BACKGROUND: In the most of emergency department, the diagnosis of appendicitis has been carried by clinical history, physical examination and plain X-ray. But the diagnostic accuracy by these methods was so low that unnecessary operation was common performed, and sometimes the operation was delayed till the physicians could confirm the acute appendicitis clinically. Although many kinds of diagnostic tools such as CT scan, laparoscope, and etc, we believe that ultrasonography(US) would be a quick and sensitive diagnostic method for the evaluation of acute appendicitis in the Emergency Department. METHODS: Forty-seven patients who were clinically suspected as acute appendicitis were evaluated with the grayscaled US by emergency physician. The probe of US was placed on maximal tender point of abdomen, and the appendix image was evaluated while probe was pressed deeply and gentry. When the blind loop was fecund at maximal tender point of abdomen, we evaluated the diameter of appendix, the presence of compressibility, peri-aspen-diceal fluid collection and other mass effect. As soon as the ultrasonographic evidences of the appendicitis were noticed, the operations were done and pathologic report were reviewed later. RESULTS: Among the forty-seven patients, forty patients were diagnosed as a appendicitis by US, and most common ultrasonic findings were as follows; 1) non-compressible blind loop larger than 5 mm in diameter, 2) wall thickening more than 3 mm, 3) peri-appendiceal fluid collection, 4) periappendiceal mass. Among remaining 7 patients in whom we could not get any positive findings of appendicitis, abdominal CT scan was carried in 2 cases who had direct and rebound tenderness on right lower abdomen, and CT scan showed the evidences of the appendicitis. The other 5 cases without rebound tenderness were observed far 2 hours, and abdominal pain was disappeared lately. Finally forty-two patients were operated and confirmed as acute appendicitis by pathologic reports; 24 were reported as suppurative appendicitis, and 12 cases of gangrenous appendicitis, 3 cases of perforated appendicitis, and 3 cases were peri-appendiceal abscess. The specificity of US in the diagnosis of acute appendicitis was 71.4%, and the sensitivity was 95.2%. CONCLUSIONS : In some patients suspected appendicitis, emergency physicians could diagnosis acute appendicitis accurately and rapidly by use of ultrasonography. Although the US was an actuate imaging modality to diagnosis acute appendicitis and evaluate its complications, we recommend a laparotomy or abdominal Cf scan in the patients with negative US findings in spite of presence of peritoneal irritation signs such as rebound tenderness and/or muscle guarding on right lower abdomen.
Abdomen ; Abdominal Pain ; Abscess ; Appendicitis* ; Appendix ; Diagnosis ; Early Diagnosis* ; Emergencies* ; Emergency Service, Hospital* ; Humans ; Laparoscopes ; Laparotomy ; Physical Examination ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; Ultrasonics ; Ultrasonography*

PURPOSE: To evaluate the clinical significance of the screening mammography in the detection of the breast diseases, especially breast carcinoma. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We analyzed 1,800 cases of mammography retrospectively. The mammography was done as a part of routine check in Health Counselling Center, Korea University Medical Center, during 9 months from November 1993 to July 1994. The age range was from 23 years to 76 years, mean 49.8 years, and the largest age group was 6th decade(31.4%). According to the mammographic findings, we divided the subjects into three groups; normal group, abnormal group in need of follow up study, abnormal group requiring biopsy. RESULT: On mammography, the normal group consisted of 1,534 cases(85%), and the abnormal group consisted of 266 cases(15%). The abnormal findings were benign-looking calcification(n=140), fibroadeno ma (n=29), fibrocystic changes (n=27), cyst(n=23), malignant lesion(n=15), lipoma(n=7), and others. In four of 15 cases, which were suspected to be malignant on mammograms, breast carcinoma was confirmed pathologically. In four cases of breast carcinoma, one was under 40 and the other 3 were over 50 years of age. All of the breast cancers were under 3cm in size, and the mammographic findings of breast cancer included spiculated margin(n=3), parenchymal disortion(n=3), malignant calcification(n=2) and enlarged axillary node (n=l). CONCLUSION: Screening mammogram is helpful for early detection of non-palpable breast cancer, especially for women over 50 years of age.
Academic Medical Centers ; Biopsy ; Breast Diseases* ; Breast Neoplasms ; Breast* ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Korea ; Mammography* ; Mass Screening* ; Retrospective Studies

No abstract available.
Blood Donors* ; Humans ; Phenotype*

Endoscopic bariatric therapies (EBTs) are promising alternatives to the conventional surgeries used to treat obesity and related metabolic conditions, targeting gastrointestinal anatomical and physiological processes. Many EBTs are at various stages of development and are aimed at promoting an early sense of satiety via anatomical and physiological mechanisms. In the present study, we focused on relevant clinical issues and future perspectives with regard to gastric non-balloon methods treating obesity.
Obesity ; Physiological Processes ; Stomach

