The authors have experienced 3 Rho(D) negative siblings from Rho(D) positive parents. ABO grouping and typing were carried out because the parents wanted their and children's blood types. On the five major Rh antigen(D, C, c, E, e) testing, the phenotypes of the both parents were CcDe, and those of their 3 siblings were cde. We can suspect the possible genotypes on the basis of the frequencies in Korean, both parents are CDe/cde and their 2 daughters and one son are cde/cde.
Genotype ; Humans ; Nuclear Family ; Parents* ; Phenotype ; Siblings*

The pattern of periodic sharp wave complexes (PSWC) was widely accepted as the most characteristic electroencepalographic(EEG) abnormality in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) although it may be lacking in prodromal and terminal stages. The EEG abnormalities are often asymmetric. We compared PSWC with 18F-FDG PET and brain MRI finding to know the signifcance of PSWC. All the patients had typical clinical courses and symptoms of CJD. Three patients were pathologically verified. Three patients were in full stage and two in terminal stage of CJD. We analysed PSWC in digital EEG and compared the regions of maximal PSWC amplitudes with 18F-FDG PET and brain-MRI finding in regard to lateralization and localization. Regarding lateralization, the maximal amplitudes of PSWC were observed over left frontal area in two patients and over right frontal region in three. Three patients in full stage had PET hypometabolism in the same hemisphere as PSWC were lateralized. Their brain MRI showed abnormal basal ganglia intensities but no sever brain atrophy. Two patients in terminal stage had PSWC lateralized in right frontal region but in PET one had left frontoparietal and the other bilateral global hypometabolism. Their brain-MRI showed severe cortical atrophy in the same hemisphere as PET hypometabolism was observed. Regarding all patients in full or terminal stage had maximal PSWC in frontal region, which were not consistent with PET and MRI findings. Cortical lesions in MRI were well corresponding with PET hypometabolism but not with PSWC. These results suggest that PSWC could reflect the hemisphere with more CJD activities in full stage, but could not localize the region where PET and MRI showed abnormalities, suggesting that the generation of PSWC could be related with the involvement of subcortical structures in CJD.
Atrophy ; Basal Ganglia ; Brain ; Creutzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome* ; Electroencephalography ; Fluorodeoxyglucose F18 ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Transseptal TSA (transsphenoidal approach) has advantages of wide exposure, good operative view, and use of two hands, but has disadvantages of external nasal scar, possibility of external nasal deformity and severe nasal pain. And endoscopic TSA can reduce nasal morbidity, but operator can't use two hands with the endoscope and it also has disadvantages of narrow operative field. Endonasal TSA is a new approach technique taking the advantages of transseptal and endoscopic TSA. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: We reviewed 112 patients who had been operated with this method from Mar, 2001 to Sep, 2003. Details of surgical technique of this approach are presented. We investigated the operative time, hospital periods, and complications. RESULTS: The mean operative time was 95 minutes. Nasal packings were removed on the first postoperative day in 106 cases, and on second postoperative days in 6 cases. The mean postoperative hospital stay was 3.2 days. During the follow-up periods (6-24 months, mean 13.5 months), there were complications of olfactory disturbance (4 cases), nasal septal deviation (2 cases), epistaxis (1 case), nasal septal perforation (1 case), CSF leakage (1 case), hypopituitarism (3 cases), and diabetes insipidus (4 cases). Meningitis, external nasal deformity, external scar, paresthesia or sinusitis were not noticed. CONCLUSION: Using endonasal TSA, we could operate easily with two hands, obtaining a good operative view and short operation time. The technique presented minimal nasal morbidity, a short hospital stay and low incidence of complications.
Cicatrix ; Congenital Abnormalities ; Diabetes Insipidus ; Endoscopes ; Epistaxis ; Follow-Up Studies ; Hand ; Humans ; Hypopituitarism ; Incidence ; Length of Stay ; Meningitis ; Nasal Septal Perforation ; Operative Time ; Paresthesia ; Pituitary Neoplasms ; Sinusitis

