No abstract available.
Humans ; Spouses*

Dental porcelain should have adequate strength and similar esthetics as natural teeth. Recently esthetics has become a high priority in clinical dentistry. Thus the evaluation of color stability of dental porcelain has become an important part in dental research. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the difference in color stability of 3 types of porcelain (Vintage, VMK 95, CERAMCO II). The porcelain were divided into groups by 2 types of treatment (Glazing or non-glazing and thermocycling or non-thermocycling). The porcelain wee dyed with methylene blue and distilled water, and then the color stability was evaluated with a spectrophotometer. The results were as follow ; 1. The color change of porcelain increased in the order of VMK 95, Vintage, CERAMCO II. But there was no significant difference. 2. The color change decreased in the glazing group compared to the non-glazing group(p<0.05). 3. The color change increased after thermocycling But there was no significant difference. 4. The color change according to dye method was significantly larger with methylene blue copared to distilled water(P<0.05).
Crowns* ; Dental Porcelain* ; Dental Research ; Dentistry ; Esthetics ; Methylene Blue ; Tooth ; Water

No abstract available.
Humans ; Twins*

PURPOSE: To determine the optimal time of high dose intravenous immune globulin (IVIG) treatment, we analysed the clinical characteristics and progress of a group of Kawasaki disease patients who had early treatment with IVIG. METHOD: A retrospective study was conducted of 188 patients with Kawasaki disease who were admitted to Yeungnam University Medical Center from January 2000 to December 2005. All patients were treated with a high dose IVIG and high dose aspirin for the initial acute phase treatment. The early treatment group consisted of 94 patients who received treatment before 5 days of fever, and the conventional group consisted of 94 patients who were treated on or after day 5. The patients' sex, age, laboratory findings, total duration of fever, duration of fever after initial IVIG, need for additional IVIG and coronary artery status were noted. RESULT: There were no significant differences between the two groups in sex ratio and age. No significant differences were noted in the level of WBC count, ESR, CRP, serum albumin, LDH, total duration of fever and coronary abnormality. But the value of ALT(151.8+/-17.3 vs. 81.9+/-13.4, P=0.002), duration of fever after initial IVIG (3.8+/-0.5 days vs. 2.1+/-0.2 days, P=0.003), and rate of additional IVIG (15.9% vs. 6.3%, P=0.037) were significantly higher in the early treatment group. There was no significant difference in initial dose of IVIG, but dosage of aspirin was lower in early treatment group (P=0.037). CONCLUSION: There is no evidence that early treatment of IVIG has greater efficacy in preventing cardiac sequelae than conventional treatment. In addition, early treatment is likely to result in a greater requirement for additional IVIG treatment.
Academic Medical Centers ; Aspirin ; Coronary Vessels ; Fever ; Humans ; Immunoglobulins, Intravenous* ; Mucocutaneous Lymph Node Syndrome* ; Retrospective Studies ; Serum Albumin ; Sex Ratio

No abstract available.
Sarcoma*

Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) can cause serious morbidity and mortality, and differentiating between this disease and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) can prove challenging. Although rare, TTP accompanied by SLE is linked to several complications and a higher mortality rate. Herein, we report a case of a 16-year-old boy who presented with systemic symptoms, such as petechiae, and was diagnosed with acquired TTP following a laboratory test. Steroid treatment was initiated and a diagnosis of SLE was reached after the symptoms had improved. Treatment with low-dose prednisone in addition to hydroxychloroquine was continued. The patient did not develop renal failure or neurologic deficit. No specific symptoms were observed after treatment and during the follow-up period. Early treatment of SLE is crucial, but it is difficult to reach an early diagnosis because the symptoms are similar to those of TTP. In the current study, an early diagnosis of TTP led to prompt treatment, thereby avoiding the fatal symptoms that could be caused by SLE.

