No Abstract available.
Infection Control*

Hepatitis G virus (HGV) is a single-strand RNA virus in the Flaviviridae family, it was recently identified from the plasma of a patient with chronic hepatitis. HOV infection may cause acute and chronic liver disease by blood transfusion, drug addicts, hemophilia, and multiple sexual partners. But clinical significance of infectious pathway is still unclear. In this report, we amplified HGV RNA by reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) by primers within the highly conserved 5'-noncoding region (NCR) and used restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) method for the polymorphism analysis of amplified HGV gene. HGV was shown to be present in 7 of 78 (9.0%) from HCV RT-PCR positive serum samples and 5 of 58 (8.6%) from HCV RT-PCR negative serum samples. From the RFLP method HGV divided into four genotypes in 12 positive samples. Therefore, HGV genotype was distributed at least four different types in Korea.
Blood Transfusion ; Drug Users ; Flaviviridae ; GB virus C* ; Genotype ; Hemophilia A ; Hepatitis* ; Hepatitis, Chronic ; Humans ; Korea ; Liver Diseases ; Plasma ; Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length* ; RNA ; RNA Viruses ; Sexual Partners

No abstract available.
Cryptococcus neoformans* ; Cryptococcus* ; Interleukin-2* ; Lymphocytes*

Objective: Cerebral white matter changes (WMCs) and silent brain infarcts (SBIs) are common radiological findings in neurologically asymptomatic elderly people. Their presence is associated with an increased risk of stroke or dementia. Homocysteine (Hcy) can cause atherosclerosis and may thus act as a useful marker of stroke prior to symptom onset. This study aimed to evaluate the utility of Hcy as a surrogate marker for early intervention for stroke in community-dwelling healthy elderly persons with cerebrovascular lesions such as WMCs and SBIs. Methods: We assessed the relationship between the Hcy level and presence of WMCs/SBIs on brain computed tomography (CT) in 554 elderly individuals aged ≥65 years with no history of stroke or dementia. Results: The mean age of the participants was 74.43±7.32 years. Of the 554 patients, 106 (19.1%) had WMCs and/or SBI findings on brain CT. The mean Hcy level was higher in participants with WMCs/SBIs (P=0.001). The WMCs/SBIs group had a significantly greater number of participants with high Hcy levels than the non-WMCs/SBIs group (P<0.001). High Hcy levels (≥12.3 μmol/L) was significantly associated with WMCs and SBIs even after adjusting for age, Korean Mini Mental Status Examination score, education level, and vascular risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia and smoking status. Conclusion: The result of our study suggests that regular monitoring of homocysteine level as a modifiable risk factor may be helpful for predicting the association of cerebrovascular lesions such as WMCs and SBIs for the prevention of future ischemic stroke and cognitive impairment.

No abstract available.
Renal Dialysis* ; Urea*

No abstract available.
Humans ; Urinary Tract*

We report a case of primary cutaneous cryptococcosis on Rt. forehead and perioral area of 57 year old woman with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus and Lt. cerebral infarction. She had large ulcers with yellowish purulent exudates on Rt. forehead and perioral area for 2months. A histopathological examination from the lesion showed numerous encapsulated, round spores and the organisms were identified as Cryptococcus neoformans in a series of fun-gal studies. The patient received a 5-week course of IV and oral fluconazole with resolution of her skin lesion. The patient is free of any lesion several months after completing therapy. This experience supports the use of fluconazole as initial and single therapy in primary cutaneous cryptococcosis.
Cerebral Infarction ; Cryptococcosis* ; Cryptococcus neoformans ; Diabetes Mellitus ; Exudates and Transudates ; Female ; Fluconazole* ; Forehead ; Humans ; Skin ; Spores ; Ulcer

PURPOSE: The present study purposed to investigate Korean adults health status, smoking perception. and self-efficacy of smoking cessation according to whether smoking or not. METHODS: This study conducted a questionnaire survey of 694 adults at D County in Korea during the period from the 10th of June to the 10th of July 2004. The instruments used for this study were scales on health status, smoking perception and self-efficacy: of smoking cessation. Data was analyzed by frequency and percentage, mean and SD, chi2-test, t-test, ANOVA using SPSS 11.0 program. RESULTS: The subjects of this study were 503 men and 191 women, and 60.8% of the male subjects and 6.8% of the female subjects were smokers. With respect to health status (t=-2.58, p=0.010), smoking perception (t=10.59. p<0.000) and the self-efficacy of smoking cessation (t=-23.04, p<0.000), there were significant differences according to whether smoking or not. CONCLUSIONS: It is necessary to make repeated study to find other variables that affect adults smoking and to develop smoking cessation programs that enhance the self-efficacy of smoking cessation.
Adult ; Female ; Humans ; Korea ; Male ; Smoke* ; Smoking Cessation* ; Smoking* ; Weights and Measures ; Surveys and Questionnaires

