The trends of gastric cancer in Korea are changing, such as an increase of early and minute gastric cancer. The standard treatment of gastric cancer has become more complicated. Endoscopic treatment of gastric cancer is considered to be a useful procedure towards a curative or conservative treatment of early gastric cancer or advanced gastric cancer. Recent advances in endoscopic treatment technique are truly remarkable. The advances allow minimally invasive treatment of diseases that would otherwise require major surgery. New techniques will continue to solve the limitations of endoscopic treatment and their use will also continue to expand accordingly.
Korea ; Stomach Neoplasms* ; Stomach*

No abstract available.
Diabetic Nephropathies*

Five ten per cent of asthmatics remain symptomatic despite high-dose treatment. Difficult asthma must be distinguished from severe asthma. Difficult asthma was defined as persistence of symptoms despite treatment at step wise recommended. It is then important in patients with suspected difficult asthma to ensure that the diagnosis is correct, and that if the patient has asthma that the attributed symptoms are indeed all genuinely due to the asthma and not to coexisting physical or psychogenic respiratory conditions. It is also important to be alert to recognize both poor perceivers and over-reactors. Asthma may be difficult for the patient, for the clinician or both because of disease factors, doctor or nurse therapist factors, and/or patient factors. Investigation requires access to the full range of respiratory, imaging and allergy tests. There remains a small number of patients with genuine steroid-resistant asthma, brittle asthma and asthma with airway remodeling. The anti-inflammatory effects of GCs are mediated through receptors that modulate inflammatory gene expression. GC resistance results from an interaction between susceptibility genes, the host's environment, and immunologic factors. The management of these patients requires a systematic approach to rule out underlying conditions that lead to GC resistance or treatment failure, as well as the use of alternative strategies to inhibit tissue inflammation.
Airway Remodeling ; Asthma* ; Diagnosis ; Gene Expression ; Humans ; Hypersensitivity ; Immunologic Factors ; Inflammation ; Treatment Failure

No abstract available.
Asthma* ; Inhalation* ; Respiratory Therapy*

No abstract available.
Respiratory System* ; Ventilators, Mechanical*

No abstract available.
Endothelial Cells* ; Humans* ; Umbilical Veins*

BACKGROUND: Socio-economic factors, culture, and the health care delivery system are all associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, their significance and prevalence in Korea have not been precisely determined. The purposes of this study were to identify factors related to increased CVD risk among Koreans, and compare the results with those of previous studies. METHODS: This study is an analysis of secondary data collected through the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. For the purposes of this research, CVD is defined as medically diagnosed hypertension, stroke, angina, and myocardial infarction. Of the 38,746 survey participants, we analyzed 4,727 subjects who suffered from CVD. RESULTS: Before the age of 50, men have a greater risk of CVD than women while a woman's risk of CVD after 50 begins to rise with age. Socioeconomic factors such as education, income, single living pattern, chronic kidney disease (CKD), diabetes mellitus (DM), depression, rheumatic arthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, body mass index and waist circumference, lipids, physical activity, and diet are all associated with the prevalence of CVD. A multi-variate analysis demonstrated that CKD (odds ratio, OR=5.266, P<0.001) and DM (OR=2.872, P<0.001) are the strongest independent predictors of CVD among Koreans. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of CVD among Korean was about 12.2%. While most risk factors had similar influence on the development of CVD, depression, CKD, and DM showed stronger correlations than those seen in studies performed in other countries. Our results show that a greater importance should be placed on strict and early management of these diseases.
Body Mass Index ; Cardiovascular Diseases ; Chronic Disease ; Delivery of Health Care ; Depression ; Diabetes Mellitus ; Diet ; Female ; Health Promotion ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Korea ; Male ; Motor Activity ; Myocardial Infarction ; Nutrition Surveys ; Prevalence ; Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive ; Renal Insufficiency, Chronic ; Rheumatic Fever ; Risk Factors ; Socioeconomic Factors ; Stroke ; Waist Circumference