Background: Autoencoder (AE) is one of the deep learning techniques that uses an artificial neural network to reconstruct its input data in the output layer. We constructed a novel supervised AE model and tested its performance in the prediction of a co-existence of the disease of interest only using diagnostic codes. Methods: Diagnostic codes of one million randomly sampled patients listed in the Korean National Health Information Database in 2019 were used to train, validate, and test the prediction model. The first used AE solely for a feature engineering tool for an input of a classifier. Supervised Multi-Layer Perceptron (sMLP) was added to train a classifier to predict a binary level with latent representation as an input (AE + sMLP). The second model simultaneously updated the parameters in the AE and the connected MLP classifier during the learning process (End-to-End Supervised AE [EEsAE]). We tested the performances of these two models against baseline models, eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGB) and naïve Bayes, in the prediction of co-existing gastric cancer diagnosis. Results: The proposed EEsAE model yielded the highest F1-score and highest area under the curve (0.86). The EEsAE and AE + sMLP gave the highest recalls. XGB yielded the highest precision. Ablation study revealed that iron deficiency anemia, gastroesophageal reflux disease, essential hypertension, gastric ulcers, benign prostate hyperplasia, and shoulder lesion were the top 6 most influential diagnoses on performance. Conclusion A novel EEsAE model showed promising performance in the prediction of a disease of interest.

Checkpoint kinase 1 (Chk1) and Chk2 are effector kinases in the cellular DNA damage response and impairment of their function is closely related to tumorigenesis. Previous studies revealed several substrate proteins of Chk1 and Chk2, but identification of additional targets is still important in order to understand their tumor suppressor functions. In this study, we screened novel substrates for Chk1 and Chk2 using substrate target motifs determined previously by an oriented peptide library approach. The potential candidates were selected by genome-wide peptide database searches and were examined by in vitro kinase assays. ST5, HDAC5, PGC-1alpha, PP2A PR130, FANCG, GATA3, cyclin G, Rad51D and MAD1alpha were newly identified as in vitro substrates for Chk1 and/or Chk2. Among these, HDAC5 and PGC-1alpha were further analyzed to substantiate the screening results. Immunoprecipitation kinase assay of full-length proteins and site-directed mutagenesis analysis of the target motifs demonstrated that HDAC5 and PGC-1alpha were specific targets for Chk1 and/or Chk2 at least in vitro.
Amino Acid Motifs ; Amino Acid Sequence ; *Consensus Sequence ; Genome, Human/*genetics ; Heat-Shock Proteins/chemistry/metabolism ; Histone Deacetylases/chemistry/metabolism ; Humans ; Molecular Sequence Data ; Peptide Fragments/chemistry/metabolism ; Phosphorylation ; Phosphoserine/metabolism ; Protein Kinases/*metabolism ; Protein-Serine-Threonine Kinases/*metabolism ; Substrate Specificity ; Transcription Factors/chemistry/metabolism

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the isolation and characterization of multipotent human periodontal ligament (PDL) stem cells and to assess their ability to differentiate into bone, cartilage, and adipose tissue. METHODS: PDL stem cells were isolated from 7 extracted human premolar teeth. Human PDL cells were expanded in culture, stained using anti-CD29, -CD34, -CD44, and -STRO-1 antibodies, and sorted by fluorescent activated cell sorting (FACS). Gingival fibroblasts (GFs) served as a positive control. PDL stem cells and GFs were cultured using standard conditions conducive for osteogenic, chondrogenic, or adipogenic differentiation. RESULTS: An average of 152.8 +/- 27.6 colony-forming units was present at day 7 in cultures of PDL stem cells. At day 4, PDL stem cells exhibited a significant increase in proliferation (p < 0.05), reaching nearly double the proliferation rate of GFs. About 5.6 +/- 4.5% of cells in human PDL tissues were strongly STRO-1-positive. In osteogenic cultures, calcium nodules were observed by day 21 in PDL stem cells, which showed more intense calcium staining than GF cultures. In adipogenic cultures, both cell populations showed positive Oil Red O staining by day 21. Additionally, in chondrogenic cultures, PDL stem cells expressed collagen type II by day 21. CONCLUSIONS: The PDL contains multipotent stem cells that have the potential to differentiate into osteoblasts, chondrocytes, and adipocytes. This adult PDL stem cell population can be utilized as potential sources of PDL in tissue engineering applications.
Adipocytes ; Adult ; Antibodies ; Azo Compounds ; Bicuspid ; Calcium ; Cartilage ; Chondrocytes ; Collagen Type II ; Durapatite ; Fibroblasts ; Humans ; Mesenchymal Stromal Cells ; Multipotent Stem Cells ; Osteoblasts ; Periodontal Ligament ; Periodontics ; Stem Cells ; Tissue Engineering ; Tooth

