PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to illustrate MR patterns of bone marrow of calvarium and vertebral body in normal subjects according the age distribution and to understand the course of the fatty replacement from red marrow. METHODS AND MATERIAL: We retrospectively evaluated MR examinations of the calvaria(n=71), cervical spine(n=71), thoracic spine(n=65), Imbar spine(n =68) in subjects without bone marrow abnormality whose age ranged 3 weeks to 74 years. Three distinctive patterns were categorized on Tl-weighted images of the skull. In pattern 1, uniformly low signal intensity with or without very small areas of high intensity in frontal and occipital bones is noted. In pattern 2, frontal and occipital bones have uniformly high signal intensity, and patchy area of high intensity appears in parietal bone. In pattern 3, the entire skull has uniformly high signal intensity. In the spine, four patterns were categorized on Tl-weighted MR images. In pattern 1, the vertebral body has uniformly low signal intensity except for linear areas of high intensity superior and inferior to basivertebral vein. In pattern 2, bandlike and triangular areas of high signal intensity are found in the periphery. Pattern 3 and 4 have diffusely distributed areas of high signal intensity; pattern 3 consist of numerous indistinct dots measuring a few millimeter or less, and pattern 4 consist of fairly well marginated areas ranging in size from 5 to 1.5cm. RESULT:In the calvaria, 73% of pattern 1 were younger than 20 years, pattern 2 were evenly distributed, and 86% of pattern 3 were older than 40 years. In the spine, 87% of pattern 1 were younger than 40 years, 72% of pattern 3 were in 40 to 50 years, and 87% of pattern 4 were older than 50 years. Pattern 2 were evenly distributed in the cervical and thoracic spine, but in the thoracic spine 62% were younger than 30 years. CONCLUSION:It is concluded that younger age group shows mainly pattern 1, whereas elderly group has pattern 3 or 4 in the calvarial and vertebral body marrow. This suggests that conversion to fatty marrow begin locally and progress diffusely with age.
Age Distribution* ; Aged ; Bone Marrow* ; Humans ; Occipital Bone ; Parietal Bone ; Retrospective Studies ; Skull* ; Spine ; Veins

No abstract available.

Juvenile dermatomyositis is an uncommon autoimmune disease with classic heliotrope discoloration of eyelids, erythematous skin rash of joints and proximal muscle weakness. Quite different from adults, malignancy is rarely accompanied in juvenile dermatomyositis. However vasculitis, muscle atrophy, calcification and gastrointestinal involvement are often observed in juvenile dermatomyositis. A six year old boy was admitted with chief complaints of general weakness and skin rash. Muscle biopsy was performed which was consistent with dermatomyositis. The patient was treated with intravenous immunoglobulin, steroid, methotrexate and physiotherapy. We report a case of juvenile dermatomyositis.
Adult ; Autoimmune Diseases ; Biopsy ; Dermatomyositis* ; Exanthema ; Eyelids ; Humans ; Immunoglobulins ; Joints ; Male ; Methotrexate ; Muscle Weakness ; Muscular Atrophy ; Vasculitis

OBJECTIVES: A healthcare decision-making support model and rule management system is proposed based on a personalized rule-based intelligent concept, to effectively manage chronic diseases. METHODS: A Web service was built using a standard message transfer protocol for interoperability of personal health records among healthcare institutions. An intelligent decision service is provided that analyzes data using a service-oriented healthcare rule inference function and machine-learning platform; the rules are extensively compiled by physicians through a developmental user interface that enables knowledge base construction, modification, and integration. Further, screening results are visualized for the self-intuitive understanding of personal health status by patients. RESULTS: A recommendation message is output through the Web service by receiving patient information from the hospital information recording system and object attribute values as input factors. The proposed system can verify patient behavior by acting as an intellectualized backbone of chronic diseases management; further, it supports self-management and scheduling of screening. CONCLUSIONS: Chronic patients can continuously receive active recommendations related to their healthcare through the rule management system, and they can model the system by acting as decision makers in diseases management; secondary diseases can be prevented and health management can be performed by reference to patient-specific lifestyle guidelines.
Chronic Disease* ; Decision Support Systems, Clinical ; Delivery of Health Care* ; Expert Systems ; Health Records, Personal ; Humans ; Knowledge Bases ; Life Style ; Mass Screening ; Self Care

PURPOSE: This study was carried out to develop standardized telephone counseling guidelines regarding symptom management for patients discharged after colorectal cancer surgery, and to apply and assess it in practice in order to increase patient satisfaction and compliance level. METHODS: Five frequent symptoms; pain, diarrhea, constipation, bowel obstruction and wounds were extracted by a preliminary survey. RESULTS: For wound and bowel obstruction, the most frequent applied guideline was ER recommendation, and it was statistically significant (p<.002). The assessment result of guideline application (satisfaction rate, compliance rate and symptom resolution) shows an average satisfaction rate of 3.80 on a 4 point scale and all 6 cases which recommended immediate ER visits followed the guidelines. CONCLUSION: According to the result of this study, the developed guidelines are worth while to increase patient satisfaction as well as to resolve symptoms.
Colonic Neoplasms ; Colorectal Neoplasms* ; Compliance ; Constipation ; Counseling* ; Diarrhea ; Humans ; Patient Satisfaction ; Telephone* ; Wounds and Injuries

