Tumor-mimicking lesions in the musculoskeletal system can be defined as lesions mistaken as tumors due to the presence of palpation upon physical examination or a tumor-like appearance upon radiological examination. Moreover, tumor-mimicking lesions show diverse etiologies and anatomic locations. We illustrated the various tumor-mimicking lesions involving bone and soft tissue. In this review, the tumor-mimicking lesions were classified into those based on clinical examination and those based on radiological examination in musculoskeletal radiology. Awareness of the various causes of tumor-mimicking lesions, correctly obtaining clinical information, and the proper selection of imaging modality are important for the differentiation of tumor-mimicking lesions from true neoplasms.
Bone Neoplasms/diagnosis ; Diagnosis, Differential ; *Diagnostic Imaging ; Humans ; Muscle Neoplasms/diagnosis ; Musculoskeletal Diseases/*diagnosis ; Physical Examination ; Soft Tissue Neoplasms/diagnosis

BACKGROUND: The resurgence of tuberculosis and outbreaks of multidrug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis have increased the emphasis for the development of new susceptibility testing of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis for the effective treatment and control of the disease. Conventional drug susceptibility testings, such as those using egg-based or agar-based media have some limits, such as the time required and difficulties in determining critical inhibitory concentrations, but these are still being used in many diagnostic laboratories because of no better alternatives, considering cost and accuracy. To overcome these limits, a rapid and simple method for new susceptibility testing, using live and dead assays, was applied for a bacterial cell viability assay to distinguish dead from live bacterial cells based on two-color fluorescence. MATERIALS AND METHODS STRAINS: Forty strains were used in this study, 20 susceptible to all antituberculosis drugs and the other 20 resistant to the four first line antituberculosis drugs isoniazid, rifampicin, streptomycin and ethambutol. ANTIBIOTICS: The four antibiotics were dissolved in 7H9 broth to make the following solutions: 0.1micro gram isoniazid(INH)/ml, 0.4micro gram rifampicin(RMP)/ml, 4.0micro gram streptomycin(SM)/ml and 4.0micro gram ethambutol(EMB)/ml. RESULTS: Live and dead Mycobacterium tuberculosis cells fluoresced green and red with the acridin (Syto 9) and propidium treatments, respectively. These results are very well accorded with conventional drug susceptibility testing by proportional method on Lowensen-Jensen media (L-J) containing 4 drugs (INH, RMP, EMB and SM), showing a 93.7 % accordance rate in susceptible strains and 95% in resistant strains. CONCLUSION: The results of the drug susceptibility testing using the live and dead bacterial cell assay showed high accordance rates compared with the conventional proportion method on L-J. This finding suggests that the live and dead bacterial cell assay can be used as an alternative to conventional drug susceptibility testing for M. tuberculosis strains.
Anti-Bacterial Agents ; Cell Differentiation* ; Cell Survival ; Disease Outbreaks ; Ethambutol ; Fluorescence ; Isoniazid ; Mycobacterium tuberculosis* ; Mycobacterium* ; Propidium ; Rifampin ; Streptomycin ; Tuberculosis

Despite recent economic prosperity, Korea still has high prevalence of tuberculosis. Molecular biologic characterization of Korean Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains might provide a deeper understanding of the forces contributing to the spread of tuberculosis in Korea. Therefore, we analyzed the cell lysate proteome of a representative Korean Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolate (K01) in comparison with laboratory reference strains H37Rv and H37Ra. Seven spots were strongly expressed only in K01 strain compared with M. tuberculosis H37Rv and H37Ra. Through continuous MALDI-MS analysis, these spots were identified as hypothetical protein Rv3849, secreted immunogenic protein Mpt64, Acetyl/propionyl-CoA Carbpxylase (AccD1), alkyl hydroperoxide reductase C (AhpC), N-acetylmuramyl-L-alanine amidase, a putative UDP glucose epimerase, and a transposase. A deeper study of these proteins may provide a clue in the development of effective new anti-tuberculosis vaccines against Korean M. tuberculosis isolates.
Korea ; Mycobacterium tuberculosis* ; Mycobacterium* ; Peroxiredoxins ; Prevalence ; Proteome* ; Spectrometry, Mass, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization ; Transposases ; Tuberculosis ; UDPglucose 4-Epimerase ; Vaccines

