Recreational diving is an exciting and adventurous sport, but is also potentially hazardous. Despite its inherent hazards, an increasing number of people enjoy SCUBA (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus) diving; the number of diving-related accidents is therefore also likely to increase. Divers might face physical or psychological stresses from the unfamiliar or hostile underwater environment, which can lead to fatal accidents. To investigate deaths related to SCUBA diving, a forensic pathologist should understand the types and mechanisms of injuries and illnesses unique to SCUBA diving. Postmortem examination of diving fatalities is therefore a formidable task for most forensic pathologists because cases are sparse and the process requires an understanding of diving physiology, diving equipment, and the underwater environment. The primary aim of autopsies in SCUBA diving fatalities is to detect evidence of pulmonary barotrauma, intravascular gas, or pre-existing illnesses. Standard autopsy protocol for SCUBA diving-related deaths should include methods to detect intravascular gas and gas accumulation in the tissue or body cavity through plain radiographs or Computerized Tomography (CT) scans. Analysis of the gas components is also helpful for determining the origin of the gas. Here, the author proposes a practical method for performing an autopsy on a person who died while SCUBA diving.
Autopsy* ; Barotrauma ; Diving* ; Humans ; Methods ; Physiology ; Preexisting Condition Coverage ; Respiration ; Sports ; Stress, Psychological

No abstract available.
Animals ; Ligation* ; Neuralgia* ; Rats* ; Rhizotomy* ; Spinal Cord* ; Spinal Nerves*

Heterotropic ossifications have been known to occur around joints in many pathological conditions of the nervous system mostly in paraplegia and is affects most of the hip joint. Recently, 4 cases of heterotropic ossification in 18 cases of traumatic paraplegia have been reviewed at the orthopedic department of Kyungpook National University Hospital from April 1965 to July 1968 and the results obtained were as follows: 1. All cases were found in male of 3rd to 4th decade. 2. Heterotropic ossification affectected around the hip joint in 3 cases and in the other one case around the medial femoral condyle of knee joint. 3. Three cases affecting around hip joint expressed pressure sores on ipsilateral great trochanteric area, but the other one case affecting around medial femoral condyle had not any pressure sore. 4. In all cases, the heterotropic ossification was noted on X-ray film within 4 to 6 months after paraplegia.
Femur ; Gyeongsangbuk-do ; Hip Joint ; Humans ; Joints ; Knee Joint ; Male ; Nervous System ; Orthopedics ; Paraplegia ; Pressure Ulcer ; X-Ray Film

To make the objective standard of nuclear size in grading nuclear pleomorphism of invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast, we measured maximal nuclear diameter of tumor cells on imprint cytology slides and histologic sections from 65 cases by using computer-based image analysis system (Optimas 6.0). The maximal diameter of red blood cells were also measured to evaluate the ratio of maximal nuclear diameter of tumor cells to maximal diameter of red blood cells. The mean values of maximal nuclear diameter of tumor cells on imprint cytology slides and histologic sections were 7.56microgram, 7.53microgram in nuclear grade 1, 8.92+/-0.98microgram, 9.02+/-0.74microgram in nuclear grade 2, and 12.90+/-1.47prn, 12.44+/-1.41microgram in nuclear grade 3, respectively. There were no significant differences between values of imprint cytology and histologic section. The ratio of maximal nuclear diameter of tumor cells to maximal diameter of red blood cells were 1.3-1.4:1 in nuclear grade 1, 1.6-1.7:1 in nuclear grade 2, and 2.2-2.3:1 in nuclear grade 3. Ths would be guidelines for grading nuclear pleomorphism of invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast on routine surgical pathology work.
Breast ; Carcinoma, Ductal ; Erythrocytes ; Pathology, Surgical ; Purpura*