BACKGROUND: A range of well characterized materials are needed for validating the performance of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) immunoassays. These materials are purchased currently from overseas manufacturers at a high cost and with limited quantity. This study was conducted to establish an HBsAg low titer performance panel for use as a national standard for validation of HBsAg immunoassays in Korea. METHODS: 476 plasma units reactive on blood donor screening were collected HBsAg was tested using 3 enzyme immunoassays (EIA) and 1 chemiluminescence immunoassay (CIA). Units reactive on the CIA assay or on 2 or more immunoassays were subjected to hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA quantification, HBV genotyping and subtyping. Units reactive on HBV DNA quantification were confirmed for HBsAg by neutralization. Candidates for the panel were subjected to a collaborative study performed at 7 laboratories using 7 immunoassays. RESULTS: Eleven HBsAg positive units were selected for the low titer performance panel based on HBsAg immunoassay, HBV DNA quantification, HBV genotyping and subtyping results. The range of the HBsAg concentration of the panel members was 0.05~1.28 IU/mL. Two HBsAg negative units were also included as negative controls. CONCLUSION: As a result of this study, a low titer performance panel [KFDA standard (08/028); HBsAg low titer performance panel (BTRL HBV/LP)] for validation of HBsAg immunoassays has been established as a Korean national standard. Use of this panel will improve performance assessment of HBsAg immunoassays. Because the performance of immunoassays cannot be assessed properly with a limited number of panels, continuous efforts are needed to develop a range of performance panels.
Blood Donors ; DNA ; Hepatitis ; Hepatitis B ; Hepatitis B Surface Antigens ; Hepatitis B virus ; Humans ; Immunoassay ; Immunoenzyme Techniques ; Luminescence ; Mass Screening ; Plasma

Avian influenza (AI) virus infects both animal and human. Low pathogenic AI virus infections (some H7 and H9 subtypes) have been reported all over the world and pose a potential threat to the poultry industry. Vaccination is the most effective way to prevent virus infection. However, vaccination makes it difficult to differentiate between vaccinated chickens and infected chickens. In order to differentiate vaccinated chickens from naturally infected chickens, we adopted synthetic peptide-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using the peptide sequences from nonstructural protein 1 (NS1) of H9N2. Five synthetic peptides were designed using Protein Variability Sever (http://imed.med.ucm.es/PVS/) and synthesized. NS1-1 ~ NS1-4 peptides failed to detect serum antibodies from both vaccinated and naturally infected chickens. NS1-5 peptide from the C-terminal NS1 protein detected serum antibody from naturally infected chickens but not vaccinated chickens. These results imply that NS1-5 peptide may be a useful tool to differentiate naturally infected chicken from vaccinated chicken as being used in the synthetic peptide-based ELISA.
Animals ; Antibodies ; Chickens ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay ; Humans ; Influenza in Birds ; Peptides ; Poultry ; Vaccination ; Viruses

Avian influenza (AI) is an infectious, low pathogenic virus that is endemic all over the world and poses a potential threat to the poultry industry. Vaccination is a widely used effective method to prevent avian influenza virus. Here we employed a comparative proteomics approach [two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) and matrix assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight (MALDI-TOF)] to characterize proteome in the sera from the specific pathogen free (SPF) chickens, the vaccinated chickens, and the naturally infected chickens. We identified total 58 proteins that were differentially expressed in the sera of three groups. Among them ovotransferrin and vitamin D-binding protein were more expressed in the sera of naturally infected chickens compare with other groups. Our results suggested that the level of these two proteins in the serum may help to discriminate the naturally infected chicken from the vaccinated chicken.
Animals ; Chickens ; Conalbumin ; Electrophoresis ; Influenza in Birds ; Poultry ; Proteins ; Proteome ; Proteomics ; Specific Pathogen-Free Organisms ; Vaccination ; Viruses ; Vitamin D-Binding Protein

