A variety of disease states are marked by prolonged and profound eosinophilia associated with localized or widespread eosinophilic infiltrates. Cardiac involvement maybe a major cause of morbidity and mortality of this disease. We report a case of acute peri-myocarditis with eosinophilia, which was confirmed as eosinophilic myocardilic myocarditis by endomyocardial biopsy.
Biopsy ; Eosinophilia ; Eosinophils* ; Mortality ; Myocarditis*

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of wrist position on the ulnar nerve conduction velocity. METHOD: Ulnar motor nerve conduction studies were performed bilaterally in twenty healthy adult volunteers. For each limb, nerve conduction study was carried out in two different positions. In the first position, shoulder were abducted, elbow and wrist flexed to 90o. For the second position, all joints were kept constant except for the wrist where it was extended. Routine conduction study was performed in both wrist positions. All data were statistically analyzed. RESULTS: The average conduction velocities in the wrist flexed position were 61.6 m/sec for the forearm segment and 62.3 m/sec across elbow. With the wrist extended, the average was 62.6 m/sec and 64.1 m/sec, respectively. The differences in conduction velocities between two different wrist positions were statistically significant (p<0.05). In the wrist flexed position, the average measured latencies were 2.3 msec with wrist, 5.4 msec below elbow, and 7.4 msec above elbow stimulation, compared to wrist extended which showed 2.4, 5.4 and 7.2 msec, respectively. The difference of latencies at wrist between the two wrist positions was statistically significant (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: The authors conclude that wrist position affect ulnar nerve conduction velocity.
Adult ; Elbow ; Extremities ; Forearm ; Humans ; Joints ; Neural Conduction ; Shoulder ; Ulnar Nerve* ; Volunteers ; Wrist*

No abstract available.
Rickets, Hypophosphatemic*

The importance of tick-borne diseases is increasing because of climate change, with a lack of long-term studies on tick-borne pathogens in South Korea. To understand the epidemiological characteristics of tick-borne diseases, the monthly distribution of field ticks throughout the year was studied in South Korea between May 2014 and April 2018 in a cross sectional study.

BACKGROUND: This study was done to investigate the clinical risk factors of delirium in general hospital's elderly inpatients. METHODS: A case-control study design was used. Forty cases and age -sex matched 120 contols were identified using hospital discharge data from June 1995 to May 2001. The controls were selected during the same period. The clinical records of each subject were reviewed using discharged disease code to select cases. Subsequent7, the data were recorded from clinical records. RESULTS: The subjects admitted with delirium tended to have increased age (P=0.007), hypoxia(P=0.018), low hemoglobin(P =0.011),sleep disturbance (P=0.001), more ADL total dependence ( P=0.018), diagnoses with infections (P=0.006), diabetes (P=0.046), and hypertension (P=0.041). Above risk factors seemed to be clinically associated with delirium. CONSLUSION: These findings indicate that rapid infection control, maintenance of good sleep hygiene, well-controlled diabetes and hypertension, and correction of hypoxia may help to prevent delirium in general hospital's elderly inpatients.
Activities of Daily Living ; Aged* ; Anoxia ; Case-Control Studies ; Delirium* ; Diagnosis ; Humans ; Hygiene ; Hypertension ; Infection Control ; Inpatients* ; Risk Factors*

BACKGROUND: A tumor must continuously stimulate the growth of new capillary blood vessels for the tumor itself to grow and metastasize. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) promotes vascular permeability and endothelial cell growth. A hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a typical hypervascular tumor. METHODS: We evaluated the expression of VEGF in 36 cases of HCC by using immunohistochemical staining in order to define its prognostic value. RESULTS: The expression rate of VEGF was 44.4% (16/36) in tumor cells and 0% (0/36) in non- tumorous liver parenchyme. VEGF expression did not correlate with any clinicopathological characteristics. And patients with expression of VEGF in tumor cells had no survival difference in comparison to those without VEGF expression. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that the expression of VEGF in HCC cells by itself may not be a significant factor in the prognosis of HCC.
Blood Vessels ; Capillaries ; Capillary Permeability ; Carcinoma, Hepatocellular* ; Endothelial Cells ; Humans ; Liver ; Prognosis ; Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A*