PURPOSE: Older patient populations commonly have cognitive impairment, which might impact decisional capacity. We examined patients and family caregivers preferences for family involvement in treatment decision making assuming different level of cognitive impairment, and sought to explore the factors associated with the preferences and the degree to which patients and family members agree on preferences. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 358 elderly cancer patient and caregiver dyads were recruited from the 11 cancer centers in Korea andwere asked to express their preferences forfamily involvement in treatment decision making using hypothetical scenarios with three different levels of cognitive status (intact, mild impairment, and severe impairment). RESULTS: Both patients and family caregivers preferred greater family dominance in treatment decision makingwith the increasing the level of cognitive impairment (39.7%, 60.9%, and 86.6% for patients and 45.0%, 66.2%, and 89.7% for caregivers in each scenarios). Patient and family caregiver concordance in decisional control preference was small for all three scenarios (weighted κ=0.32, κ=0.26, and κ=0.36, respectively). Higher patient education was associated with preference for patient dominance in treatment decision in conditions of both mild and severe cognitive impairment. The association of higher patient education and patient-caregiver preference concordance was positive with intact cognition, while it was negative with severe cognitive impairment. CONCLUSION: Decision control preferences were affected by hypothesized cognitive status of the patients. Findings from our study would be helpful to develop effective strategy for optimizing family involvement in cancer treatment decision in the context of deteriorating cognitive function of the patients.
Aged ; Caregivers* ; Cognition Disorders ; Cognition* ; Decision Making* ; Humans ; Korea ; Patient Education as Topic

PURPOSE: Questions are known to be an important teaching technique. And, waiting for the answers is essential in making questions effective and valuable. The objective of this study is to evaluate the status of the use of questions during lectures and to survey the level of awareness of the professors regarding the questioning method including waiting time in one medical college. METHODS: The study subjects were 42 medical college professors who have been lecturing to second year medical students from February to June 2004. The questionnaire consisted of 28 items on the questions used during their lectures. The lecturers were observes by an appointed student to get data on the characteristics of questions used. RESULTS: Most of the professors observed in this study used questions during lectures, predominantly questions requiring answers. The waiting time, however, for answers was too short than reported in the literature. About 50% of the professors answered that their usual waiting time is between 6 to 10 seconds but the results of the observation showed that the average waiting time was 0.6 second. CONCLUSION: There was significant discrepancy about waiting time between the results of the questionnaire and the data from the observation. Because the average waiting time was much shorter than expected, follow up studies after feedback and education would be recommended.
Education ; Education, Medical ; Humans ; Lectures* ; Schools, Medical* ; Students, Medical ; Surveys and Questionnaires

It is important to identify and to test serologically active antigens, so as to devise a cocktail of the best antigens or peptides. We searched for antigens that have serodiagnostic utility using two-dimensional fractionation of sonic extracts from Mycobacterium tuberculosis and probing with pools of sera from healthy subjects and patients with tuberculosis (TB). Reactive protein spots with patient sera were identified by tandem mass spectrometry. Three proteins, Rv0652, Rv2626c, and Rv3418c, which have not previously been described as serologic targets, were identified. Rv0652 protein among them was expressed in Escherichia coli and serum IgG antibodies against this antigen were measured in 150 patients with pulmonary TB and in 115 healthy subjects. The sensitivity and specificity were 39% and 92%, respectively. These results suggest that a newly identified protein, Rv0652 may be a valuable candidate to be included in a cocktail test kit for TB diagnosis.
Antibodies ; Escherichia coli ; Humans ; Immunoglobulin G ; Mycobacterium ; Mycobacterium tuberculosis ; Peptides ; Proteins ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Tandem Mass Spectrometry ; Tuberculosis

PURPOSE: This study was performed to compare the characteristics and perceptions of medical school students and professional graduate medical school students. METHODS: Study subjects were 131 medical students from a national university and 113 applicants of a professional graduate medical school. We developed a self-reported questionnaire asking about socio-demographic characteristics; the level of satisfaction of educational environment; perception of missions of medical education and career plan and student activities during school. RESULTS: Students from the professional graduate medical school were significantly different from medical students in socio-demographic characteristics. They also showed higher satisfaction with their education, were more supportive of student union activities and were more anxious about economic and health problems than medical students. However, there was no difference between the two groups regarding perception of missions of medical education and career plan after graduation. CONCLUSION: Based on the above results, it is necessary to consider the characteristics and perceptions of professional graduate medical students when developing educational policies for these older students. The limitation of this study includes a restricted sample, and generalization of results should be done carefully. Thus, more extensive, wide-ranging studies would be useful.
Education ; Education, Medical ; Generalization (Psychology) ; Humans ; Missions and Missionaries ; Schools, Medical* ; Students, Medical ; Surveys and Questionnaires