No abstract available.
Endocardial Cushion Defects* ; Endocardial Cushions* ; Hernia, Diaphragmatic*

Extra-adrenal paragangliomas are rare tumors of neural crest origin, usually arising from the carotid bodies, the glomus jugulare, or the retroperitoneum. And, though ten percents of cases are presented with malignancy, it`s prognosis is relatively good. In genitourinary area, there are a few reported cases of extra-adrenal paragangliomas of the urinary bladder and the spermatic cord. Herein, we report a case of paraganglioma arising in the scrotum, which is an extremely rare location.
Carotid Body ; Glomus Jugulare ; Neural Crest ; Paraganglioma ; Paraganglioma, Extra-Adrenal* ; Prognosis ; Scrotum* ; Spermatic Cord ; Urinary Bladder

The present study aims to investigate the effect of methanol extract of Korean mistletoe (KM; Viscum album var. coloratum), on amyloid beta protein (Abeta) (25-35), a synthetic 25-35 amyloid peptide, -induced neurotoxicity in cultured rat cerebral cortical neurons and memory impairment in mice. Exposure of cultured neurons to 10 microM Abeta (25-35) for 24 h induced a neuronal cell death, which was measured by a 3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5-diphenyl-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay and Hoechst 33342 staining. KM (10, 30 and 50 microg/ml) significantly inhibited the Abeta (25-35)-induced apoptotic neuronal death. KM (50 microg/ml) inhibited 10 microM Abeta (25-35)-induced elevation of intracellular calcium concentration ([Ca2+]i), which was measured by a fluorescent dye, Fluo-4 AM. Glutamate release into medium and generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) induced by 10 microM Abeta (25-35) were also inhibited by KM (10, 30 and 50 microg/ml). These results suggest that KM may mitigate the Abeta (25-35)-induced neurotoxicity by interfering with the increase of [Ca2+]i and then inhibiting glutamate release and generation of ROS in cultured neurons. In addition, orally administered KM (25 and 50 mg/kg, 7 days) significantly prevented memory impairment induced by intracerebroventricular injection of Abeta (25-35) (8 nmol). Taken together, it is suggested that anti-dementia effect of KM is due to its neuroprotective effect against Abeta (25-35)-induced neurotoxicity and that KM may have therapeutic role in prevention of the progression of Alzheimer's disease.
Alzheimer Disease ; Amyloid beta-Peptides* ; Amyloid* ; Animals ; Calcium ; Cell Death ; Glutamic Acid ; Memory* ; Methanol ; Mice ; Mistletoe* ; Neurons* ; Neuroprotective Agents ; Rats ; Reactive Oxygen Species ; Viscum album

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to determine the risk factors for rhabdomyolysis in patients with carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. METHODS: This was a retrospective study on patients with CO poisoning who visited the emergency department from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2015. We compared clinical variables between patients with and without rhabdomyolysis. RESULTS: Among 120 patients who were included to this study, 108 patients exhibited normal value of CPK (creatine phosphokinase), and 12 patients were diagnosed as rhabdomyolysis. Sources of CO, duration of CO exposure, initial GCS (Grasgow coma scale), initial systolic and diastolic blood pressure, initial body temperature and AKI (Acute kidney injury) were showed significant difference between patients who developed rhabdomyolysis and patients who did not. In addition, initial white blood cell counts, troponin I level and carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) level were more higher in rhabdomyolysis group. pH and initial bicarbonate level were more lower. Duration of CO exposure (Odds ratio, 1.011; 95% confidence interval, 1.002∼1.020, P=0.021)was found to be only risk factor for rhabdomyolysis by logistic regression analysis. CONCLUSION: Duration of CO exposure is potential risk factor of rhabdomyolysis development in CO poisoning.
Blood Pressure ; Body Temperature ; Carbon Monoxide Poisoning* ; Carbon Monoxide* ; Carbon* ; Carboxyhemoglobin ; Coma ; Emergency Service, Hospital ; Humans ; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration ; Kidney ; Leukocyte Count ; Logistic Models ; Poisoning ; Reference Values ; Retrospective Studies ; Rhabdomyolysis* ; Risk Factors* ; Troponin I