Drowning is one of the most common causes accidental death worldwide, but its diagnosis remains a challenging task in forensic pathology. Several authors have suggested that diatom analysis be conducted via an enzymatic digestion method that uses proteinase K to provide objective evidence for drowning; we employed this method in our study because of its superior applicability as compared to the conventional disorganization methods. The purpose of this study was to examine the reclaiming ratio of diatoms from experimentally drowned animal organs, which could be influenced by diatom morphology. The authors injected 3 diatoms species (Cyclotella striata, Navicula incerta, and Pleurosigma angulatum) into a rat's airway and compared the detection rate to investigate the factors that influence the sensitivity of diatom analysis. The results are as follows: (1) Average reclaiming ratio in the lungs was 81.07 for Navicula incerta, 48.26 for Cyclotella striata, and 5.35 for Pleurosigma angulatum. (2) The detection rates from the closed organs in 15 experimental animals were highest in the kidney (73%, 11/15), followed by the heart (67%, 10/15), brain (60%, 9/15), and liver (53%, 8/15). (3) Two Cyclotella striata was detected in the kidney of postmortem control group which suggest the possibility of contamination during laboratory procedure. In conclusion, the authors propose that diatom size could be a significant influencing factor for diatom extraction from the organs of drowned bodies; therefore, the results of diatom analysis must be interpreted after considering the diatom population of the drowning medium at the scene and the possibility of contamination during the laboratory procedure.
Animal Structures ; Animals ; Brain ; Diatoms ; Digestion ; Drowning ; Endopeptidase K ; Forensic Pathology ; Heart ; Kidney ; Liver ; Lung

BACKGROUND: Disinfection is essential for the prevention of hospital infection. HICLO-S (Soosan environment Co., Yongin, Korea), one of the electrolyzed oxidized water was recently developed as a disinfectant. This is not costly and does not cause any clinical problems and environmental pollution. We evaluated the disinfective activity of HICLO-S against several clinical isolates of bacteria and yeasts. METHODS: 25 strains of bacteria and two strains of yeast were exposed to HICLO-S (30 & 50 ppm HICLO-S) disinfectant for the various periods (0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, 15, 20 minutes). After the exposure to HICLO-S disinfectant, 0.01 mL of mixture of microorganisms and HICLO-S was inoculated into brain-heart infusion broth or onto Sabouraud dextrose agar and incubated at 35degrees C for 48hours. RESULTS: All strains of bacteria and yeast were killed within 30 seconds after an exposure to 30 ppm of HICLO-S. All of three strains of spore forming Bacillus subtilis were killed within 4 minutes after an exposure to 30ppm of HICLO-S, but all of three strains were killed within 30 seconds in 50 ppm of HICLO-S. CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that HICLO-S disinfectant was effective for the disinfection of commonly isolated bacteria and yeast from hospital, but less effective against spore-forming bacteria. It may be recommended that HICLO-S should he used for the effective disinfection of skin, instruments and hospital floors.
Agar ; Bacillus subtilis ; Bacteria ; Cross Infection ; Disinfection ; Environmental Pollution ; Glucose ; Gyeonggi-do ; Skin ; Spores ; Water ; Yeasts

This retrospective descriptive study was conducted to survey the needlestick injuries(NSI) in nurses and doctors. Thc subjccts of this study wcrc 351 nurscs and 199 doctors of four teaching hospitals. Pusan. The data was gathered from March, 18 to April 9. 1988 and analyzed though SPSSWIN progra n for frequency, percentile and X2-test. According to the results of the study, 85.5% of subjects had experienced NSI (94.4% of the nurses and 73.9% of the doctors). The ratio of the experience of NSI in nurses was significantly higher than that of doctors(X2=53.54, P=.00). Most needle-stick injuries occured during the administration of intravenous injection(36.7%) in nurses, on the other hand percutaneous venipuncture for blood sampling(35.3%), suturing(27.2%) in doctors. The most ccmmon situation of these NSI was recapping contaminated needles after treatment. Only 12.0% of nurses and 38.6% of doctors reported wearing gloves when the NSI happened. 26.1% of subjects reported that they could not identify the source patient after MI. The major reason of NSI were preeeived to be carelessness%1.4%). Of these NSI, 54.6% occured in :usy or emergency situations. Among the management for NSI, exam(8.6%), mefication(9.8%) and counseling(11.7%) and reporting(2,6%. is lower than bleeding(80.3%) from the wound, deaning( 63.3%), disinfection(91.3%) and reviewing the clinical records of the patients (82.3%). In conclusion, nurses and doctors are at a high-risk of needlestick injuries but substantially they are not good at preventing and managing NSI. So efforts to reduce NSI should be directed not only at improving procedural skills for intravenous catheter insertions, but also in increasing use of barrier protection such as gloves, and so on. Also immunization and educational efforts should be made along with better designs of needles to reduce the risk of NSI. Continuing prevention and training programs for NSI are needed in order to avoid unwanted infection.
Busan ; Catheters ; Dronabinol ; Education ; Emergencies ; Hand ; Hospitals, Teaching ; Humans ; Immunization ; Needles ; Needlestick Injuries* ; Phlebotomy ; Retrospective Studies ; Wounds and Injuries

