BACKGROUND: Although acne is extremely prevalent, few studies have focused on what the patient with acne vulgaris experiences. Furthermore, despite recent advances in the accurate measurement of health outcomes, few studies have discussed the influence of acne on discrete aspects of patients' experiences such as their quality of life. OBJECT: To determine the influence of acne vulgaris on the quality of life of adult dermatology outpatients, we performed cross-sectional and longitudinal questionnaire study. METHOD: Sixty patients with acne vulgaris attending appointments with their dermatologists. Findings using Skindex, a validated 29-item instrument to measure the effects of skin disease on patients' quality of life. Results are reported as 3 scale scores (functioning, emotions, and symptoms) and a composite score (average scale score). In addition, dermatologists rated the clinical severity of patients' skin disease. Higher Skindex scores indicate greater effects on quality of life. RESULTS: Patients with acne experienced functioning and emotional effects from their skin disease comparable with those of patients with psoriasis, but experienced fewer symptoms (for patients with acne and psoriasis, respectively, Skindex functioning scores of 14.9 and 22.8 [p=0.08]; emotion scores, 39.2 and 38.9 [p=0.95]; and symptoms scores, 29.5 and 42.1 [p<0.05]). Skindex scores were higher in older patients than in younger patients, and patients aged 40 years or older were less likely to report improvement in their acne after 3 months (43% vs 85%; p<0.05). Among patients reporting no improvement in their acne, older patients reported greater effects of their acne on their quality of life. Furthermore, in multivariate analyses, older adults reported more effects of acne on their quality of life than younger adults, even after controlling for sex and acne severity as judged by the dermatologist. CONCLUSIONS: Acne vulgaris significantly affects patients' quality of life. Sex, age, severity of acne and duration of acne can effect on quality of life of acne patients.
Acne Vulgaris* ; Adult ; Appointments and Schedules ; Dermatology ; Humans ; Multivariate Analysis ; Outpatients ; Psoriasis ; Quality of Life* ; Skin Diseases ; Surveys and Questionnaires

BACKGROUND: Most available dermatologic quality-of-life measures were written in English. So these must be translated for use in Korea. Our purpose was to translate and adapt culturally into Korean a skin-related quality-of-life measure Skindex-29, and to begin preliminary assessments of its reliability and validity. METHODS: Cross-cultural adaptation questionnaire studies were performed. Two hundred and sixty adult outpatients and healthy people responded to the Korean version of Skindex-29. Evaluations of the semantic equivalence of back-translated items, reliability, construct validity, and content validity of the Korean version were the main outcome measures. Comparison between the Korean version and other versions of Skindex-29 (Spanish and American) responses was also performed. RESULTS: Five problematic items required a second translation and back-translation to achieve satisfactory agreement with the original instrument. The final Korean version of Skindex-29 was internally reliable. The instrument demonstrated both construct and content validity. As hypothesized, scores for dermatologic patients were higher than those of healthy persons and scores for patients with inflammatory diseases were higher than those of persons with isolated skin lesions. Skindex scale scores of the Korean version and other versions of Skindex-29 were similar. CONCLUSIONS: We have developed a semantically equivalent translation of Skindex-29 in Korean. Our preliminary evaluation of its measurement properties suggests that it is a reliable and valid measure of the effects of skin disease on the quality of life in Korean patients.
Adult ; Male ; Female ; Humans