PURPOSE: To determine accurately the extent of the disease and risk of recurrence is important in enhancing the therapeutic success rate of breast cancer. Primary tumor state and axillary node invasion were some well known factors to predict the prognosis of breast cancer. However, some patients with early stage cancer developed systemic metastasis later despite of little possibility of recurrence based on some previously establised prognostic system. These results demand another approach to predict systemic metastases in patient without gross evidence of further recurrence. Micrometastases is a promising key to explain the recurrence in these patients and micrometastases in bone marrow could raised the ongoing recurrence in skeletal system which is the most frequent metastatic site in breast cancer. Therefore we tricd to determine the rate of micrometastasis in surgically resectable Korean breast cancer patients and the relationship with clinicopathological characteristics of the cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We studied bone marrow aspirate specimens from 38 patients with breast cancer who underwent curative resection at Chonnam University Hospital from January 1996 to February 1997. And reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to detect messenger RNA for cytokeratin 19 was performed. RESULTS: Metastases in bone marrow were detected in 8/38 patients (21.1%). No sta- tistically significant relationship existed between bone marrow metastasis and clinicopa- thological parameters for predicting prognosis that consisted of tumor state, lymph node invasion, histologic grade, steroid receptor, and c-erbB2 overexpression. In particular, bone marrow metastasis developed even from ductal carcinoma in situ. CONCLUSION: Bone marrow metastasis may be developed from the extremely early stage of breast cancer and we can not make the corelationship between the bone marrow metastasis and establised some prognostic factors. Based on these results, we recommand the evaluation of bone marrow metastasis in all breast cancer patients and require the close follow-up to allow more sensitive prediction of ongoing recurrence and higher curability.
Bone Marrow* ; Breast Neoplasms* ; Breast* ; Carcinoma, Intraductal, Noninfiltrating ; Humans ; Jeollanam-do ; Keratin-19 ; Lymph Nodes ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Neoplasm Micrometastasis* ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Prognosis ; Receptors, Steroid ; Recurrence ; Reverse Transcription ; RNA, Messenger

No abstract available.

The survey was undertaken among the 105 ostomates who attended the 2nd Workshop for Stoma Rehabilitation on Aug. 30th, 1997 by the Department of Surgery, Kyung-Hee University Hospital to assess the physical, psychosocial and sexual problems with a stoma. The 97% of ostomates had permanent colostomies following abdominoperineal resection. The 67% of ostomates had one or more physical problems caused by stoma. Frequent bowel movement (94.3%), impairment of irrigation (64.6%), unpleasant odor (27.3%), and urinary frequency (21.3%) were common problems encountered by ostomates. Concerning the psychosocial problems, 3.8% of them suffered from profound restriction of social activities and 1.9% of them had psychologic problems such as depression. 42 of 58 ostomates (72.4%) who were employed before operation returned to their work. Among 71 men, 44 (62%) were impaired by sexual function. Most ostomates suffered physical, social, psychologic and sexual problems in their daily life and needed helps of experts such colorectal surgeons, enterostomal therapists, and ostomy association. Attention is needed more to improve the quality of life for the ostomates.
Colostomy ; Depression ; Education ; Humans ; Male ; Odors ; Ostomy ; Quality of Life ; Rehabilitation

OBJECTIVES: Hwa-byung has been studied clinically for several years and introduced as Korean Culture-Bound Syndrome. However, the definition and the diagnostic method are not yet clarified, and there has not been any sufficient comparative study on this disease entity. This study was conducted to determine the clinical symptoms and the profile of the neurocognitive functions in Hwa-byung(HB) and Major Depressive Disorder(MDD), and We wish to identify any critical factors that differentiate the disorders. METHODS: A total of 102 participants were examined, including 34 participants with MDD, 34 with HB, and 34 healthy controls. The MDD and HB patients were recruited from among inpatients and outpatients at the National Medical Center for the period from May to December of 2004. As a major diagnostic tool of MDD, diagnostic reference of DSM-IV-TR was used and as HB's diagnostic tool, We used computerized neurocognitive function test. Psychiatric symptomatology was evaluated by the Beck Depression Inventory(BDI), and Symptom Checkist-90-Revision(SCL-90-R). Oneway ANOVA, Scheffe post-hoc test and Chi-Squre Tests were used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: The participants in three groups did not differ in terms of age, sex, and education. Assessment of BDI indicated that the MDD group had significantly higher total score than the HB group. MDD and HB groups showed significantly higher total scores on the SCL-90-R in comparison to the controls. The MDD group was found to have significantly more symptoms of depression than the HB group, based on the depression subscale of the SCL-90-R. The computerized neurocognitive function test suggest several results 1) Within the memory domain, it was found that one of the two memory tests in MDD and HB groups were significantly impaired in comparison to the control group. 2) Within the attention domain, it was found that only the MDD group was significantly impaired in comparison to the control group. 3) Within the higher cortical function domain, it was found that significant impairment exist in MDD group and HB group compared to the control group; the severity of impairment was found to be more profound in the MDD group than in the HB group. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that both HB group and MDD group have significantly decreased neurocognitive function than the control group, and neurocognitive function of the HB group is better than that of the MDD group.
Depression ; Depressive Disorder, Major* ; Education ; Humans ; Inpatients ; Memory ; Outpatients