BACKGROUND: Data on allele frequencies (AFs) and haplotype frequencies (HFs) of HLA-C and -DQB1 are limited in Koreans. We investigated AFs and HFs of HLA-A, -B, -C, -DRB1, and -DQB1 in Koreans by high-resolution sequence-based typing (SBT). METHODS: Hematopoietic stem cells were obtained from 613 healthy, unrelated donors to analyze HLA-A, -B, -C, -DRB1, and -DQB1 genotypes by using AlleleSEQR HLA-A, -B, -C, -DRB1, and -DQB1 SBT kits (Abbott Molecular, USA), respectively. Alleles belonging to HLA-C*07:01/07:06 group were further discriminated by using PCR-sequence specific primer analysis. AFs and HFs were calculated by direct counting and maximum likelihood method, respectively. RESULTS: In all, 24 HLA-A, 46 HLA-B, 24 HLA-C, 29 HLA-DRB1, and 15 HLA-DQB1 alleles were identified. AFs and HFs of HLA-A, -B, and -DRB1 were similar to those reported previously. For the HLA-C locus, C*01:02 was the most common allele, followed by C*03:03, C*03:04, C*14:02, C*03:02, and C*07:02 (AF > or =7%). AFs of C*07:01 and C*07:06 were 0.16% and 3.18%, respectively. For the HLA-DQB1 locus, DQB1*03:01 was the most common allele, followed by DQB1*03:03, *03:02, *06:01, *05:01, *04:01, and *06:02 (AF > or =7%). AFs of DQB1*02:01 and DQB1*02:02 were 2.12% and 6.69%, respectively. HFs of A*33:03-C*07:06 and C*07:06-B*44:03 were 3.09% and 3.10%, respectively, while those of DRB1*07:01-DQB1*02:02 and DRB1*03:01-DQB1*02:01 were 6.61% and 2.04%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: This study reported AFs and HFs of HLA, including HLA-C and -DQB1, in Koreans by using high-resolution SBT. These data can be used to resolve ambiguous results of HLA typing for organ and hematopoietic stem cell transplantations.
Alleles* ; DNA Fingerprinting* ; Gene Frequency ; Genotype ; Haplotypes* ; Hematopoietic Stem Cells ; Histocompatibility Testing ; HLA Antigens ; HLA-A Antigens ; HLA-B Antigens ; HLA-C Antigens ; HLA-DRB1 Chains ; Humans ; Korea ; Leukocytes* ; Sequence Analysis ; Unrelated Donors

Retrospective analysis of survival rates was undertaken in the patients of 58 cases treated with conventional radiation therapy for malignant salivary gland tumors between January 1975 and December 1984 in Korea Cancer Center Hospital (KCCH). They were patients whose long-term follow-up was possible and who had refused surgery or had had recurrences postoperatively. Out of 58 patients, 25 patients (43.1%) had mucoepidermoid carcinomas and 24 patients (41.3%) adenoid cystic carcinoma. Total actuarial survival rates at 5 years and 10 years were 68.2% and 31.8% respectively, but disease-free survival rates, 43.2% and 13.0%, respectively. According to TNM stage, the survival rates at 5 years were 86.5% in T1, 40.0% in T2 + T3, and 0% in T4. In terms of histologic types, 5 years disease-free survival rate of adenoid cystic carcinomas (40.1%) was lower than that of mucoepidermoid carcinomas (49.8%) but overall survival rate (77.3%) was much higher than that of mucoepidermoid carcinomas (51.5%). Therefore, we concluded that the patients, who had had disease after failure of treatment, could survive during a certain period of time and their alive times were 2 years on the average. There was a difference in survival rates in the mucoepidermoid carcinomas in terms of histological grade of differentiation and it was a arbiter in prognosis: 5 YSR of low-grade was 78.8% and higher 2 times than that of high-grade. There was no difference in survival rates according to location and sex. The number of patients having minor salivary gland tumors was 6 cases and their actuarial 5 YSR was 32.3%. Consequently, prognostic factors which influence the survival rates of patients with malignant salivary gland tumors are thought to be 1) histological ubtypes 2) T and N staging (AJCC) 3) histological grade, especially in mucoepidermoids.
Carcinoma, Adenoid Cystic ; Carcinoma, Mucoepidermoid ; Disease-Free Survival ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Korea* ; Prognosis ; Recurrence ; Retrospective Studies ; Salivary Glands* ; Salivary Glands, Minor ; Survival Rate

Total of 154 patients of pathologically proven and previously untreated nasopharyngeal carcinoma who were treated in the Department of Therapeutic Radiology, Korea Cancer Center Hospital during the period from 1964 to 1984 were analyzed. Minimal follow-up period of survivors was 3 years. Thirteen percent of the patients had T4 primary lesions and 65% had stage IV disease. Total radiation dose to the primary site was 1550~1750 ret in 82 and above 1750 ret in 72 patients. Local control was obtained in 79% of patients. Significant prognostic factors for the survival were tumor dose (above vs. below 1750 ret), age (below vs. above 30 years), stage (AJCC I-III vs IV), T stage (T1 vs. T2-4), and N stage (NO vs. N+).
Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Korea ; Radiation Oncology ; Survivors