No abstract available.
Pre-Eclampsia* ; Proteinuria*

OBJECTIVES: Contemporary empirical studies have suggested high rates of comorbid attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder(ADHD) or obsessive compulsive disorder(OCD) in children with tic disorders. Not infrequently, ADHD or OCD is as source of greater impairment than are the tic symptoms. The studies in the pathophysiology of tic disorder have implicated abnormalities of dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine. The studies in pathophysiology of ADHD or OCD also have implicated abnormalities of dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine. This study was purposed to examine the differences in tic severities and in the levels of plasma homovanillic acid(HVA) and 5-hydroxyin-doleacetic acid(5-HIAA) according to the presence of comorbid ADHD or OCD in patients with chronic tic disorders. METHODS: In fifty chronic tic patients, OCD or ADHD was also diagnosed. And then tic symptoms, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and attention-deficit hyperactive symptoms were assessed using Yale global tic severity scale(YGTSS), Leyton obsessional inventory-child version(LOI-CV), and Conners parent rating scale. The plasma HVA and 5-HIAA levels were measured using high performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection method. RESULTS: Fifty-eight percent of the patients with chronic tic disorders had comorbid ADHD or OCD. But severities of tic did not differ regardless of the presence of comorbid ADHD or OCD. There was a significant positive correlation between tic severities and plasma HVA levels but none between tic severities and plasma 5-HIAA levels. There was a significant inverse correlation between resistance and interference scores and plasma 5-HIAA levels. Plasma HVA levels showed significant positive correlations with plasma 5-HIAA levels. CONCLUSION: These results showed that tic severities didn't vary according to the presence of comorbidities, and that tic severities were correlated with plasma HVA levels, not with plasma 5-HIAA levels. These results suggested that the pathophysiology of chronic tic disorder was strongly correlated with abnormalities of dopaminergic system.
Child ; Chromatography, Liquid ; Comorbidity* ; Dopamine ; Homovanillic Acid* ; Humans ; Hydroxyindoleacetic Acid ; Norepinephrine ; Obsessive Behavior ; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder ; Parents ; Plasma* ; Serotonin ; Tic Disorders* ; Tics*

No abstract available.
Gynecology/*organization & administration/*standards ; Humans ; Patient Escort Service/*organization & administration/*standards ; Physical Examination/*methods/*standards ; Physicians/*ethics ; Sex Factors

Diagnosis of a thymic carcinoid was made on transthoracic fine needle aspiration in a 36-year old woman who had an anterior mediastinal mass on chest X-ray and CT scan. The aspiration smears showed numerous anastomosing ribbons and cords of small round tumor cells. The tumor cells had slightly eccentric nuclei and some granular cytoplasm. The small and uniform nuclei of the tumor cells had finely granular chromatin and thin nuclear membrane. The cytologic diagnosis of a carcinoid was confirmed on histopathologic, immunohistochemical, and electromicroscopic examination of surgical specimen.
Adult ; Alleles* ; Biopsy, Fine-Needle ; Carcinoid Tumor ; Carotid Body ; Child* ; Chromatin ; Cytoplasm ; Diagnosis ; Female ; Humans ; Immunoglobulin A* ; Nuclear Envelope ; Paraganglioma ; Thorax ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed

PURPOSE: It is important to select and use kinds of Inhaler appropriate to the age of the patient and severity of symptoms. Several kinds of Inhaler have been developed and recommended according to each inhaler's resistance and usage method. We evaluated the usable age of 4 inhalers (turbulent flow inhalers, multi unit dose inhalers, breath actuated MDI, and autohalers) by measuring peak inspiratory flow(PIF) using In-Check(TM) Inspiratory Flow Meter. METHODS: Ninety three patients aged from 3 to 7 years(mean 57+/-12.9 mo.) who had admitted to CHA hospital from July 2000 to April 2001 were enrolled. Study patients were divided into 4 groups according to age:3-4 years of age(group A, n=31), 4-5 years of age(group B, n=32), 5-6 years of age(group C, n=18), and 6-7 years of age(group D, n=12). RESULTS: Out of total 93 patients, 23(71%), 27(84%), 17(94%) patients of each group A, B, C and all 12 patients of group D could use the 4 types of inhaler through adequated education. In all four groups, height, body weight and age were significantly correlated(P<0.05). Usable age, height and weight of children who can use turbulent flow inhaler(TFI) were each 8 year 7 month old, 144 cm, 32.0 kg, and those of multi unit dose inhaler(MUD) were 2 year 10 month old, 92 cm, 12.0 kg. Also that of breath-actuated MDI were 1 yr 8 months, 83 cm, 8.5 kg and that of autohaler were 2 yr 8 months, 91 cm, 11.0 kg. CONCLUSION: We concluded that the ability to use inhalers correlated with height, weight and age of the patients. Multi unit dose inhalers, Breath actuated MDI and Autohaler are useful after 3 years of age through adequate education.
Body Height ; Child ; Education ; Humans ; Infant ; Nebulizers and Vaporizers*

