No abstract available.
Leydig Cell Tumor*

National vaccine injury compensation serves as a crucial and significant safety net for individuals affected by government-recommended vaccines during a pandemic, contributing to the community’s overall safety. In the Republic of Korea, compensation for adverse events resulting from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccinations has been provided through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program introduced in 1995. However, there have been limitations with these measures during the COVID-19 pandemic owing to strict criteria for substantiating causality between the vaccine and injury, its nontransparent process of determining whether to compensate, and the compensation amount that is not practically calculated. This article reviewed the Vaccine Injury Compensation Programs in 10 major countries to present implications for improving the Korean system. Expanding the scope of national accountability is essential to compensate for the consequences of adhering to national policies during public health crises. Therefore, valuable insight can be obtained from examining the systems in Germany, Japan, and Taiwan, which have implemented more relaxed criteria for determining causality in compensation cases; Thailand’s system, which provides the mandatory payment of preliminary compensation for damage caused by vaccination; systems in Germany, France, and Japan, which offer compensation for vaccine injuries from a practical perspective; and systems in France and the United Kingdom, which have a process allowing the assessment records to be shared with the claimants.Furthermore, a dedicated agency for vaccine injury compensation, as seen in France, the United Kingdom, and Australia, is necessary to enhance the efficiency of the Korean system.

No abstract available.
Fertilization in Vitro* ; Superovulation*

BACKGROUND: Immunofluorescent test (IF) is the mainstay of diagnosis for autoimmune blistering diseases. The salt split skin (SSS) techniques, which artificially create a blister through the lamina lucida can often clarify the diagnosis in most cases. The titer of antibodies in the sera of patients is in many instances proportional to the severity of the disease. So, indirect immunofluorescent test can afford a useful aid in their management. METHODS: Skin antigen was prepared from normal human skin which was treated with 1.0 M sodium chloride solution and sectioned at 4-6 m on cryostat. The skin sections were incubated with the patients' sera in varying dilutions, washed, and then incubated with fluorescein tagged anti-human IgG and IgM. The sections were washed again and viewed under epi-fluorescence microscopy. We tested the sera from patients with discoid lupus erythematosus (dLE, n=1), pemphigus vulgaris (PV, n=3), bullous pemphigoid (BP, n=2), photosensitive dermatitis (PSD, n=1), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE, n=11) and normal individuals (n=6). RESULTS: Anti-skin antibody (ASA) was positive in 17 out of 18 patients by the SSS technique and negative in one photosensitive dermatitis and all of the healthy normal controls. Among the 17 ASA-positive patients, 3 patients with PV had anti-intercellular substance (ICS) antibodies, 13 patients who are 11 patients with SLE and 2 with BP had anti-basement membrane zone (BMZ) antibodies and one patient with dLE had both of the antibodies. We found three types of anti-BMZ antibody IIF patterns along split sites, i.e. dermal type (1 of 11 SLE), epidermal type (5 of 11 SLE, 2 of BP) and combined type (5 of 11 SLE, 1 dLE). All of the SLE patients had IgM anti-BMZ, by contrast 2 BP patients had IgG anti-BMZ. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggests that indirect IF test for circulating ASA using SSS is very useful for diagnosing autoimmune bullous disease and distinguishing the type of ASA.
Antibodies ; Blister ; Dermatitis ; Diagnosis ; Fluorescein ; Humans* ; Immunoglobulin G ; Immunoglobulin M ; Lupus Erythematosus, Discoid ; Lupus Erythematosus, Systemic ; Membranes ; Microscopy ; Pemphigoid, Bullous ; Pemphigus ; Skin* ; Sodium Chloride

BACKGROUND: Narrow-band UVB phototherapy using 311+-2nm wavelength is in widespread use due to its greater efficacy and, possibly, safety compared with broad-band UVB sources. OBJECTIVE: We performed emollient narrow-band UVB(NBUVB) phototherapy to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety in Korean psoriasis patients. METHODS: Fifteen psoriasis patients received narrow-band UVB phototherapy. We categorized each patient into clearing, improvement, or failure groups based on the therapeutic efficacy, and measured the PASI score every two weeks. RESULTS: 1. Among patients who received narrow-band UVB phototherapy, clearing was shown in 40.0% and improvement in 27.7%, and failure in 33.3%. 2. The total number, duration, final and cumulative doses to achieve grade IV were 16.3, 39 days, 1,050mJ/cm2 and 12,125mJ/cm2 respectively. 3. There were some side effects of NBUVB phototherapy such as pruritus(53.3%) and mild burning(13.3%). CONCLUSION: Narrow-band UVB phototherapy is a effective treatment modality which is convenient and less erythemogenic in psoriasis. It will be used more and more and play an important role in the treatment of psoriasis.
Humans ; Phototherapy* ; Psoriasis*