BACKGROUND: It is traditiqnally considered that the non-bullous fonn of impetigo is primarily of streptococcal origin and the bullous form is of staphylococcal origin. However, recent reports have shown that Staphylococcus aureus (SA) has become the predominant cauative pathogen of non-bullous impetigo as well as of bullous impetigo. Objective. Our purpose was to evaluate the predominant causativi. pathogen, and to establish a therapeutic guideline for impetigo. METHOD: We described the characteristics of lesions and gerformed bacterial culture and susceptibility tests in patients with impetigo. Patients were treatecl by one of three frequently used antibiotics(erythromycin, cefuroxime, fusidic acid). RESULTS: Of 77 patients, there were 47 cases of crusted type(61.9%), 18 cases of mixed type with crusted and bullous lesiona(23.3%), 7 cases of mixed type with crusted and pustular lesions(9.1%) and 5 cases of bullous type(6.6%). SA was grown from 90.1% af the cases, in 83.1% of cases it was the only organism to be foind and no gowth of streptococcus was faund even in mixed infections. An antimicrobial susceptibility test of 63 strains of SA demonstrated high susceptibility to vancomycin(98.4%), cefuroxime(97.1%), oxacillin(96.4%), cephalothin(95.2%), fusidic acid(91.7%) etc, and high resistance to penicillin(93.7%), gentamicin(90.5%), tobramycin(88.9%) and erythromicin(80.9%). Of 19 patients treated with erythrornycin, 12(63.1% ) showed treatment failure at a weeks, while no treatment failure occured in groups treated with cefuroxime and usidic acid. There were statistically significant differences iri therapeutic effect between cefuroxirne and erythromycin(P=0.005 by two tailedy test), and betweer fusidic acid and erythromycin(P=0.0040. But there was no significant difference between cefuroxime and fusidic acid. CONCLUSION: The predominant pathogen of non-bullous impetigo a well as bullous impetigo was SA which were highly resistant to erythromycin and highly sensitive to efuroxime and fusidic acid. In the clinical response, cefuroxinie and fusidic acid treatment were most effective and erythromycin was inadequate for treatment of impetigo.
Cefuroxime ; Coinfection ; Erythromycin ; Furosemide ; Fusidic Acid ; Humans ; Impetigo* ; Staphylococcus aureus ; Streptococcus ; Treatment Failure

This study was performed to investigate the stimulating effect on oocyte maturation and cumulus cell expansion in TC199 media by human cord serum (HCS) supplementation. Immature mouse oocyte cumulus complexes (OCCs) were cultured in TC199 media supplemented with bovine serum albumin (BSA), HCS and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) instead of luteinizing hormone (LH) respectively, and the expression of cumulus expansion and oocyte maturation were observed. After 4hr and 24hr culture with or without OCCs, media containing 0.4% BSA, 10% HCS and 10 lU hCG respectively were collected and analyzed for changing concentrations of estradiol (E2), progesterone(P4), testosterone(T), and PGF2. There were no elevation of E2, T, and PGF2 by OCCs culture, but minute elevation of P4 level by 24hr OCCs culture in hCG supplementation (p=0.048). The stimulating pattern of cumulus expansion of OCCs by HCS and hCG supplementation was similar to our previously report using Ham's F-10 media, however oocyte maturation rates after 24hr OCCs culture in all media were increased by 20~30% compared to Ham's F-10 media. These results suggest that LH in HCS induce cumulus expansion probably by P4 secretion of OCCs, and TC199 is efficient media for immature mouse oocyte maturation.
Animals ; Chorionic Gonadotropin ; Cumulus Cells* ; Dinoprost ; Estradiol ; Humans* ; Luteinizing Hormone ; Mice ; Oocytes* ; Serum Albumin, Bovine