Transarterial chemoembolization is often the first-line treatment for multiple hepatocellular carcinomas. However, hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy is a treatment option for hepatocellular carcinoma refractory to multiple sessions of transarterial chemoembolization. Hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy requires implantation of an appropriate port into the hepatic artery. However, it may be impossible to implant a port due to hepatic artery variation. We report a case of hepatocellular carcinoma refractory to transarterial chemoembolization and hepatic artery variation treated successfully with hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy and radiofrequency ablation with complete response after implantation of ports in both liver lobes.

Most of the medical schools are confronted with various changes to medical curricula in Korea. Some of them already established a steering group to plan a new curriculum. The study's target is the graduates who had undertaken their 6 year-medical course of Medical School at K University. The purpose of the study is to ascertain how well the medical course they had undertaken had equipped them for practice. The questionnaire explored the level of factual content, the adequacy of their skills training, and the development of attitudes and personal attributes during the course. A total of 204 graduates replied, a response rate of 67.5%. The results can be summarized as follows. The graduates' views on the preclinical course they had undertaken at school of medicine show that they felt there were 'too much' anatomy, biochemistry, and pathology. Their views on the clinical course were shown relatively to be adequate level of factual content in comparison with preclinical course. The graduates' views were also sought concerning the help they had received in acquiring certain skills during their education. Only in the area of 'History-taking' and 'Physical examination' did most feel that the skills had been 'well covered' or 'partially covered'. A part of the survey focused on the attitudes and personal attributes that it was hoped medical students would have acquired by the time they qualified. In most cases the respondents did feel that they had acquired the 15 items' attributes listed, at least partially, by the time they had qualified.
Biochemistry ; Curriculum ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Education* ; Hope ; Humans ; Korea ; Pathology ; Schools, Medical ; Students, Medical

Currently, various tyrosine kinase inhibitors and immune checkpoint inhibitors have been suggested in the treatment guidelines for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, sorafenib was the only systemic drug approved 10 years ago. In 2010, a woman diagnosed with HCC rupture and multiple lung metastases visited our hospital. At the time of visiting our hospital, she had undergone transarterial chemoembolization at another hospital to control bleeding due to HCC rupture. We treated her with hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy and sorafenib combination therapy to increase the control of intrahepatic tumors in consideration of the modest efficacy of sorafenib. The intrahepatic tumor was almost controlled. Metastasectomy was performed to control lung oligometastasis. Subsequently, additional muscle metastasis was confirmed, and metastasectomy was performed. Although this is a very rare case, it shows that a multidisciplinary approach can improve the prognosis of patients with HCC.

Most extended care facilities have admitted both the healthy and unhealthy elderly, among which members' average caring demand vary. The Aged Welfare Law, however, currently provides no reasonable basis on the staffing policy for extended care facilities. It just reflects the admitted number of the elderly rather than differences in members' average caring demand among facilities. This study is designed to estimate the need for caring staff on the basis of the correlation between the individual health status measured by various tools including Activities of Daily Living and caring demand by actual service time for each one. The sample included all of the admitted elderly(187 persons) in 4 extended care facilities, two in Seoul and the other two in KangWon-Do over the survey period October 5 through October 20, 1996. The survey process consisted of 3 stages. (1) The current staffing information was collected through self-completed written questionnaires left for head official in each facility. (2) Six graduate students at School of Public Health interviewed all residents to collect information on their health status and sociodemographics. The response rate for the interview was relatively high(85%). (3) Information on direct and indirect caring time consumed for each residents came from self-completed written questionnaires given to nurses and helpers in each target facilities. Analysis of the data was made using Pearson's correlation and multiple regression technique through SAS program. Based on this procedure, the following was found. 1. No facility meet the staffing standard in the Aged Welfare Law completely. 2. It is actual service time that is most correlated with ADL(Activities of daily living). 3. When all of the elderly are divided by four groups based on the level of ADL, the mean values of needed caring time in each group are 15, 21, 36 and 88 minutes respectively. 4. There is no significant difference among facilities in distribution of elderly person by group. 5. No facility meets the estimated number of nurses and helpers which reflects health status of the admitted elderly. Therefore, it is required that severity of the admitted elderly be considered in establishing staffing standard for extended care facility.
Activities of Daily Living* ; Aged ; Gangwon-do ; Head ; Humans ; Jurisprudence ; Public Health ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Seoul ; Skilled Nursing Facilities*

