No abstract available.
Diagnosis* ; DNA* ; Polymerase Chain Reaction*

BACKGROUND: Respiratory infection in pregnancy can cause various side effects and affect the fetus. Therefore, efforts to prevent infection during pregnancy are essential. This study investigated knowledge and compliance regarding the prevention of respiratory infection among pregnant women. METHODS: A survey was conducted on May 10, 2012 on 300 pregnant women who attended a maternity school education program in a tertiary care hospital. The responses of 259 women were collected and analyzed. RESULTS: Only 2 women (0.8%) had been educated about respiratory infection prevention methods, while 106 (40.9%) experienced respiratory infection during pregnancy. The mean score of respiratory infection prevention knowledge was 11.63 out of 15 points (percentage of correct answers: 77.5%). The mean score for compliance to respiratory infection prevention was 32.34 out of 52 points (percentage of practice: 62.19%). Knowledge and compliance were found to be positively correlated. CONCLUSION: Although many pregnant women experience respiratory infection during pregnancy, few have opportunities to be educated about prevention. Thus, the positive correlation between knowledge and compliance highlights the need for respiratory infection prevention education programs.
Compliance ; Female ; Fetus ; Humans ; Pregnancy ; Pregnant Women ; Tertiary Healthcare

Epidemiological studies are important in both the prevention and treatment of mycobacterial infections. This study was initiated to establish the pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) method, which are not yet extensively studied. The most apprpriate restriction endonucleases included Dral, AsnI, and XbaI. The optimal PFGE condition was different according to the enzymes used. Two stage PFGE was performed, in case of DraI first stage was performed with 10 seconds of initial pulse and 15 seconds of findA pulse, while the second stage was performed with 60 seconds of initial pulse and 70 seconds of final pu',se. The electrophoresis time for DraI-PFGE was 14 hours for each stage. Electrophoresis was performed for 22 hours, in case of XbaI, with 3 seconds of initial pulse and 12 seconds of final pulse. Electrophoresis was performed for 22 hours, in case of AsnI, with 5 seconds of initial pulse and 25 seconds of final pulse. In all cases the voltage of the electrophoresis was maintained constantly at 200 voltage. Standard mycobacterial strains, which included Mycobacterium bovis BCG, M. tuberculosis, and M. fortuitum, could not be differentiated by PFGE analysis. PFGE analysis was performed to differentiate 9 clinically isolated M. fortuitum strains using AsnI. All M. fortuitum strains showed different genotypes except 2 strains. Cluster analysis divided M. fortuitum strains into 2 large groups. PFGE analysis was performed to further differentiate M. fortuitum isolates using XbaI. The undifferentiated 2 M. fortuitum strains showed different PFGE patterns with Xba I. Cluster analysis of the XbaI-PFGE patterns showed more complex grouping than AsnI-PFGE patterns, which showed that XbaI-PFGE analysis was better than AsnI-PFGE in M. fortuitum genotyping. The top dissimilarity values of AsnI-PFGE and XbaI-PFGE were 0.74 and 0.75, respectively. This value was higher than that of arbitrarily primed polymerase chain reaction (AP-PCR) analysis and lower than that of restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis. This suggested that PFGE can be used as a supportive or alternative genotyping method to RFLP analysis.
DNA Restriction Enzymes ; Electrophoresis* ; Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field ; Epidemiologic Studies ; Genotype ; Mycobacterium bovis ; Mycobacterium* ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length ; Tuberculosis

No abstract available.
Enterobacteriaceae* ; Starvation*

Prenatal development of the thoracic aorta of the human during the period ranging from gestation weeks 7 (C-R length 20mm) to 30 (C-R length 260mm) was examined by transmission electron microscopy and the following results were obtained. The early form of cuboidal or columnar endothelial cells at 7-9 weeks of gestation changed gradually to typical flat endothelial cells at 12-14 weeks of gestation. At 9 weeks of gestation, the mesenchymal cells begin to differentiate to myoblasts, which have small clusters of myofilaments with dense bodies and rough endoplasmic reticulum. And from 14 weeks the differentiating cells begin to form a parallel concentric lamellar structure. At 12th week of gestation, elastic fibers were first seen in subendothelial connective tissue and the intercellular spaces between smooth muscle cells. Elastic fibers appeared as small globular shape which composed of a central core of elastic and peripheral microfibrils. From this period the amount of elastic fibers and their aggregation increases gradually in both the subendothelial space and the intercellular spaces between smooth muscle cells. At 30th week of gestation, subendothelial elastic fibers almost completed the internal elastic lamina and also well formed elastic laminae were seen between the smooth muscle cells adjacent to endothelial cells. However, in the space between the smooth muscle cells near the adventitia the elastic lamina formation is delayed. In the adventitia elastic fiber were scanty but collagen fibers are abundant.
Adventitia ; Aorta, Thoracic* ; Collagen ; Connective Tissue ; Elastic Tissue ; Endoplasmic Reticulum, Rough ; Endothelial Cells ; Extracellular Space ; Fetus* ; Humans* ; Microfibrils ; Microscopy, Electron, Transmission ; Myoblasts ; Myocytes, Smooth Muscle ; Myofibrils ; Pregnancy