There has been an increase in the incidence of elevator-related accidents in the Republic of Korea. Every year, approximately 10~20 elevator-related fatalities are reported in the Republic of Korea. According to research from the United States, 'falls' were the most common cause of death, followed by 'caught in/between'. In such investigations, it is important to distinguish between the manners of death. Herein, we report an elevator-related fatality, which required careful forensic investigation to determine the cause of death. A thorough forensic autopsy and reinvestigation of the death scene by medical examiners were required to determine if the death was caused as a result of the deceased falling from from a height or being caught in between the elevator and the wall of building.
Autopsy ; Cause of Death ; Coroners and Medical Examiners ; Elevators and Escalators ; Humans ; Incidence ; Republic of Korea ; United States

BACKGROUND: Murine IL-2-induced lymphokine-activated killers can be divided into two mutually exclusive subset:NK1.1'CD8 and NK1.1 CD8+. However, there is a strong evidence that NK cell may belong to T cell lineage. Recently novel lymphocyte subsets, present in the adult murine thymus, CD3+NK1.1'TCRap(TNK) cell is readily identifiable in fresh obtained murine adult CD4 CD8 thymocytes. MATERIAL AND METHOD: We sorted out CD4 and CD8 (double negative.' DN) cells and CD8+ cells from murine spleen and cultivated these cells with IL-2. And the surface B220, CD8, NK1. 1 and cytopasmic NK1.1 was analysed simultaneously to see whether these cells can be switched to the other subtype of cells. RESULT: Purified DN cells were switched to several subtype of cells'. CD8'B220+(LAK cells), NK1.1'B220+(LAK cells), CD8 B220, cytoplasmic NK1.1+B220 cells. Purified CD8 cells were switched to CD8+B220' LAK cells and cytoplasmic NK1.1+ CD8+ B220+ and cytoplasmic NK1.1' CD8 B220 cells. In addition, the CD8' cells originated from DN cells do not express the cytoplasmic NK1.1 in contrary to the sorted CD8 cells. CONCLUSION: Our results indicated that these will be useful models to investigating CD8 precursor potentials in populations of CD4 CD8 (doble negative) cells and relationship of NK1.1 These results also supports the hypothesis that T cells and NK cells have same ontogeny and CD8 effector functions are potentially diverse and could be exploited by various conditions that switch off host protected cytolytic response. These model offer a way to study the molecular regulation of CD8 gene expression.
Adult ; Cell Lineage ; Cytoplasm ; Gene Expression ; Humans ; Interleukin-2* ; Interleukins* ; Killer Cells, Lymphokine-Activated ; Killer Cells, Natural ; Lymphocyte Subsets ; Spleen ; T-Lymphocytes ; Thymocytes ; Thymus Gland

Dukes' stage of colorectal carcinoma has proven to be the most reliable and conventional prognostic indicator, followed by histological grade, lymph node metastases, tumor size, vascular and neural invasion. Flow cytometric analysis of DNA ploidy and S-phase fraciion (SPF) was examined to elucidate the correlations between sex, age, preoperative serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) value, Dukes' stage, tumor site, size, gross features, histologic grade, and survival rate in 117 paraffin-embedded tissues of 68 cases of colorectal adenocarcinoma in Dukes' stage and 39 cases of colorectal adenoma and 10 cases of normal colonic mucosa. DNA aneuploidy was detected in 30 cases(44%) in adenocarcinomas and 6 cases (15%) in adenomas. Although the DNA ploidy and SPF did not show any correlation with sex, age, preoperative serum CEA level, Dukes' stage, tumor size, site and gross features, the incidence of DNA aneuploidy in the moderately differentiated adenocarcinomas was significantly higher than that of the well differentiated adenocarcinomas (p=0.0127) An apparent correlation was found between survival rate and DNA ploidy, Dukes' stage, histologic grade and preoperative serum CEA value. Dukes' stage was the most reliable prognostic indicator (p=0.0106), followed by histologic grade (p=0.0230), DNA aneuploidy (p=0.0251) and preoperative serum CEA level. (p=0.0369) In the patients with Dukes' stage C, DNA aneuploidy was more important than histologic grade as a prognostic indicator (p=0.0202). Although high SPF, greater than 21% in adenocarcinoma, was associated with the lower 5-year survival rate (12.0%), it was not statistically significant. These results suggest that DNA aneuploidy is regarded as biologic aggressiveness and considered as independent and/or dependent prognostic indicator along with Dukes' stage. However, prognostic utility of the SPF was not significant.
Incidence ; Adenocarcinoma ; Adenoma