No abstract available.
Mesothelioma ; Pericardium

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Physical exercise promotes energy producing pathways requiring thiamin and riboflavin as a coenzyme. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of regular exercise training on urinary excretion of thiamin and riboflavin. MATERIALS/METHODS: Fifty rats were randomly assigned to one of two groups: non-exercise training (NT, n = 25) and regular exercise training (ET, n = 25) for 5 weeks. The rats performed moderate exercise on a treadmill (0.5-0.8 km/hour) for 30 min/day, 5 days/week. Twenty-four hour urine samples were collected at the end of the 0 week, 3rd week, and 5th week of training and thiamin and riboflavin were analyzed. RESULTS: No significant differences in thiamin and riboflavin intakes for each week were observed between the NT and ET groups. Urinary thiamin excretion of each group was the highest at the 5th week compared to the levels at 0 and 3rd week. Urinary thiamin at the 5th week was significantly lower in the ET group than in the NT group. Urinary riboflavin excretion was increased by training duration, however, no difference was observed between NT and ET for each week. At 0 and 3rd week, no significant relationships were observed between dietary intake and urinary excretion of thiamin and riboflavin, however, at the 5th week, urinary excretion was significantly increased by dietary intake only in the NT group (P < 0.05). Thiamin excretion of both NT and ET groups was significantly increased with riboflavin excretion at the 5th week (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Regular moderate exercise training increased urinary excretion of thiamin. Dietary intakes and urinary excretions of thiamin and riboflavin showed positive correlation in both the exercise training and non-exercise training groups as the exercise training period went by, while the correlations in the exercise training group were weaker than those in the non-exercise training group. Therefore, regular exercise training can alter the urinary excretion of thiamin and riboflavin in rats.
Animals ; Exercise ; Rats ; Riboflavin* ; Vitamin B Complex

PURPOSE: To evaluate the HRCT findings and to correlate the findings with the results of a pulmonary function test (PFT) in patients with reactive airway dysfunction syndrome (RADS). MATERIALS AND METHODS: On March 2003, a fire at a boarding house of primary school soccer players caused a multiple casualty disaster. After 8 months, nine boys that presented with chronic cough and dyspnea were treated, and were subjected to follow-up evaluations. Eight patients underwent a chest radiograph, HRCT, and a PFT. Two patients with severe symptoms received extended follow-up after 1 year. Two radiologists retrospectively reviewed the chest radiographs and the follow-up HRCT scans. We correlated the HRCT findings with the results of the PFT. RESULTS: Six patients with an inhalation injury were diagnosed with RADS. On the chest radiographs, eight patients showed no abnormal findings. On an HRCT scan, four patients showed abnormal findings. The abnormal findings were mosaic air trapping (n = 4), bronchial wall thickening (n = 1), and parenchymal consolidation (n = 1). In all four patients that showed abnormal findings in the HRCT scan, abnormal results of the PFT were also seen. The two patients that received extended follow-up showed an improvement of the clinical symptoms, as seen by the PFT, and had a decreased extent and degree of mosaic air trapping, as seen on HRCT. CONCLUSION: An HRCT scan is an essential modality for the diagnosis and follow-up of patients with RADS. Both a full expiratory and inspiratory HRCT scan must be performed for an accurate diagnosis.
Bronchial Hyperreactivity ; Cough ; Diagnosis ; Disasters ; Dyspnea ; Fires ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Inhalation* ; Lung ; Radiography, Thoracic ; Respiratory Function Tests* ; Retrospective Studies ; Smoke Inhalation Injury ; Soccer ; Thorax*

The relapse of leukemia is usually classified as hematologic relapse and extramedullary relapse. The most common sites of clinical extramedullary relapse are the central nervous systems (CNS) and gonads. However, the relapse in the uterus is very rare. We experienced a very unusual case of uterine relapse of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) after about a 6-year remission period. This female patient returned to our hospital with a two-month history of amenorrhea. Pelvic radiology confirmed an about 7 cm sized ill-defined ovoid mass in the uterus. There was no evidence of ALL relapse in the peripheral blood or CNS. The uterine biopsy showed diffused homogenous infiltration of numerous small round cells in uterine corpus, suggesting ALL relapse. The bone marrow study revealed 100% cellularity, most of which were lymphoblasts. Our patient received the bone marrow transplantation (BMT) and achieved the second complete remission (CR). Therefore, we here report our case with a brief review of literature.
Amenorrhea ; Biopsy ; Bone Marrow ; Bone Marrow Transplantation ; Central Nervous System ; Female ; Gonads ; Humans ; Leukemia ; Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma* ; Recurrence* ; Uterus

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the efficiency of superovulation with intrauterine insemination (IUI) in infertile patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Seventy-two cycles of superovulation with IUI in 48 infertile couples in which gonadotrophins were used for hyperstimulation were analysed retrospectively. RESULTS: Overall clinical pregnancy rate was 33.3% per cycle and 45.8% per patient. By the infertility factor, patients with endometriosis showed the lowest pregnancy rate (10%). Cumulative pregnancy rate (CPR), obtained by life-table analysis, increased as the number of cycles increased: 25.0% for one cycle, 33.3% for two cycle, 40% for three cycle and 50% for more than four cycle. CONCLUSIONS: Superovulation with IUI is an effective treatment modality in patients with subfecundity, and is worth while trying prior to in vitro fertilization procedure in those patients.
Endometriosis ; Family Characteristics ; Female ; Fertility ; Fertilization in Vitro ; Humans ; Infertility ; Insemination* ; Pregnancy Rate* ; Pregnancy* ; Retrospective Studies ; Superovulation*