OBJECTS: This study was conducted to investigate the effects of sleep apnea syndromes on the systemic blood pressure. METHODS: The subjects were 140 patients who were consulted to Yon-jung brain auction and sleep research center for polysomnography due to snoring and sleep apnea from Jan. 1st 1995 to Oct. 31st 1995. Twenty-four out of 140 were excluded due to cardiovascular diseases other than systemic hypertension, antihypertensive medication, inadequate data or diagnosis other than sleep apnea syndrome. The remaining 116 were accepted as proper subjects. Using Pearson's correlation and multiple regression analysis, we looked for the relationship between sleep and respiratory variables to systemic blood pressure. RESULTS: The results were as follows : 1) According to the correlation analysis, statistically significant variables to mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure were the total time and total number of sleep apnea, degree of oxygen saturation of total sleep time, apnea index, total time and total number of central apnea, and the total time of obstructive apnea. 2) According to the multiple regression analysis, only the total time of sleep apnea significantly affected mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and the degrees of affection were 7.9% and 6.2% respectively. CONCLUSION: These findings showed that sleep apnea syndrome had lower influence over systemic blood pressure than expected and regardless of the type, only the total time of sleep apnea influenced systemic blood pressure. In the case of central apnea, mechanisms other than hypoxemia and the increase of sympathetic activity during arousal may make it possible to increase systemic blood pressure.
Anoxia ; Apnea ; Arousal ; Blood Pressure* ; Brain ; Cardiovascular Diseases ; Diagnosis ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Oxygen ; Polysomnography ; Sleep Apnea Syndromes* ; Sleep Apnea, Central ; Snoring

It hae been well established that, specifi alterations in members of the ras gene family, H-ras, K-ras and N-ras, can convert them into active oncogenes. These alterations are either point mutations occurirg in either codon 12, 13 or 61, or alternatively, a 5- to 50-fold amplification of the wfld-type gene. Activated ras oncogenes have been found in a significant proportion of all turnors, but the incidence varies considerably with the tumor type : it is frequent (20~40%) in colarectal eancer and acute myeloid leukemia, but absent or preaent rarely in breast and atomach cancer. But the role of c-K-ras point mutatio in the development of cancers in the female genital tract has not been extensively studied. Polymerase chain reaction followed by gel electrophoresis was performed respectively using wild-type normal and specific point mutation primers{GGT->GAT, GGT->AGT, GGT->TGT and GGT->GTT) to detect, point, mutation of codon 12 of c-K-ras oncogene. The c-K-ras oncogene point mutation was confirmed by Southern blot hybridization using synthetic oligonucleatide probe. 3'-end Iabelled with digoxigenin -dUTP. With this method, the frequency of point mutation on codon 12 of c-K-ras oncogene was examined the tissues in 37 casea of ovarian cancer, 7 cases of endometrial cancer, 36 cases of the gestational trophoblastic tumor, 60 cases of cervical cancer. The relationship between the presence of a c-K-ras point mutation and clinicopathological characteristics of the female genital tract cancers were also analysed. The results were as follows; 1. The incidence of four point mutations on codon 12 of c-K-ras oncogene in 37 ovarian cancers was 45.9% (17/37) and distribution were 43.2% (16/37), 2.7% (1/37) and 0% (0/37) in GGT-->GAT, GGT-->AGT, GGT-->TGT, and GGT-->GTT, respectively. According to histological type, in ovarian cancers, The point mutation of K-ras oncogene waspositive in 45 % (10/22) of serous cystadenocarcinomas. The incidence of four point mutations on codon 12 among 37 patients with ovarian cancer according to histological type was 45.5 % (10/22) with serous cystadenocarcinoma, 57.1% (4/7) of mucinous cystadenocarcinoma. Comparing the positive rate of point mutations of K-ras oncogen among 37 patients with ovarian cancer with the clinical stage, point mutation was detected in 28.5% (2/7) of patients with stage I, 40.0% (2/5) with stage II, and 52.0% (13/25) with stage III/IV. There was no statistically significant increasement of point mutations with the advance of the clinical stage of ovarian cancer. Comparing the positive rate of point mutations of K-ras oncogen among 37 patients with ovarian cancer according to the histologic grade point mutation was detected in 50.0 % (2/4) 0f patients with grade I, 451.7 % (5/12) with grade II and 47.6 % (10/21) with grade III. 2. The incidence of point mutations of K-ras oncogen among 33 patients with ovarian cancer who were performed pelvic lymph node dissection was 57.1 % (12/21) of the patients with pelvic lymph node metastases and 16.7% (2/12) of the patients without pelvic lymph node metastases. There was statistically significant difference between the positive rate of c-K-ras point mutations and the pelvic lymph nodal status(P<0.05). 3. In 7 cases of endometrial cancer, positive rate of K-ras point was 42.8 % (3/7). Point mutations were also detected in 2 cases from 4 choriocarcinomas, but, the point mutation was only detected in 1 case from 60 cervical carcinomas. From these results, we may suggest that the point mutation on codon 12 c-K-ras oncogene are considered to be one of the important genetic change in the tumor formation and progression of ovarian of c-K-ras oncogene seems to be the one stop in the multistep process of tumor formation in ovarian cancer. Furthermore, the point mutation of c-k-ras gene could occur more frequently in the patients of ovarian cancer with pelvic lymph node metastases than in those without pelvic metastases, suggesting the orle in tumor progression. And we concluded that point mutation on codon 12 is comparable frequent in uterine endometrial carcinomas and have significance as an event that contributes to progrssion of endometrial cancers and choriocarcinoma, but cervical carcinoma do not appear to have c-K-ras point mutation in general. More studies will be necessary, but the detection of c-k-ras point mutation as the possibility of biological tumor marker to predict clinical outcome may be utilized in female malignancies.
Blotting, Southern ; Breast ; Choriocarcinoma ; Codon ; Cystadenocarcinoma, Mucinous ; Cystadenocarcinoma, Serous ; Digoxigenin ; Electrophoresis ; Endometrial Neoplasms ; Female* ; Genes, ras ; Humans ; Incidence ; Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute ; Lymph Node Excision ; Lymph Nodes ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Oncogenes* ; Ovarian Neoplasms ; Point Mutation* ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Pregnancy ; Trophoblastic Neoplasms ; Biomarkers, Tumor ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms

No abstract available.
Endometrial Neoplasms* ; Female

In our comparative study of L1 consensus primers with E6 type-specific primers for detection of human papillomavirus (HPVs) by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in 35 cases of cervical neoplasia, the detection rate by E6 primers (54%; 19/35) was significantly higher than that by L1 primers (25%; 9/35) (p < 0.01). And all specimens HPV-positive with L1 primers were also positive by E6 primers. HPV DNA could be amplified in 36% (9 of 25) of tissue by L1 consensus primers from which beta-globin gene was amplified as compared with 64% (16 of 25) of tissue by E6 type-specific primers. With the L1 consensus primers, 8 cases were positive for HPV-16 and 1 case was positive for HPV-33. These results show that the L1 consensus primers have inferior sensitivity to the E6 type-specific primers for the detection of HPV by PCR. But the L1 consensus primers have great value in making simultaneous detection of various HPV types in a single tube reaction, thus they permit reduction of time and the economic burden of the experiment.
Base Sequence ; DNA, Viral/analysis ; Female ; Humans ; Molecular Sequence Data ; Oligodeoxyribonucleotides ; Papillomaviridae/genetics/*isolation & purification ; *Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms/*microbiology

No abstract available.
Heterografts*

No abstract available.
Classification* ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms*

No abstract available.
Mass Screening* ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms*

There have been some pros and cons about the of routine intravenous pyelography in benign prostatic hyperplasia. Herein we analyzed 196 patients who underwent intravenous pyelography before prostatectomy at Dept. of Urology, Seoul National University Hospital from Jan. 1976. to Dec. 1983. Of 196 patients 140 (72%) showed normal upper tract with cystogram compatible with benign prostatic hyperplasia(Group I), 22(11%) dilated upper tract(Group II), 20(10%) incidental upper tract abnormalities including 9 urolithiasis(Group III), and 14(7%) completely normal findings(Group IV). There was a significant relationship between Group II and serum BUN value. Cystoscopy revealed evidence of prostatic enlargement in 14 cases and other abnormal findings including bladder tumor which were not shown on routine IVPs. We conclude that intravenous pyelography is not always necessary in diagnosis of benign prostatic hyperplasia when urine analysis and serum BUN are normal Instead, we recommend KUB to observe renal outline and calculi, and preoperative routine cystoscopy to evaluate prostatic enlargement and bladder neck obstruction.
Calculi ; Cystoscopy ; Diagnosis ; Humans ; Prostatectomy ; Prostatic Hyperplasia ; Seoul ; Urinary Bladder Neck Obstruction ; Urinary Bladder Neoplasms ; Urography* ; Urologic Diseases* ; Urology