The vectorial transepithelial transport of water and electrolytes in the renal epithelium is achieved by the polarized distribution of various transport proteins in the apical and basolateral membrane. The short-term regulation of transepithelial transport has been traditionally thought to be mediated by kinetic alterations of transporter without changing the number of transporters. However, a growing body of recent evidence supports the possibility that the stimulus-dependent recycling of transporter-carrying vesicles can alter the abundance of transporters in the plasma membrane in parallel changes in transepithelial transport functions. The abundance of transporters in the plasma membrane is determined by net balance between stimulus-dependent exocytic insertion of transporters into and endocytic retrieval of them from the plasma membrane. The vesicular recycling occurs along the tracts of the actin microfilaments and microtubules with associated motors. This review is to highlight the importance of vesicular transport in the short-term regulatory process of transepithelial transport in the renal epithelium. In the short-term regulation of many other renal transporters, vesicular transport is likely to be also involved. Thus, vesicular transport is now emerged as a wide-spread general regulatory mechanism involved in short-term regulation of renal functions.
Animal ; Biological Transport/physiology ; Endocytosis/physiology* ; Epithelial Cells/enzymology* ; Epithelial Cells/cytology* ; Exocytosis/physiol(HCMV)* ; H(+)-Transporting ATP Synthase/metabolism* ; Human ; Sodium Channels/metabolism

Metastasis to the pituitary gland from systemic cancer is a rare condition. The breast and lung are the most common sites of primary tumor metastasis. Most often, they occur in the setting of widespread metastatic disease, which most frequently occurs in elderly patients. However, an increase in the incidence of solitary pituitary metastasis of breast cancer as the first recurrence has been reported. Diabetes insipidus is the most frequent symptom at presentation, and visual field defects or cranial nerve deficits are common symptoms of pituitary metastasis. Unlikely these symptoms, deficiencies of anterior pituitary hormones may only become evident in critical situation because symptoms are of an insidious onset and sometimes nonspecific. We report here on a rare case of solitary pituitary metastasis from breast cancer presenting as hyponatremia without other symptoms.
Aged ; Breast Neoplasms* ; Breast* ; Cranial Nerves ; Diabetes Insipidus ; Epidermal Growth Factor* ; Humans ; Hyponatremia ; Incidence ; Lung ; Neoplasm Metastasis* ; Pituitary Gland ; Pituitary Hormones, Anterior ; Receptor, Epidermal Growth Factor* ; Recurrence ; Visual Fields

BACKGROUND: Although the first coronary Wallstent implantation ushered in a new era in interventional cordiology with the purpose of circumventing the two major limitations of coronary balloon angioplasty, early acute occlusion and late restenosis, the previous investigators have reported a high rate of subacute occlusion after Wallstent implantation. However, recent studies have reported a low incidence rate of subacute closure and restenosis using the newly modified coronary Less Shortening in aortocoronary vein grafts. The present study reports the immediate results of the Less Shortening Wallstent Implantation for 21 diffuse native coronary lesions in 20 patients. METHODS: Twenty patients were enrolled at the Yonsei Univ. Cardiovasular Center of medical College, Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea from March 1996 through May 1996. The specific angiographic criteria for enrollment included at least 75% diameter stenosis, according to the estimate of two investigatior ; a lesion that was 20mm or more in lenght and a vessel diameter of at least 2.5mm. Bail-out procedure was performed in the case of abrupt closure or threatened closure, defined as a dissection and over 50% residual stenosis of the artery. RESULTS: The coronary Less Shortening Wallstents were successfully implanted in the 21 diffuse coronary lesions(more than 20mm in length) of the 20 patients(pts), including 7 pts of acute myocardial infarction, 11 pts of unstable angina, and 2 pts of stable angina. Angiographic results after Less Shortening Wallstent were 3.0+/-0.3mm in minimal luminal diameter(MLD), 6.7+/-10.8% diameter stenosis(DS) comparing with pre-stent implantation MLD and DS, respectively, 0.3+/-0.4mm and 89.9+/-8.4%. During the in-hospital phase, no major cardiac event occurred except 2 cases of transmural myocardial infarction, including one of stent thrombosis and one of side branch occlusion, despite of inclusion of 7 cases of threatened occlusion in the long lesion. The peristent spasms were observed in 11 among 21 lesions, although long term significance of peristent spasm is not defined. The relative risk for peristent spasm were 10 times higher when larger stents(expanded stent diameter/reference artery diameter>1.7) were implanted. There was no peristent spasm when stents of which expanded stent diameter 1.4 times smaller than reference artery size ware used. CONCLUSION: The results of this introductory study suggest that new Less Shortening Wallstent may reduce the requirement of multiple stent in the long lesion and a lower rate of thrombotic occusion in comparison to its prototype. Further large scale long term follow-up study is needed to evaluate the role of new Less Shortening Wallstent.
Angina, Stable ; Angina, Unstable ; Angioplasty, Balloon, Coronary ; Arteries ; Constriction, Pathologic ; Coronary Artery Disease ; Coronary Disease* ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Incidence ; Korea ; Myocardial Infarction ; Phenobarbital ; Research Personnel ; Seoul ; Spasm ; Stents ; Thrombosis ; Transplants ; Veins

