In the rapidly evolving healthcare environment, radiologists strive to establish their rightful place.Thus, there is a need for enhanced outpatient and clinical education within the Department of Radiology and exploration of its methodologies. Accordingly, the Korean Society of Radiology established a task force to investigate the clinical and outpatient practice status of radiologists overseas, current state of related education, involvement of other specialties in radiologic practices and education in Korea, and clinical and outpatient practice status among Korean radiologists. Furthermore, a survey on clinical competency enhancement was conducted among the members of the Korean Society of Radiology. These findings suggest the need for visibility and clinical competency enhancement in radiologists and methodologies for strengthening clinical competencies.

In the rapidly evolving healthcare environment, radiologists strive to establish their rightful place.Thus, there is a need for enhanced outpatient and clinical education within the Department of Radiology and exploration of its methodologies. Accordingly, the Korean Society of Radiology established a task force to investigate the clinical and outpatient practice status of radiologists overseas, current state of related education, involvement of other specialties in radiologic practices and education in Korea, and clinical and outpatient practice status among Korean radiologists. Furthermore, a survey on clinical competency enhancement was conducted among the members of the Korean Society of Radiology. These findings suggest the need for visibility and clinical competency enhancement in radiologists and methodologies for strengthening clinical competencies.

In the rapidly evolving healthcare environment, radiologists strive to establish their rightful place.Thus, there is a need for enhanced outpatient and clinical education within the Department of Radiology and exploration of its methodologies. Accordingly, the Korean Society of Radiology established a task force to investigate the clinical and outpatient practice status of radiologists overseas, current state of related education, involvement of other specialties in radiologic practices and education in Korea, and clinical and outpatient practice status among Korean radiologists. Furthermore, a survey on clinical competency enhancement was conducted among the members of the Korean Society of Radiology. These findings suggest the need for visibility and clinical competency enhancement in radiologists and methodologies for strengthening clinical competencies.

Background: Alopecia, a benign dermatologic condition affecting both genders, particularly harms female patients due to psychosocial effects. Female pattern hair loss (FPHL), the primary cause of hair loss in women, lacks sufficient Korean epidemiological studies examining its psychosocial aspects. Objective: This study aimed to explore FPHL’s psychosocial impacts, including quality of life (QoL), depression, anxiety, medical consumption, and hair loss factors in Korean women. Methods: A total of 202 patients with FPHL were interviewed using a validated questionnaire to assess the QoL, psychological impact, and pattern of medical consumption. The severity of hair loss was evaluated using the “basic and specific (BASP) classification” by dermatologists. The Hair-Specific Skindex-29 (HSS29) was used to assess the QoL and Beck depression inventory (BDI), Beck anxiety inventory (BAI) to evaluate psychological aspects, and medical expenses and the number of clinic visits to determine medical consumption. Results: The global HSS29 score of FPHL was 40.97±18.92, indicating a notable impact on QoL. The mean BDI and BAI scores were 14.47 and 10.06, respectively. In multivariable regression analysis, HSS29, BDI, and BAI scores were most affected by the severity of hair loss (p<0.001). Conclusion FPHL damages the psychosocial aspects of patients, such as QoL, depression, and medical consumption, according to the severity of hair loss.

Background: The Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway is crucial for the development, initiation, and growth of hair follicles (HFs). The Dickkopf-related protein (DKK) gene family encodes secreted proteins modulating the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. Studies have reported that DKK1 promotes the regression of HFs and serves as a pathogenic mediator in male pattern baldness. However, the role of DKK2 on human hair growth has not yet been explored. Objective: This study investigates direct effect of DKK2 on hair growth using human dermal papilla cell (DPC) cultures and ex vivo human HF organ cultures. Methods: To elucidate the effect of DKK2 on hair growth, we examined the effect of recombinant human DKK2 (rhDKK2) treatment on cell viability, expression of mRNA and protein related to the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, and cell growth in cultured human DPCs. We also performed ex vivo organ culture of HFs with rhDKK2 and measured changes in hair shaft length for 8 days. Results: Treatment with rhDKK2 led to a dose-dependent rise in the proliferation of human DPCs (p<0.05), reaching levels comparable to those induced by 1 μM minoxidil. Moreover, rhDKK2 increased the expression of Wnt/β-catenin target genes, phosphorylated extracellular signal-regulated kinase, and cyclin-D1; it also increased the BAX-to–Bcl-2 ratio and downregulated the bone morphogenetic protein 2 gene. In human HF organ cultures, relative to the control treatment, rhDKK2 treatment significantly increased hair shaft elongation (p<0.01). Conclusion Our results indicate that rhDKK2 could promote hair growth by facilitating the proliferation of human DPCs through activation of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway.

Objectives: We evaluated the effectiveness of coronavirus disease 2019 vaccination in high-risk facilities in the Republic of Korea during the period when the highly transmissible Delta variant was prevalent. Additionally, we aimed to explore any disparities in vaccine effectiveness (VE) across various types of institutions, specifically distinguishing between non-medical and medical establishments. Methods: We examined 8 outbreak clusters covering 243 cases and 895 contacts from 8 highrisk facilities divided into 2 groups: group A (4 non-medical institutions) and group B (4 medical institutions). These clusters were observed from July 27, 2021 to October 16, 2021 for the attack rate (AR) and VE with respect to disease severity. A generalized linear model with a binomial distribution was used to determine the odds ratio (OR) for disease severity and death. Results: AR was notably lower in group B (medical institutions). Furthermore, VE analysis revealed that group A exhibited higher effectivity for disease severity and death than group B. The OR for disease severity was 0.24 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.03–2.16) for group A and 0.27 (95% CI, 0.12–0.64) for group B, with the OR for death at 0.12 (95% CI, 0.01–1.32) in group A and 0.34 (95% CI, 0.14–0.87) in group B. Conclusion Although VE may vary across institutions, our findings underscore the importance of implementing vaccinations in high-risk facilities. Customized vaccination programs, tailored response plans, and competent management personnel are essential for effectively addressing and mitigating public health challenges.

Purpose: Since accurate lung cancer segmentation is required to determine the functional volume of a tumor in [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT, we propose a two-stage U-Net architecture to enhance the performance of lung cancer segmentation using [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT. Methods: The whole-body [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT scan data of 887 patients with lung cancer were retrospectively used for network training and evaluation. The ground-truth tumor volume of interest was drawn using the LifeX software. The dataset was randomly partitioned into training, validation, and test sets. Among the 887 PET/CT and VOI datasets, 730 were used to train the proposed models, 81 were used as the validation set, and the remaining 76 were used to evaluate the model. In Stage 1, the global U-net receives 3D PET/CT volume as input and extracts the preliminary tumor area, generating a 3D binary volume as output. In Stage 2, the regional U-net receives eight consecutive PET/CT slices around the slice selected by the Global U-net in Stage 1 and generates a 2D binary image as the output. Results: The proposed two-stage U-Net architecture outperformed the conventional one-stage 3D U-Net in primary lung cancer segmentation. The two-stage U-Net model successfully predicted the detailed margin of the tumors, which was determined by manually drawing spherical VOIs and applying an adaptive threshold. Quantitative analysis using the Dice similarity coefficient confirmed the advantages of the two-stage U-Net. Conclusion The proposed method will be useful for reducing the time and effort required for accurate lung cancer segmentation in [ 18 F]FDG PET/CT.