gliosis and microglial activations are important pathological findings of ALS. We present a first autopsy case of ALS in Korea related with neuroinflammatory change. A 67-year-old ALS patient suddenly expired due to accidental head trauma. Gross autopsy finding showed marked atrophic change in spinal cord. Pathological finding include a marked loss of motor neurons, reactive gliosis and microglial infiltrations. These findings suggest neuroinflammation may play a role in pathogenesis of ALS.
Aged ; Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis ; Autopsy ; Craniocerebral Trauma ; Gliosis ; Humans ; Korea ; Motor Neurons ; Spinal Cord

Recently developed cDNA microarray or DNA chip technology allows expression monitoring of expression of hundreds and thousands of genes simultaneously and provides a format for identifying genes as well as changes in their activity. In order to search for changes in gene expression after X irradiation in HL60 cells, cDNA microarray technique was done. In this study, expression of 588 human genes (including oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes, cell cycle regulator genes, intracellular signal transduction modulator genes, apoptosis related genes, transcription factor genes, growth factors and receptor genes, cytokine genes, etc) were analyzed. For cDNA microarray analysis mRNAs were extracted from control and 8 Gy-irradiated HL60 cells. As a result the changes in expression of several genes were observed. This alteration of gene expression was confirmed by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. The expression of heat shock 60 KD protein, c-jun, erythroid differentiation factor, CPP32, myeloid cell nuclear differentiation antigen, MAP kinase-activated protein kinase, interleukin-8, monocyte chemotactic peptide 1 and RANTES genes was increased, but the expression of p55CDC gene was decreased after X irradiation.
Apoptosis ; Cell Cycle ; Chemokine CCL5 ; DNA, Complementary* ; Gene Expression ; Genes, Regulator ; Genes, Tumor Suppressor ; HL-60 Cells* ; Hot Temperature ; Humans ; Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins ; Interleukin-8 ; Monocytes ; Myeloid Cells ; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis* ; Oncogenes ; Protein Kinases ; RNA, Messenger ; Shock ; Signal Transduction ; Transcription Factors