OBJECTIVES: Leptin, the product of ob gene, is secreted by adipocytes and signals the size of peripheral fat stores to the brain. Several evidences indicate that a polymorphism in the promoter region (-2548A/G) of leptin gene is associated with antipsychotics-induced weight gain. This study aims at investigating the association between the -2548A/G polymorphism of leptin gene and antipsychotics-induced weight gain in Korean schizophrenia patients. METHODS: Seventy one patients with schizophrenia were recruited. All of the subjects were antipsychotics-naive or free of antipsychotic drugs for the previous 3 months. Genotyping was done for the -2548A/G polymorphism of leptin gene. Body mass index (BMI) was measured at baseline, after 4 weeks and after 8 weeks of antipsychotic drug treatment. The subjects were grouped on the basis of the presence or absence of the G allele (AA vs. AG/GG) and two-sided t tests for independent samples was used to analyze the relationship between two genotype groups and BMI change. And a chi-square analysis was conducted to test the association between the allele type and BMI change. RESULTS: We could not find any association between the -2548A/G polymorphism of leptin gene and antipsychotics-induced weight gain. CONCLUSION: Our data do not support the involvement of the -2548A/G polymorphism of leptin gene in antipsychotics-induced weight gain in the acute treatment phase.
Adipocytes ; Alleles ; Antipsychotic Agents ; Body Mass Index ; Brain ; Genotype ; Humans ; Leptin* ; Promoter Regions, Genetic ; Schizophrenia ; Weight Gain*

OBJECTIVE: Several lines of pharmacological evidences including the data of animal studies indicate that serotonin 2C receptor (5HT2C) is involved in the pharmacodynamic process of serotonin dopamine antagonists (SDA)-induced weight gain. Controversial data have been reported on the association between the polymorphisms of 5HT2C receptor gene and antipsychotics-induced weight gain. This study aims at investigating the association between the polymorphisms of 5HT2C receptor gene and SDA-induced weight gain in korean schizophrenic patients. METHODS: Seventy-seven schizophrenia patients in their first episode or patients who did not take any antipsychotics for the previous two months were recruited. All the patients were administered with one of the SDAs (risperidone, olanzapine, quetiapine, clozapine) for 8weeks. Body mass index (BMI) were measured weekly during the 8weeks. The subjects were genotyped for the -759 C/T and -697 G/C polymorphism of the 5HT2C receptor gene. RESULTS: The degree of linkage disequilibrium between the two polymorphic loci genotyped are almost 100%. Significant association was not observed between polymorphisms of the 5HT2C receptor gene (-759 C/T and -697 G/C) and SDA-induced weight gain after 8 weeks of treatment. CONCLUSION: Our data do not support the involvement of the polymorphisms of 5HT2C receptor gene (-759 C/T and -697 G/C) in SDA- induced weight gain. Further studies with sufficient sample size are warranted to follow up on the trend of high weight gain in the male patients having -759 T (-697 C) allele.
Alleles ; Animals ; Antipsychotic Agents ; Body Mass Index ; Dopamine Antagonists ; Dopamine* ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Linkage Disequilibrium ; Male ; Receptor, Serotonin, 5-HT2C ; Sample Size ; Schizophrenia* ; Serotonin* ; Weight Gain* ; Quetiapine Fumarate

The massive reorganization of microtubule network involves in transcriptional regulation of several genes by controlling transcriptional factor, nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kappaB) activity. The exact molecular mechanism by which microtubule rearrangement leads to NF-kappaB activation largely remains to be identified. However microtubule disrupting agents may possibly act in synergy or antagonism against apoptotic cell death in response to conventional chemotherapy targeting DNA damage such as adriamycin or comptothecin in cancer cells. Interestingly pretreatment of microtubule disrupting agents (colchicine, vinblastine and nocodazole) was observed to lead to paradoxical suppression of DNA damage-induced NF-kappaB binding activity, even though these could enhance NF-kappaB signaling in the absence of other stimuli. Moreover this suppressed NF-kappaB binding activity subsequently resulted in synergic apoptotic response, as evident by the combination with Adr and low doses of microtubule disrupting agents was able to potentiate the cytotoxic action through caspase-dependent pathway. Taken together, these results suggested that inhibition of microtubule network chemosensitizes the cancer cells to die by apoptosis through suppressing NF-kappaB DNA binding activity. Therefore, our study provided a possible anti-cancer mechanism of microtubule disrupting agent to overcome resistance against to chemotherapy such as DNA damaging agent.
Animals ; Antibiotics, Antineoplastic/therapeutic use ; *Apoptosis ; Caspases/metabolism ; Cell Line ; Colchicine/pharmacology ; DNA/metabolism ; *DNA Damage ; Doxorubicin/therapeutic use ; Humans ; Mice ; Microtubules/chemistry/*drug effects/metabolism ; NF-kappa B/antagonists & inhibitors/*metabolism ; Neoplasms/drug therapy ; Nocodazole/pharmacology ; Protein Binding ; Signal Transduction ; Tubulin Modulators/*pharmacology ; Vinblastine/pharmacology

Among chemotherapeutic regimens used for advanced ovarian cancer, platinum-based combination chemotherapy remains a mainstay of the treatment of advanced ovarian cancer, providing significant response rates and survival benefits. However, with widespread use of long-term chemotherapy in treating ovarian cancer, emergence of secondary leukemia has become medical concern as one of the most unfavorable late complications. Depending upon the type, duration, and dosage of previous chemotherapy, the risk of developing acute myeloid leukemia has been estimated to be between 2% and 10%. Moreover, the frequency of this complication might increase as the survival in patients with ovarian cancer undergoing chemotherapy continues to increase with developing therapeutic options. Recently, we experienced a case of secondary acute myeloid leukemia developing 3.5 years after platinum-based chemotherapy. In this report, clinical course of the patient and contributing factors for the secondary leukemia were presented.
Drug Therapy* ; Drug Therapy, Combination ; Humans ; Leukemia ; Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute* ; Ovarian Neoplasms* ; Platinum*