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease characterized by disturbance in immune surveillance and has an increased risk of cancers. However, no case of tonsillar cancer in SLE has been reported. We report a case of tonsillar cancer in a patient with SLE treated with immunosuppressive agents. A 43-year-old woman with SLE who had been treated with hydroxychloroquine, prednisolone, and azathioprine was admitted because of a palpable mass on her right neck. The patient was diagnosed to have a tonsillar cancer with cervical lymph node metastasis. She received a wide tonsillectomy, right radical neck dissection and radiation therapy.
Adult ; Autoimmune Diseases ; Azathioprine ; Female ; Humans ; Hydroxychloroquine ; Immunosuppression ; Immunosuppressive Agents* ; Lupus Erythematosus, Systemic* ; Lymph Nodes ; Neck ; Neck Dissection ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Prednisolone ; Tonsillar Neoplasms* ; Tonsillectomy

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the historical anesthetic trends for last 35 years at Chonnam National University Hospital (CNUH). METHODS: The anesthetic records of total 101,637 anesthetic cases performed at CNUH from January 1961 to December 1996 were reviewed and analyzed according to age, sex, department, operation site, physical status, preoperative findings, anesthetic methods and agents, duration of operation, etc. RESULTS: Annual anesthetic cases was increased remarkably year by year; annual surgical patients increased 19 times for 35 years. The ratio of male to female was 1.18:1. The percent of geriatric anesthesia was increased year by year. In preoperative physical status from ASA definitions, 83.6 % of total patients was assigned class I and II. The average departmental distributions in descending order were surgery, orthopedic surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, neurosurgery, urology, ENT, thoracic surgery, ophthalmology, plastic surgery, oral and maxillofacial surgery, and others. The distributions of operation site in descending order were lower abdomen, neck, upper abdomen, lower extremities, head, chest, spine, upper extremities, and breast. Inhalational anesthesia was the most frequent used methods. Ether was abandoned from 1983, and major volatile anesthetics was halothane from 1981 to 1991. The use of enflurane has steadily increased and isoflurane has also been used with increasing frequency since 1992. CONCLUSIONS: Anesthetic cases are markedly increased year by year, and major volatile anesthetics and neuromuscular blocker were changed from halothane to enflurane and from pancuronium to vecuronium, respectively.
Abdomen ; Anesthesia ; Anesthetics ; Breast ; Enflurane ; Ether ; Female ; Gynecology ; Halothane ; Head ; Humans ; Isoflurane ; Jeollanam-do* ; Lower Extremity ; Male ; Neck ; Neuromuscular Blockade ; Neurosurgery ; Obstetrics ; Ophthalmology ; Orthopedics ; Pancuronium ; Retrospective Studies* ; Spine ; Surgery, Oral ; Surgery, Plastic ; Thoracic Surgery ; Thorax ; Upper Extremity ; Urology ; Vecuronium Bromide