This study has attempted to show general characteristics of health centre directors who have served the post of directorship during the last 40 years. Of 3,000 such health centre directors, information on about 2,500 directors was collected. While average length of service for health center directors has increased, that of vacancy period has decreased. Rural areas have a shorter average length of service than the urban area. Rural areas have twice longer length of vacancy period per health center. Kangwon-do has the longest average length of vacancy period since 1980(2.79 months/year), and Daejeon has the shortest length of vacancy period(0.21 months/year). Chung-buk has no physician directors. The civil servant's rank for the directorship has promoted from the fifth level to the fourth level since 1990. A comparison between the physician director and non-physician director was made as follows : First, the proportion of physician directors had maintained rather high before 1980s ; 62.5% in 1963, 78.3% in 1970, 70.4% in 1980. It decreased to 44.1% in 1990 and 47.6% in 1997. Instead, non-physician directors has abruptly increased since 1980s(12.4% in 1980, 55.4% in 1990 and 50.8% in 1997). Second, physician directors mainly locate in the urban area(58.0% in 1997), but non-physician directors mainly in the rural area(67.2% in 1997). Third, since 1980, the average length of service for physician directors and for non-physician directors has become similar. Fourth, the mean age of physician directors is 45.1 years, and that of non-physician directors 55.7 years. The latter is 10 years older than the former.
Child ; Gangwon-do ; Humans ; Korea*

The health center has to play an important role in promoting community health and satisfying a variety of community health needs and demands in the decentralized Korea. The nearly enacted Community Health Act compels every health center to make its own health plans which intend to deal with local health problems and plan its future health care. This obligation is obviously a big burden to most health centers. They do not have experiences in and abilities of making local health care plans. In order to establish a systematic community health plan, health centers have to concentrate their efforts on enhancing the ability of making health care plan through gathering and analysing the local health informations. However, it is very difficult in reality. This is simply because it will take long time to accomplish these activities. It seems natural that various professionals and researchers participate in carrying out the process of making community health plan in the initial stage. No standardized methodology and analysing framework exist even in the health professional society. Nonetheless, it is common to introduce survey research methodologies in analysing consumer's health care utilization and cost, and in identifying factors influencing health behaviors. Many researchers and professionals have applied social survey methodologies in obtaining information on providers and health policy makers as well. The authors have found that few studies have ever utilized local health data stored at the self-employed medical insurance society as the data source of planning activities. The purpose of this study is to illustrate the usefulness of the data stored at the Sung-Dong Gu Self-employed Medical Insurance Society in establishing the community health plan. The major contents of this study are as follows ; 1. Frequency of utilization by age, area, sex, type of medical care institutions, and some major diseases 2. Medical treatment by type of medical care institutions, by classification of 21 diseases, by frequency of three-character categories 3. Medical treatment of major neoplasm and some chronic diseases by age, sex, and area. The conclusion of this study is that it is of great potentiality to find out the local health problems and to use them in blueprinting the community health plan through comparing the frequency of medical utilization analyzed by a variety of variables with NHI health data or the health data from survey research.
Chronic Disease ; Classification ; Information Storage and Retrieval ; Delivery of Health Care ; Health Behavior ; Health Occupations ; Health Policy ; Insurance ; Insurance, Health* ; Korea

Mumps orchitis represents the most common complication of mumps infections and occurs in 5 to 37% of the populations. The most important danger is the risk of testicular atrophy up to 50% of affected testis which results in sterility. Two patients with mumps orchitis received systemic treatment with Interferon-alpha2(INF-alpha2)(3x06IU per day) for 7 days. All acute symptoms and signs of mumps orchitis disappeared within 4-7 days of INF-alpha2 therapy. No incidence of testicular atrophy was observed at the 19 and 6 months follow-up, respectively. No significant adverse effects of drug were occurred during treatment. We recommend the immediate interferon therapy, as soon as mumps orchitis manifests, to relieve clinical manifestation and to prevent testicualr atrophy and resulting infertility.
Atrophy ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Incidence ; Infertility ; Interferons ; Male ; Mumps* ; Orchitis* ; Testis