OBJECTIVES: ST8SIA2 (ST8 alpha-N-acetyl-neuraminide alpha-2, 8-sialyltransferase 2 gene) is located at 15q26, a susceptibility locus for schizophrenia. Some previous research had indicated that single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the promoter region of ST8SIA2 were associated with schizophrenia in Japanese and Chinese populations. We investigated the association between SNPs in the promoter region of ST8SIA2 and schizophrenia in the Korean population. METHODS: The study subjects were 190 Korean patients with schizophrenia and 190 healthy controls. We performed allelic, genotypic, and haplotypic association analyses for rs3759916, rs3759915 and rs3759914 of ST8SIA2. All genotypes were determined by direct sequencing. RESULTS: In the genotype-based analysis, rs3759914 showed a nominally significant association with schizophrenia under recessive genotypic model (p = 0.047). However, this association did not remain statistically significant after correction for multiple testing. Both allelic and haplotype analyses did not show any significant association. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that ST8SIA2 does not play a major role in the susceptibility to schizophrenia in the Korean population. Further studies with a larger number of subjects are required to definitively rule out minor effects of this gene on schizophrenia vulnerability.
Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Genotype ; Haplotypes ; Humans ; Polymorphism, Genetic ; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide ; Promoter Regions, Genetic ; Schizophrenia

Purpose: InnoSEAL Plus is an adhesive, coagulant-free hemostatic material that mimics the adhesion mechanism of marine mussels. This study reports on the safety and efficacy of InnoSEAL Plus for patients with hemorrhage after hepatectomy despite first-line hemostasis treatments. Methods: This is a multicenter, prospective, single-blinded, randomized clinical trial involving 96 hepatectomy patients. TachoSil was used as a comparator group. Three-minute and 10-minute hemostatic success rates were monitored. Rebleeding rates were also observed. Safety was assessed by recording all novel undesirable symptoms. Results: InnoSEAL Plus showed a 3-minute hemostasis rate of 100%, while TachoSil had a rate of 98.0% (48 of 49 patients), demonstrating that the 2 had similar hemostatic efficacies. The difference in efficacy between the test and comparator group was 2.04%, and the lower limit of the one-sided 97.5% confidence interval was –1.92%; as this is greater than the noninferiority limit of –23.9%, the 2 treatments were equivalent. Meanwhile, the 10-minute hemostatic success rate was the same in both groups (100%). No rebleeding occurred in either group. In the safety evaluation, 89 patients experienced adverse events (45 in the test group and 44 in the comparator group). The difference between the 2 groups was not significant. No death occurred after application of the test or comparator group product. Conclusion Given that InnoSEAL Plus is a coagulation factor-free product, the hemostasis results are encouraging, especially considering that TachoSil contains a coagulation factor. InnoSEAL Plus was found to be a safe and effective hemostatic material for control of bleeding in hepatectomy patients.

Commercial interests towards insect cell cultures have greatly been increased recently, in part due to the widespread use of insect virus-based vectors for efficient expressions of foreign proteins. Insect cell-derived biotechnology products should be free of adventitious agents such as arboviruses and mycoplasmas. The objective of this study was to establish techniques for the viral safety evaluation of insect cell-derived biotechnology products using Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) as a model, since JEV is a member of arthropod-borne flaviviruses which has been known to be infectious to insect cells such as Sf9 cells. Quantitative assays for viral infectivity, concentrations of an antigen or a genome are a prerequisite for the studies of viral clearance validation. Here, we report the development of a quantitative assay for JEV RNA using real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The assay was performed using LightCycler and RNA amplification kit SYBR Green I. Viral RNA extracted from stock suspension of JEV with known infectivity titer was made to 10-fold serial dilution, and each dilution was subjected to the assay for the generation of a standard curve. A JEV specific primer was selected from 3' untranslated region with the expected band size of 323 base pairs. The real-time RT-PCR assay resulted in a successful amplification within 5 log dilution ranges of JEV RNA samples, and the sensitivity of the assay was calculated to be approximately 15 TCID50 per reaction. Highly reproducible standard curves were obtained from experiments performed on three different days. The real-time RT-PCR assay for the quantification of JEV will be an efficient alternative tool for viral clearance validation studies of insect cell-derived biotechnology products.
3' Untranslated Regions ; Arboviruses ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group* ; Base Pairing ; Biotechnology* ; Cell Culture Techniques ; Encephalitis Virus, Japanese* ; Encephalitis, Japanese* ; Flavivirus ; Genome ; Humans ; Insects* ; Mycoplasma ; RNA ; RNA, Viral ; Sf9 Cells