No abstract available.
Lymphoma, T-Cell* ; T-Lymphocytes*

Wegener's granulomatosis (WG) is a systemic necrotizing vasculitis belonging to the small- to medium-sized vessel. A 46-year-old male presented with erythematous hard plaque on chest, calf and multiple subcutaneous nodules on buttock, upper arm. Incisional biopsy was done and the histopathologic finding revealed the features of necrotizing vasculitis with focal granulomatous inflammation in subcutaneous tissue. PNS MRI showed abnormal meningeal enhancement and lung HRCT imaging showed mild infiltration. Inspite of severe systemic involvement, serum tests about ANCA showed negative result. He was treated with systemic corticosteroid and cyclophosphamide pulse therapy. Initially his condition showed improvement but later the disease worsened.
Antibodies, Antineutrophil Cytoplasmic ; Arm ; Biopsy ; Buttocks ; Cyclophosphamide ; Glycosaminoglycans ; Humans ; Inflammation ; Lung ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Subcutaneous Tissue ; Thorax ; Vasculitis ; Wegener Granulomatosis

BACKGROUND: Nummular eczema, known as nummular dermatitis or discoid eczema, is an idiopathic disease that manifests coin-shaped, circular, or oval-shaped plaques with definite margins. These plaques can be exudative, erythematous, or edematous. The plaques are composed of tiny vesicles in the early stage, and later tend to be more scaly, dry, lichenified and thickened. It is a chronic condition which exhibits long periods of recurrence and relapse, plus changes depending on environmental conditions. For example, it is known that the eczema worsens in low humidity, or during winter. OBJECTIVE: Since there has been an absence of studies conducted since the 1970's, we investigated epidemiology, etiology, aggravation factors, family and past history, associated diseases such as atopic dermatitis, clinical menifestations, laboratory abnormalities, and course and prognosis with statistical analysis. METHOD: A total of 211 individuals, who had visited the Department of Dermatology, Kyungpook National University Hospital in Daegu, Korea between 2000-2004 with a diagnosis of nummular eczema, were selected. The data was based on a retrospective survey of hospital records. However, whenever the information was lacking, we called patients to ask lists of questions for this investigation. To clarify the prognosis and course of nummular dermatitis, we classified the course of the disease into 5 groups; "healed" (cleared completely), "almost healed" (more than 90% cleared), "improved" (from 50 to 90% cleared), "stationary" (less than 50% improvement), and "wax & waned" (repetitive recurrence). RESULTS: The male to female distribution showed about a 1.4-fold predominance for males. The onset of the disease in patients was often in their twenties, which correlated with previous reports which noted that onset of lesions in patients occurred in their twenties and sixties. Nummular eczema was most frequently aggravated in summer. Thirty five of the 211 patients had atopic dermatitis, and 53 had dry skin. Thirty five of 103 patients showed an elevated serum Ig E level (more than 250 IU/ml). Seventeen of 120 patients had an elevated eosiophil count (more than 7%). If the patients had had the eczema for a short duration, these seemed to be a better chance of the condition healing. CONCLUSION: This investigation is expected to help understand and obtain more information on nummular eczema.
Daegu ; Dermatitis ; Dermatitis, Atopic ; Dermatology ; Diagnosis ; Eczema* ; Epidemiology ; Female ; Gyeongsangbuk-do ; Hospital Records ; Humans ; Humidity ; Korea ; Male ; Prognosis ; Recurrence ; Retrospective Studies ; Skin