OBJECTIVES: In an effort to improve hearing aid users’ satisfaction, recent studies on trainable hearing aids have attempted to implement one or two environmental factors into training. However, it would be more beneficial to train the device based on the owner’s personal preferences in a more expanded environmental acoustic conditions. Our study aimed at developing a trainable hearing aid algorithm that can reflect the user’s individual preferences in a more extensive environmental acoustic conditions (ambient sound level, listening situation, and degree of noise suppression) and evaluated the perceptual benefit of the proposed algorithm. METHODS: Ten normal hearing subjects participated in this study. Each subjects trained the algorithm to their personal preference and the trained data was used to record test sounds in three different settings to be utilized to evaluate the perceptual benefit of the proposed algorithm by performing the Comparison Mean Opinion Score test. RESULTS: Statistical analysis revealed that of the 10 subjects, four showed significant differences in amplification constant settings between the noise-only and speech-in-noise situation (P<0.05) and one subject also showed significant difference between the speech-only and speech-in-noise situation (P<0.05). Additionally, every subject preferred different β settings for beamforming in all different input sound levels. CONCLUSION: The positive findings from this study suggested that the proposed algorithm has potential to improve hearing aid users’ personal satisfaction under various ambient situations.
Acoustics ; Classification ; Hearing Aids* ; Hearing* ; Humans ; Noise ; Patient Preference ; Personal Satisfaction ; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted

PURPOSE: To determine the postnatal changes in aldosterone action on the renal tubular reabsorption in low birth weight(LBW) infants, we assessed the relation of the aldosterone concentrations to renal parameters during the first 10 days of life. METHODS: Twenty LBW infants were evaluated and their gestational ages ranged from 32.4 to 39.3 weeks and their birth weights ranged from 1,440 to 2,500 g. Estimated glomerular filtration rate, fractional excretion of sodium(FENa) and potassium(FEK), and plasma aldosterone concentrations were analyzed according to the postnatal age and the conceptional age(CA). RESULTS: Glomerular functions were improved after birth and were correlated with CA. FENa and FEK decreased after birth and correlated with CA. Plasma aldosterone concentrations increased to 318.6 +/- 147.2 ng/dL at 48 hours and then decreased to 162.0 +/- 72.2 ng/dL at 10 days after birth. Plasma aldosterone concentrations of infants less than 38th week of CA were higher than that of infants more than 38th week. There was a significant negative correlation coefficient between plasma aldosterone concentrations and FENa in infants more than 34th week of CA, but not in that of less than 34th week. CONCLUSIONS: LBW infants have higher plasma aldosterone concentrations, but a poor correlation between plasma aldosterone concentration and urinary sodium excretion for the first few days of life and in lower chronologic aged infants. These results show that the renal tubule reabsorption of sodium is less responsive to plasma aldosterone in these infants and, therefore, the careful management of fluid and electrolyte balance is mandatory.
Aldosterone* ; Birth Weight ; Gestational Age ; Glomerular Filtration Rate ; Humans ; Infant* ; Infant, Low Birth Weight* ; Infant, Newborn ; Parturition ; Plasma ; Sodium ; Water-Electrolyte Balance

