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*

PURPOSE: Untill now, AMT at the early stage of corneal ulcer has been prohibited by the reasons that measurement of progression of ulcer by active pathogens was difficult through the transplanted amniotic membrane and anxiety about worsening by decreased permeability of antibiotics. This study has investigated the effect of early AMT in the bacterial corneal ulcer. METHODS: We made experimental bacterial corneal ulcer in 10 rabbits with Staphylococcus epidermidis, which typically has a more indolent clinical course. After certification of infection, fresh amniotic membranes, soaked by fortified antibiotics was transplanted to 5 eyes to which we dropped fortified antibiotics. And to another 5 eyes we applied only fortified antibiotics. After observing the progression of corneal ulcer for 4 weeks, we compared the degree of corneal opacity and histopathologic changes between the two groups to measure the effect of early AMP in the bacterial corneal ulcer. RESULTS: Corneal ulcer was healed in the all 5 cases of early AMT-performed group, And compared with the group without AMT, successful decrement of corneal opacity was observed in the 4 cases of early AMT-performed group. Histopathologic observation has revealed only mild inflammation and the maintenance of parallel architecture of stromal collagens. CONCLUSIONS: In the experimental corneal ulcer with Staphylococcus Epidermidis, we observed healing of the ulcer with decrement of corneal opacity, result from early transplantation of amniotic membrane, soaked in fortified antibiotics followed by dropping of fortified antibiotics at an early stage of ulcer.
Amnion* ; Anti-Bacterial Agents ; Anxiety ; Certification ; Collagen ; Corneal Opacity ; Corneal Ulcer* ; Inflammation ; Permeability ; Rabbits ; Staphylococcus epidermidis* ; Staphylococcus* ; Ulcer

BACKGROUND: Anesthetic techniques for laryngeal microsurgery aims on modulation of sympathetic stimulation, good relaxation and rapid recovery from deep anesthesia. This study was designed to compare the influence of the different anesthetic methods on the cardiovascular responses and the recovery patterns during suspension laryngoscopic surgery. METHOD: Sixty patients of ASA class 1 or 2 scheduled for suspension laryngoscopic surgery were divided into 4 groups randomly. Two groups were anesthetized with inhalational anesthetic, enflurane, and other two groups were anesthetized with intravenous anesthetic, propofol. In each groups, esmolol or fentanyl was used as an adjunctive during anesthesia. When blood pressures increased above 30% of baseline value each adjunctive was added. The changes of blood pressure and heart rate were compared with each others during operation. Postoperatively, the start of spontaneous respiration, consciousness, memory, and the frequencies of other complications were also compared with each others. RESULT: The results were as follows; 1) The blood pressures and heart rates during operations were not different among the groups. 2) The recovery of spontaneous respiration was early in propofol esmolol group. 3) 30 minutes after operation, the consciousness state was better and complications were less in propofol groups compared with enflurane groups. CONCLUSION: From this results, it seems that propofol with nitrous oxide and supplemental fentanyl or esmolol may be useful in laryngeal microsurgery. Especially, esmolol can be a good substitute for those who can't be treated with opioids.
Analgesics, Opioid ; Anesthesia ; Blood Pressure ; Consciousness ; Enflurane ; Fentanyl ; Heart Rate ; Humans ; Laryngoscopy ; Memory ; Microsurgery ; Nitrous Oxide ; Propofol ; Relaxation ; Respiration

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*

BACKGROUND: Recently, Doppler echocardiography has been widely used to evaluate left ventricular(LV) diastolic filling. However, There are only limited date about the influence of LV systolic function on the pattern of left ventricular diastolic filling. METHODS: To evaluate the changes of Doppler echocardiographic parameters of left ventricular filling induced by variations in left ventricular systolic function in dilated cardiomyopathy(DC) with heart failure(HF), 25 patients(M : F=14 : 11) with DC and HF, and 21 age-matched normal subjects(M : F=13 : 8) were examined by ECG, phonocardiography and echocardiography. From the Doppler recording, A2D(time from second heart sound to the onset of early diastolic mitral flow), peak velocity at early diastole(E) and late diastole(A), ratio of E to A velocity(E/A) and flow velocity integral(FVI) were measured. RESULTS: In 22 patients with DC and HF without mitral regurgitation(MR), A2D was significantly prolonged(119.5+/-12.7 vs 92.4+/-14.1msec, p<0.01), and early diastolic peak velocity and E/A velocity ratio were decreased as compared with the normal subjects(E=0.39+/-0.08 vs 0.57+/-0.12m/sec, p<0.01, E/A : 0.87+/-0.19 vs 1.33+/-0.19 vs 1.33+/-0.18, p<0.05). There were significant correlations between A2D and FVI(r=+0.73, p<0.01), and between E/A velocity ratio and FVI(r=-0.78, p<0.01). However, in 3 patients with MR, A2D(88.7+/-12.1msec), E(0.56+/-0.05m/sec), and E/A(1.32+/-0.12) were similar to those in normal subjects, despite of decreased FVI(12.0+/-0.9cm). CONCLUSIONS: These data show that a change of left ventricular systolic function in patients without MR may influence a diastolic filling pattern of left ventricle but not in patient with MR, and suggest that MR masks left ventricular distolic filling abnormalities.
Cardiomyopathy, Dilated* ; Echocardiography ; Echocardiography, Doppler* ; Electrocardiography ; Heart ; Heart Sounds ; Heart Ventricles ; Humans ; Masks ; Phonocardiography ; Ventricular Function, Left*