For the purpose of preparing the basic data for further cancer epidemiologic study and cancer patients control, we conducted the analysis on the degree and structure of deaths from cancer in metropolitan areas of Korea with 7,934 certified cancer deaths records of Seoul, Pusan, Taegu and Incheon in 1982. The analyzed results were as follows : 1) The total number of cancer deaths in metropolitan areas were 7,934 (male: 4,749, female: 3,185) as 14.1% of deaths from all causes in the same area. 2) The rate of physician's certification on cancer deaths was 77.4% and most of cancer deaths (84.4%) occurred at their home. 3) Cancer specific death rate was 51.7 per 100,000 population (male: 62.9, female: 41.9) and age-adjusted cancer death rate was 82.4 in male and 51.6 in female per 100,000 population. And the difference was statistically significant (p<0.01). 4) Age-specific cancer death rate was generally increased with age and most of cancer deaths (male: 75%, female: 65%) occurred from 45 to 74 years old. 5) The first three orders of cancer site were stomach (32.7%), liver (28.8%), lung (11.7%) in male and stomach (30.6%), uterus (18.4%), liver (13.8%) in female. And the relative frequency of these three cancer sites among total cancer deaths was corresponded to 73.2% in male and 62.8% in female. 6) The ratio of male to female cancer death rate was 1.5:1. And the ratio was above 3.0 in esophagus, liver, larynx, bladder cancer and the ratio was similar to 1.0 in stomach, pancreas, leukemia, brain, colon cancer, but the ratio was reversed in gall bladder and bile duct, and thyroid cancer.
Aged ; Bile Ducts ; Brain ; Busan* ; Certification ; Colonic Neoplasms ; Daegu* ; Epidemiologic Studies ; Esophagus ; Female ; Humans ; Incheon* ; Korea* ; Larynx ; Leukemia ; Liver ; Lung ; Male ; Mortality ; Pancreas ; Seoul* ; Stomach ; Thyroid Neoplasms ; Urinary Bladder ; Urinary Bladder Neoplasms ; Uterus

Twelve albino rabbits were treated with cryoretinopexy on the left eye and surface diathermy coagulation on the right eye at the equatorial region in two parallel rows concentric with the limbus. Cryopexy was applied for 10 seconds with Krwawicz's probe (the diameter of the tip was 1.5 mm) after cooling with dry ice and alcohol mixture. Diathermy coagulation was performed with 40 mA currents for 2 seconds with needle electrode without perforating the sclera. After the treatment, ERG was recorded with varying length of intervals up to 30 days. The light stimulus was given by 100 watts incadenscent lamp and the illumination at the eye was 800 lux, its duration being 20 msec. Only the sizes of the b-potentials after 30 minutes of dark adaptation were considered. The patterns of the b-potential changes after cryopexy were roughly divided into 3 types. The first type was seen in 5 eyes, and it consisted of abrupt reductions, followed by slight augmentations, never reaching the pre-treatment level of b-wave even after 30 days. The second type (seen in 3 eyes) showed initial slight decreases followed by marked increases and remained supernormal at the end of 30 days. The third type(4 eyes) showed marked increases from the early post-operative days and returned to the original level after 30 days. These changes were demonstrated graphically in figures 3, 4 and 5. By diathermy coagulation, the same kinds of patterns were observed. The same animal, however, did not show the same pattern as with the cryopexy. The final b-potential after 30 days were 105.4% of the pre-operative value by cryopexy and 82.7% by diathermy coagulation. Thus the cryopexy produced less severe changes in ocular tissues than the diathermy coagulation. The histological observations performed also supported this conclusion.
Animals ; Dark Adaptation ; Diathermy* ; Dry Ice ; Electrodes ; Lighting ; Needles ; Rabbits* ; Sclera

No abstract available.
Lymphocytes*