Pheochromocytoma, the catecholamine-producing tumor of chromaffin tissue, is associated with a curable form of hypertension. Recently we report the case of a 59 year-old male admitted for an acute myocardial infarction and who subsequently developed late recurrent severe ventricular arrhythmia coincident with transient hypertensive episodes. A pheochromocytoma was diagnosed on the basis of the urinary concentration of catecholamines and computerized tomography of the adrenal glands. After stabilization of his cardiac rhythm and blood pressure with alpha adrenergic blockade, the left adrenal gland, which contained the tumor, was subsequently resected. The diagnosis of a pheochromocytoma should be considered when recurrent ventricular arrhythmia are associated with intermittent hypertension after acute myocardial infarction.
Adrenal Glands ; Arrhythmias, Cardiac ; Blood Pressure ; Catecholamines ; Diagnosis ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Myocardial Infarction* ; Pheochromocytoma*

OBJECTIVE: To study the prevalence, indications, and outcome of cesarean hysterectomy in women delivered at the Gil Medical Center, Gacheon Medical School. METHOD: This is a retrospective study of all cases of cesarean hysterectomy performed between January 1995 and December 1999. RESULTS: The incidence of cesarean hysterectomy was 0.4% (122/31,481). Cesarean hysterectomy was performed in 100 of 17,829 cesarean sections (0.6%) and in 22 of 13,652 vaginal deliveries(0.2%). The higher the age and the parity of patients, the higher the incidence of cesarean hysterectomy was noted. The most common indication of cesarean hysterectomy was uterine atony(50 cases, 41.9%), followed by 25 cases of placenta previa with adhesive placenta(20.5%), 14 cases of adhesive placenta(11.5%), 11 cases of uterine myoma with pregnancy(9.0%), 9 cases of uncontrolled bleeding with placenta previa(7.4%), 7 cases of uterine rupture(5.7%) and 6 cases of extension of uterine incision(4.9%). All patients who had cesarean hysterectomy received transfusion from 0 pint to 78 pints. Live births were 115 cases(94.3%) and 3 infants were still birth(2.5%). Four infants were dead during early neonatal period(3.3%), so perinatal mortality rate was 5.7%. The postoperative complications were bladder injury, ureteral injury, febrile morbidity, disseminated intravascular coagulopathy, hematoma, wound disruption, postpartum cardiomyopathy, and vaginal stump bleeding. There was two maternal deaths due to acute, severe hemorrhage and DIC. CONCLUSIONS: Cesarean hysterectomy remains a necessary procedure for life saving during abdominal and vaginal deliveries. The procedure itself is usually associated with considerable perioperative morbidity. Obstetricians should identify patients at risk and anticipate the procedure and complications.
Adhesives ; Cardiomyopathies ; Cesarean Section ; Dacarbazine ; Female ; Hematoma ; Hemorrhage ; Humans ; Hysterectomy* ; Incidence ; Infant ; Leiomyoma ; Live Birth ; Maternal Death ; Parity ; Perinatal Mortality ; Placenta ; Placenta Previa ; Postoperative Complications ; Postpartum Period ; Pregnancy ; Prevalence ; Retrospective Studies ; Schools, Medical ; Ureter ; Urinary Bladder ; Uterine Inertia ; Wounds and Injuries

OBJECTIVES: The clinical effects of the simultaneous application of nonlinear frequency compression and dichotic hearing on people with hearing impairments have not been evaluated previously. In this study, the clinical effects of the simultaneous application of these two techniques on the recognition of consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words with fricatives were evaluated using normal-hearing subjects and a hearing loss simulator operated in the severe hearing loss setting. METHODS: A total of 21 normal-hearing volunteers whose native language was English were recruited for this study, and two different hearing loss simulators, which were configured for severe hearing loss in the high-frequency range, were utilized. The subjects heard 82 English CVC words, and the word recognition score and response time were measured. RESULTS: The experimental results demonstrated that the simultaneous application of these two techniques showed almost even performance compared to the sole application of nonlinear frequency compression in a severe hearing loss setting. CONCLUSION: Though it is generally accepted that dichotic hearing can decrease the spectral masking thresholds of an hearing-impaired person, simultaneous application of the nonlinear frequency compression and dichotic hearing techniques did not significantly improve the recognition of words with fricatives compared to the sole application of nonlinear frequency compression in a severe hearing loss setting.
Dichotic Listening Tests ; Hearing Loss ; Hearing* ; Humans ; Masks ; Reaction Time ; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted ; Volunteers