BACKGROUND: Renin is secreted from the juxtaglomerular (JG) cells in response to a wide variety of extracellular stimuli. To study the underlying mechanism of regulation of renin secretion at molecular level, pure JG cell lines (As 4.1) cloned from renal JG tumor was used. In this study, to explore the feasibility of As 4.1 cells as an in vitro model for renin secretion, the changes of renin secretion from As 4.1 in culture during cell cycle were characterized. METHODS: To address this issue, As 4.1s were synchronized in G0, G1, S, G2, early M and late M phase during experiment. RESULTS: The rate of renin secretion was above 1 ng AI/well/hr in G0, G2/M and early mitotic phase and 0.5 ng AI/well/hr in G1, G1/S, S and late mitotic phase. ML-7 (6x10(-5) M), an inhibitor of MLCK which is known to stimulate renin secretion, increased the rate of renin secretion much greater in G1, G1/S, S and late M phase than the other phases; in particular, in early mitotic phase it had no stimulation. On the other hand, the rate of renin secretion was not influenced through out cell cycles by calyculin A, an inhibitor of type 1 protein phosphatase. Forskolin, an activator of adenlyate cyclase resulting in an elevation of intracellular cyclic AMP, stimulated renin secretion only in S phase in a concentration dependent manner. CONCLUSION: The present study demonstrated that As 4.1 cells in culture secrete active renin in much the similar manner to JG cells in situ but its rate varies during each phase of the cell cycle. Thus As 4.1 cells can be utilized as an in vitro model for renin secretion. But, changes in the rate of renin secretion and the secretory responses to stimulators or inhibitors during cell cycle must be considered in conducting experiments to elucidate the cellular and molecular mechanism of the renin secretion.
Cell Cycle* ; Cell Division ; Cell Line ; Clone Cells ; Colforsin ; Cyclic AMP ; Hand ; Renin* ; S Phase

No abstract available.
Rho(D) Immune Globulin*

Although it has traditionally known that deer antler and medicinal herbs extract contain some functional components for health promotion, the nutritional significance remains to be elucidated. This study examined the efficacy of deer antler extract (DA) , medicinal herbs extract (MH) and their mixture (DAMH) on serum IGF-I, bone growth with growing rats in vivo and splenocyte proliferation with spleen cells in vitro. Three week-old young female rats (Sprague-Dawley) were divided into 4 groups and then fed basal diet (AIN-93G) or experimental diets containing DA, MH, DAMH, respectively, for 7 weeks. We collected blood, liver, kidney, spleen, femur and tibia from rats. There was no significant difference in weight gain, but food intake increased in DA- and MH-fed groups. There were no signs of liver and kidney damage in the DA, MH and DAMH-fed groups compared to basal diet group. In femur and tibia, wet weights, breaking forces and bone minerals (Ca, Mg and Zn) were significantly higher in the DA-fed group than in the other groups. Serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP) , bone-specific alkaline phosphatase (BALP) activities were significantly lower in the DA, MH, DAMH-fed groups than in basal diet group. Also, serum insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) concentrations were significantly increased in DA-fed group compared to the other groups. Therefore DA was shown to have an activity of bone growth promotion by increasing the IGF-I, a major bone growth factor. The deer antler extract showed an enhanced immune action on the primary cultured-cells from spleen of rats, representing that splenocytes were proliferated by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) , but not by concanavalin A (Con A) . These results indicate that deer antler extract has beneficial effects on bone growth via IGF-I and on splenocyte activation.
Alkaline Phosphatase ; Animals ; Antlers* ; Bone Development* ; Concanavalin A ; Deer* ; Diet ; Eating ; Female ; Femur ; Health Promotion ; Humans ; Insulin-Like Growth Factor I* ; Kidney ; Liver ; Minerals ; Plants, Medicinal ; Rats* ; Spleen ; Tibia ; Weight Gain ; Weights and Measures