Ameloblastic fibro-odontoma(AFO) is a rare mixed odontogenic tumor. It is composed of connective tissue characteristic of an ameloblastic fibroma and calcified tissue as a complex or compound odontoma. AFO usually presents itself as an asymptomatic swelling of jaw or failure of tooth eruption. The lesion usually occurs in individual less than 30 years old. The differential diagnosis of this tumor includes odontoma, ameloblastoma, and ameloblastic fibroma. This report describes an ameloblastic fibro-odontoma occurring in maxilla of sixteen-year-old female. The lesion was treated by surgical enucleation and curettage without extraction of the involved canine(#23). This patient has shown no sign of recurrence during postoperative 34 months. So we report our case with review of literatures.
Adult ; Ameloblastoma ; Ameloblasts* ; Connective Tissue ; Curettage ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Female ; Fibroma ; Humans ; Jaw ; Maxilla* ; Odontogenic Tumors ; Odontoma ; Recurrence ; Tooth Eruption

PURPOSE: This prospective, open-label study evaluated the efficacy and safety of adjunctive levetiracetam (LEV) in Korean adults with uncontrolled partial epilepsy. METHODS: A total of 100 patients whose partial seizures were inadequately controlled on their current antiepileptic drugs were enrolled and received LEV (1000-3000 mg/day). Seizure count and adverse events (AEs) were recorded by patients. Global evaluation scale (GES) and quality of life (QOLIE-31) were also evaluated. Additionally effectiveness over 1-year follow-up was investigated. RESULTS: Ninety-two patients completed the short-term 16-week trial. The median percent reduction in weekly seizure frequency over the treatment period was 43.2%. The > or =50% and > or =75% responder rates were 45.4% and 36.1%, respectively. Seizure freedom was observed in 17 patients throughout the initial 16-week treatment period. On investigator's GES, 81 patients were considered improved, with 41 patients showing marked improvement. Most QOLIE-31 scales improved significantly. At the end of the trial, 79 chose to continue follow-up treatment with LEV. At the follow-up visit (ranging 60 to 81 weeks), 64 patients were still taking LEV; during the last 16 weeks, 65.6% of patients had > or =50% reduction, 50.0% had > or =75% reduction, and 35.9% had a 100% reduction. Seven patients showed continuous seizure freedom from the initiation of LEV treatment. During the entire treatment period, LEV was withdrawn in 36 patients; due to lack of efficacy in 22, AEs in six, both in three, other reasons in five. CONCLUSION: Adjunctive LEV therapy in patients with refractory partial epilepsy was effective and well-tolerated, as evidenced by the high seizure freedom and retention rates in both the short-term trial and the long-term follow-up.
Adult ; Anticonvulsants ; Epilepsies, Partial* ; Epilepsy ; Follow-Up Studies* ; Freedom ; Humans ; Prospective Studies ; Quality of Life ; Seizures ; Weights and Measures

BACKGROUND: We compared the association between economic status and the prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) using large nationwide datasets covering the previous 10 years in Korea. METHODS: We analyzed the association between economic status and DM using Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) data from 2001 to 2010 weighted to represent the Korean population between 30 and 59 years of age. The economic status of participants was classified into quartiles according to monthly family income with an equivalence scale. RESULTS: In men, the prevalence of diabetes in the lowest income quartile (Q1) was significantly higher than that in the other quartiles in 2008 (age and body mass index-adjusted odds ratio [OR], 1.846; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.126 to 3.027; P=0.015), 2009 (OR, 1.706; 95% CI, 1.094 to 2.661; P=0.019), and 2010 (OR, 1.560; 95% CI, 1.024 to 2.377; P=0.039) but not in 2001 or 2005. The data indicated that classification in the lowest economic status was an independent risk factor for diabetes even after adjusting for abdominal obesity, dyslipidemia, hypertension and education level in men of KNHANES 2008 to 2010. Although economic status was significantly associated with abdominal obesity, hypertriglyceridemia, and hypertension in women (P<0.001), there was no significant association between economic status and DM in women. CONCLUSION: Korean men between 30 and 59 years of age with the lowest economic status had a significantly higher prevalence of DM in 2008 to 2010 even after adjusting for other risk factors.
Classification ; Dataset ; Diabetes Mellitus* ; Dyslipidemias ; Education ; Female ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Hypertriglyceridemia ; Korea ; Male ; Nutrition Surveys* ; Obesity ; Obesity, Abdominal ; Odds Ratio ; Prevalence ; Risk Factors*