INTRODUCTION: Although it is well known that medical students are not getting an adequate amount of sleep, there have been only a few studies on the sleep patterns of medical students and the related factors. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the medical students' sleep patterns and the related factors. METHODS: A questionnaire package was administered to the 1st to 4th year medical students at one medical school. It consisted of questions asking about their lifestyles as well as Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI), Epworth sleepiness scale (ESS), global assessment of recent stress scale (GASS), the center for epidemiologic studies-depression scale (CES-D), and Moudsley obsessive-compulsive inventory (MOCI). A total of 352 students (206 males and 146 females) responded to the survey and the result was analyzed using the independent t-test, the chi-square test, the paired t-test, Pearson's correlation and ANOVA. p-values of less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant in analyses. RESULTS: The weekend bedtime was significantly delayed (0 : 49 on weekday ; 1 : 34 on weekend ; t=-5.23, p<0.001), the weekend rise time was delayed (6 : 58 on weekday ; 9 : 30 on weekend ; t=-24.48, p<0.001) and the total sleep time was increased on weekends (5 : 36 on weekday ; 7 : 39 on weekend ; t=15.94, p<0.001). The PSQI score of all subjects was 6.43+/-2.64. PSQI was positively correlated with ESS (r=0.383, p<0.001), GASS (r=0.326, p<0.001), CES-D (r=0.393, p<0.001), and MOCI (r=0.247, p<0.001), but not with GPA (r=0.072, p=0.228. The more senior students had lower PSQI, GASS, CES-D, and MOCI score (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: Medical students were experiencing a lack of sleep during weekdays as they have a later bedtime and earlier rise time, and consequently had more hours of sleep on weekends. Overall, the medical students were experiencing poor sleep quality and sleep deprivation. Poor sleep quality is associated with psychological problems (daytime sleepiness, stress, depression, and obsessive tendency).
Depression ; Humans ; Life Style ; Male ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Schools, Medical ; Sleep Deprivation ; Students, Medical*

Cyclosporine A(CsA) induced nephrotoxicity is a common clinical problem in the patients who underwent organ transplantation and subsequent immunosuppressive therapy. The precise pathophysiology of CsA induced nephrotoxicity still remains uncertain though many hypothesized mechanisms were reported. Therefore, no effective strategy is currently available to counter the nephrotoxic effects of CsA while cyclosporine G or cyclosporine microemulsion was tried to reduce the toxic effects. Recently, CsA was reported to induce lipid peroxidation in renal cortical mitochondria, which may cause mitochondrial damage. To examine the hypothesis of lipid peroxidation in the pathogenesis of acute CsA induced nephrotoxicity, antioxidant vitamin E was co-administerated in the CsA induced acute nephrotoxicity. Sprague Dawley male rats weighing from 250 to 400 gm were heminephrectomized 7 days prior to the experiments. The rats were divided into 3 groups and each group consisted of 7 rats. In group I(control group), the rats were given sterilized olive oil intraperitoneally, in group II(CsA group), CsA 50 mg/kg of body weight/day intraperitoneally, and in group III(CsA with vitamin E), CsA 50 mg/kg of body weight/day intraperitoneally with vitamin E 10 mg/kg of body weight/day intramuscularly for 7 days respectively. From the 6th day, all experimental animals were placed in a metabolic cage collecting urine for the measurement of 24-hours urine thromboxane B2, the metabolite of thromboxane A2. On the 7th day, at the sacrifice of the experimental animals, blood samplings for the measurement of blood CsA level and serum creatinine and left nephrectomy for morphological study were performed. Comparison of mean serum creatinine levels between 2 study groups revealed 171.7+/-164.2 micro Mol/L in group II and 53.4+/-13.9 micro Mol/L in group III(p<0.05). Mean 24-hour urine thromboxane B2 levels were 39.0+/-6.9 ng/24 hours in group I, 74.8+/-22.6 ng/24 hours in group II, and 34.5+/-8.0 ng/24 hours in group III. Urine thromboxane B2 was significantly(p=.0026) lower in group III. The differences of morphological changes in group II and III can be summarized as a diminution of PAS(+) granules under the light microscope and a diminution of the numbers of secondary lysosomes in the proximal tubular epithelial cell under the electron microscope. In conclusion, this animal study provides an evidence that CsA-induced acute nephrotoxicity is related with lipid peroxidation and the antioxidant, vitamin E was considered to ameliorate CsA-induced acute nephrotoxicity in rats.
Animals ; Creatinine ; Cyclosporine* ; Epithelial Cells ; Humans ; Lipid Peroxidation ; Lysosomes ; Male ; Mitochondria ; Nephrectomy ; Olea ; Olive Oil ; Organ Transplantation ; Rats* ; Thromboxane A2 ; Thromboxane B2 ; Transplants ; Vitamin E* ; Vitamins*