BACKGROUND: Hair loss including androgenetic alopecia and chronic telogen effluvium is recognized increasingly as a physically and psychologically harmful medical condition. Mesotherapy is considered as a new therapeutic modality for hair loss. OBJECTIVE: We studied to determine the effect of medications used in mesotherapy on hair organ culture and culture of dermal papilla cells. METHODS: First, occipital hair follicles were collected from patients with androgentic alopecia and separated into single hair follicles. The single hair follicles were cultured in William E media mixed with mesotherapy medications such as lidocaine, placental extract, Pondil(R), CRP-1000(R), and mixture of all these medications at different concentrations (1, 10, 50 microliter). On the 8th day, the cultured single hairs were stained with H&E and the length of those was measured under a microscope to compare with control group. Immunofluorescent study was performed to check expression of Ki-67, Bcl-2 and Bax on the hairs. Second, dermal papilla cells were isolated from occipital anagen hairs of patients with androgenetic alopecia and cultured in Dulbeco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM). The mesotherapy medicines were added to the medium with one and two thousand dermal papilla cells, respectively. At the 3rd day, survival of the cells was evaluated with ELISA method comparing with control group. RESULTS: There were no statistical differences of the length of the hairs and the survival of the dermal papilla cells between experimental and control groups. With Bcl-2, we couldn't see any differences between experimental and control groups. With Ki-67, experimental groups showed less expression than control group. On the contrary, experimental groups showed more expression than control group in case of Bax. CONCLUSION: We can conclude from the results that the four medications used in mesotherapy are not effective for growth of cultured hair follicles and survival of cultured dermal papilla cells. However, more study would be needed for the establishment of objective and scientific evidences supporting mesotherapy and we should be in search for new medications for mesotherapy.
Alopecia ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay ; Hair Follicle ; Hair* ; Humans ; Lidocaine ; Mesotherapy* ; Organ Culture Techniques*

BACKGROUND: Trichophyton verrucosum (T. verrucosum) is a zoophilic dermatophyte distributed all around the world. In Korea, kerion celsi caused by T. verrucosum was first reported by Kim et al in the southeast province of Korea. Since then, many patients infected with T. verrucosum have been reported in Young-nam, Chungcheong province, and so on. OBJECTIVE: There have been few reports on the T. verrucosum in Korea, yet. Authors tried to offer the information on dermatophytosis due to T. verrucosum in the various aspects such as prevalence of each year, epidemiology, onset time of the year and season, distribution and characteristics of the regions, sex and age distribution, the clinical types, onset site of the body, and the relation between human beings and infected cattle and so on. METHOD: A total of 218 patients who visited Catholic Dermatologic Clinic in Daegu, Korea from 1986 to 2004, were finally diagnosed as T. verrucosum infection by KOH and fungal culture. The data were based on a retrospective survey of hospital records. However, whenever the information was lacking, we called patients to ask lists of questions for the investigation. RESULTS: The number of patients had increased every year since the first report in 1986. In 1988, the number was up to 44, which was the most. After the year 2000, the number of patients had been decreasing so continuously that there was no case in the year 2003 and 2004. As we see the distribution of province, 47 cases were from Daegu, 137 cases from Kyungsang bukdo, 29 cases from Kyungsang namdo, 5 cases from other provinces and cyties. In the distribution of season, 81 cases appeared in the spring, which was the most. Female to male ratio showed about a 1.2-fold predominance for male. And less than 15-year-old group was 41.3% of total patients. The most frequent onset site was face (36 cases, 16.5%), and the next were arm, trunk, head, leg, neck in the decreasing orders. Classifying the patients by the clinical type, 150 cases (68.8%) were in the tinea circinata type, and the next were kerion celsi type, tinea barbae type, agminated folliculitis type in the decreasing orders. Among 126 cases, 99 patients raised cattle with lesions caused by T. verrucosum, 8 patients raise cattle without lesions, 19 patients didn't breed cattle. CONCLUSION: This investigation is expected to help understand and obtain more information on T. verrucosum infection in Korea.
Adolescent ; Age Distribution ; Animals ; Arm ; Arthrodermataceae ; Cattle ; Daegu ; Epidemiology ; Female ; Folliculitis ; Head ; Hospital Records ; Humans ; Korea ; Leg ; Male ; Neck ; Prevalence ; Retrospective Studies ; Seasons ; Tinea ; Tinea Capitis ; Trichophyton*