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

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

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*

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.
Diabetic Nephropathies*

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

Necrotizing lymphadenitis was first recognised as a self-limiting lymphadenitis by Japanese workers in 1972. It is a distinct clinicopathologic entity, but can be mistaken as malignant lymphoma. We have studied clinicopathologic features in 15 cases of necrotizing lymphadenitis. This disease occurs predominantly in young adult. Male-female ratio is 2 : 1. The commonest presentation is lateral cervical lymphadenopathy. Pain, tenderness, and fever can be seen. Biopsy of the lymph nodes from all patients demonstrates the characteristic histologic features : multifocal, relatively circumscribed nodules in the cortex and/or paracortex, consisting of a mixture of activated large lymphoid cells, histiocytes and Small lymphocytes. Numerous karyorrhetic debris are present. Neutrophils and plasma cells are strikingly absent.
Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Biopsy ; Fever ; Histiocytes ; Humans ; Lymph Nodes ; Lymphadenitis* ; Lymphatic Diseases ; Lymphocytes ; Lymphoma ; Neutrophils ; Plasma Cells ; Young Adult

For the non-invasive evaluation of cardiac performance in hyperthyroidism, fractional systolic and diastolic time intervals were determined in 96 female patients with hyperthyroidism from the mechanocardiograms which included apexcardiograms together with electrocardiograms, phonocardiograms and carotid arterial pulse tracings. The observed values of the time intervals inversely related to heart rate, i.e., ejection period, mechanical systole, isovolumic relaxation time and active ventricular filling period, were significantly shortened in proportion to the severity of the disease in general, as determined by the rate of the radioactive iodine uptake of the thyroid glands. However, these values were not significantly different from those of the predicted for heart rate, except for one of mechanical systoles which is a time interval from the onset of the systolic upstroke in the apexcardiogram to the second aortic sound. This suggests that the shortening of these observed values is promarily due to tachycardia associated with hyperthyroidism. One the other hand, the observed values of the time intervals unrelated to heart rate, i.e., electromechanical delay, isovolumic contraction time together with one of its components, namely ventricular pressure elevation time, and rapid ventricular filling period, were significantly shorter than those in the controls, although the degree of the shortening was not related to the degree of the radioactive iodine uptake of the thyroid gland. It appears that the shortening of these time intervals is related to the altered cardiac function caused by hyperthyroidism and, in particular, that of the isovolumic contraction time and ventricular pressure elevation time reflects enhancemet by the thyrotoxic myocardial contractility.
Electrocardiography ; Female ; Hand ; Heart Rate ; Humans ; Hyperthyroidism* ; Iodine ; Relaxation ; Systole ; Tachycardia ; Thyroid Gland ; Ventricular Pressure

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