The DNA fragment containing the phoA of Klebsiella pneumoniae was cloned into pACYC184. The size of the insert. was 4.0 kb and the restriction map showed it contained 3 Pstl sites and 4 PvuLI sites. The nucleotide sequence of the phoA region was determined, which showed strong (80%) sequence similarity with that of Escherichia coli. This suggested that these two species are phylogenetically very close to each other.
Base Sequence ; Clone Cells* ; Cloning, Organism* ; DNA ; Enterobacteriaceae* ; Escherichia coli ; Klebsiella pneumoniae ; Operon*

No abstract available.
Femoral Neck Fractures* ; Femur Neck*

No abstract available.
Constriction, Pathologic* ; Spinal Canal*

No abstract available.
Blood Platelets* ; Monoamine Oxidase* ; Schizophrenia*

This study was designed to evaluate the worth of preoperative chemoradiation therapy in the management of locally advanced rectal cancer. Between march 1993 and January 1997, 64 patients with adenocarcinoma of the rectum were treated with preoperative irradiation followed by operation by one surgeon at department of surgery, Chungnam national university hospital. Cancers were treated with high-dose radiation (45 to 54 Gy) with (group 2) or without (group 1) chemotherapy Preoperatively 64 Patients were analysed prospectively, of these, 15 cases were preoperative radiotherapy alone arm and 49 cases were preoperative radiotherapy plus chemotherapy arm. The average age of the patients were 56 years (range 38~67) in group 1 and 57 years (range 27~80) in group 2. Male to female ratio was 8 : 7 in group 1 and 30 : 19 in group 2. Most clinical stage of the primary tumor mass were 73 (80% in Group 1,96% in group 2), being palpated slightly fixed (40% in group 1, 43% in group 2) or fixed (13.3% in group 1, 24.5% in group 2). As to distance of tumor from anal verge, most patients ranged from 4 to 8 cm (53% in group 1, 63.3% in Group 2). Chemotherapy consisted of 2 cycles of 5-fluorouracil (500 mg/m2/day for S days) delivered as a continuous infusion or bolus therapy and low-dose leukovorin (20 mg/m2/day for 5 days). After six weeks resting period of radiation, definitive surgical approach was performed. Overall treatment related toxicity rate was similar in both group except erythema on perineal skin, which was more frequent in group 2 than in group 1. Most frequent postoperative complication was intestinal obstruction (7.8%) followed by wound infection (6.3%), but there was no significant difference between two groups. There was one case of postoperative mortality in group 2 patients at 44 days after operation due to pneumonia and sepsis combined with liver cirrhosis. Tumor depth was downstaged in 38.5% of group 1 and 70% of group 2 patients on preoperative CT staging, and nodal downstaging was more effective on the respect of postoperative pathological report. Overall recurrence rate was 38.5% in group 1 and 20.5% in group 2. Of these, failure occured first as a distant metastasis more frequently than as a local recurrence in both group. These data do suggest that the preoperative chemotherapy and radiotherapy used are as safe as preoperative radiotherapy alone. Futhermore, tumor and lymph node downstaging are more effective in combined arm. Preoperative chemotherapy will more promising in prevention of distant metastasis when treated in the period of least metastatic tumor burden. Whether combined arm will have greater or lesser survival awaits the completion of this relevant study.
Adenocarcinoma ; Arm ; Chungcheongnam-do ; Drug Therapy ; Erythema ; Female ; Fluorouracil ; Humans ; Intestinal Obstruction ; Leucovorin ; Liver Cirrhosis ; Lymph Nodes ; Male ; Mortality ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Pneumonia ; Postoperative Complications ; Prospective Studies ; Radiotherapy ; Rectal Neoplasms* ; Rectum ; Recurrence ; Sepsis ; Skin ; Tumor Burden ; Wound Infection