Purpose: Microinvasive breast cancer (MIBC) is an invasive carcinoma with a tumor dimension not exceeding 1 mm. Owing to its low incidence, the rate of axillary node metastasis and its management are not well established. The aim of this study was to assess the incidence of lymph node metastasis (LNM) and identify variables associated with LNM, as well as to evaluate the need for axillary staging in MIBC patients by analyzing nationwide data. Methods: The Korean Breast Cancer Society registry was searched to identify MIBC patients diagnosed between January 1996 and April 2020. Patients without neoadjuvant chemotherapy experiences, systemic metastasis, and missing or discordant data were eligible for the analysis. The incidence rate of LNM was determined, and variables associated with LNM were identified by multivariable regression analysis. Results: Of 2,427 MIBC patients identified, 98 (4.0%) had LNM and 12 (0.5%) had N2/3 disease. Type of breast operation (odds ratio [OR], 2.093; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.332–3.290; P = 0.001), age (OR, 2.091; 95% CI, 1.326–3.298; P = 0.002), hormone receptor status (OR, 2.220; 95% CI, 1.372–3.594; P = 0.001), and lymphovascular invasion (OR, 11.143; 95% CI, 6.354–19.540; P < 0.001) were significantly related to LNM. Conclusion The incidence of LNM in MIBC patients was only 4.0% in our study, suggesting that de-escalation of axillary surgical interventions could be carefully considered. The indications for axillary staging should be individualized considering tumor volume, age, hormone receptor status, and lymphovascular invasion to improve the quality of life of MIBC survivors.

Purpose: This study was performed to identify the risk of mortality in patients diagnosed with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Methods: We selected 2,592 patients with HER2-positive DCIS from Korean Breast Cancer Society (KBCS) database between January 1997 and December 2019. Patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy were excluded. Logistic regression analysis was used to determine the association between clinical factors and overall death after adjusting for tumor and clinical characteristics. Mortality data were modified using the Statistics Korea data. Results: Thirty deaths (1.2%) were identified out of 2,592 patients in the KBCS database. In the univariate logistic regression analysis, older age, higher body mass index (BMI), type of breast surgery (mastectomy), estrogen receptornegative, progesterone receptor-negative, and exposure to endocrine therapy were significant clinical factors associated with death. In the multivariate analysis, age (hazard ratio [HR], 1.062; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.015–1.111; P = 0.006), BMI (HR, 1.179; 95% CI, 1.032–1.347, P = 0.016), breast surgery type (mastectomy vs. lumpectomy; HR, 0.285; 95% CI, 0.096–0.844; P = 0.024), and endocrine therapy (HR, 0.314; 95% CI, 0.099–0.995; P = 0.049) were significant risk factors for mortality. Conclusion Advanced age, higher BMI, mastectomy, and the absence of endocrine therapy were factors associated with poor survival of patients with HER2-positive DCIS. This finding requires further validation combined with additional analysis of large databases.

Objective: Serious bacterial infection (SBI) is a common disease among infants, and it is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Making the diagnosis of SBI is challenging and measurement of various biomarkers is useful. This study examined the utility of lactate at an emergency department for diagnosing SBI patients. Methods: This was a retrospective, observational study of febrile infants less than 90 days old presenting to the emergency department of a tertiary hospital between September 2014 and August 2017. The demographic and laboratory data was collected through a chart review. Results: Laboratory tests such as the white blood cell count, C-reactive protein (CRP), procalcitonin, and lactate showed significant differences on the Student-T test and the Mann Whitney-U test. Multivariabe logistic regression test was done using the variables with significant differences. CRP (P=0.037; odds ratio, 1.01), procalcitonin (P=0.011; odds ratio, 1.02) and lactate (P=0.001; odds ratio, 2.38) shows significant correlation. Conclusion For febrile infants at the emergency department, the measurement of lactate is expected to be a useful tool to diagnose serious bacterial infection.

Objective: Tsutsugamushi disease is a febrile illness caused by tick bites. Delay in making the diagnosis and treatment cause an increase of the frequency of complications and mortality. The aim of this study was to determine quick sequential organ failure assessment (qSOFA) to predict the clinical outcome of scrub typhus patients in emergency departments. Methods: This was a retrospective, observational study of patients with tsutsugamushi disease and who presented to the emergency department of an urban hospital and a rural tertiary hospital between January 2013 and December 2018. The demographic and laboratory data was collected through a chart review. Statistical analysis was performed by dividing the patients into the general ward admission group (general ward) and the intensive care unit admission group (ICU). Results: Age, Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE) II score and laboratory tests such as pH, leukocyte count, C-reactive protein, and procalcitonin also showed significant differences between the general ward and ICU groups on the univariable logistic regression analysis, but only the qSOFA score among the variables showed a significant difference on the multivariate logistic regression analysis (P=0.014). Conclusion The qSOFA score will be a prompt and useful tool for predicting the prognosis of patients with tsutsugamushi disease in the emergency department.

Infection of both native and prosthetic vessels in the groin is a very serious disease because of recurrent arterial rupture and sepsis, which can cause death. The successful treatment of groin infection, including infection of the femoral artery, requires extensive excision of the infected tissues and restoration of the circulation where the infected area is isolated. Here we describe a case of obturator bypass in a patient with infected femoral artery rupture that occurred after extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for myocarditis and severe heart failure.
Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation ; Femoral Artery ; Groin ; Heart Failure ; Humans ; Myocarditis ; Rupture ; Sepsis

In the treatment of myasthenia gravis, thymectomy is generally accepted as the standard of therapy. For thymectomy, there have been various conventional open approaches including sternal splitting, but recently minimally invasive approaches have been increasingly applied. A 28-year-old man presenting with weakness of both hands and fatigability was diagnosed as having myasthenia gravis with thymic hyperplasia. He underwent a robot-assisted thymectomy with the 'da Vinci' surgical system. Through the right thoracic cavity, two thirds of the thymic gland was dissected, and the remainder was resected through the left; these procedures took, respectively, 1 hour and 30 minutes. The patient was discharged on the 8th postoperative day without complications. The minimally invasive approach with the 'da Vinci' surgical system is emerging as a popular choice and various advantages have been reported. Here we report the first successful case of robot-assisted thymectomy.
Adult ; Hand ; Humans ; Myasthenia Gravis ; Robotics ; Thoracic Cavity ; Thymectomy ; Thymus Hyperplasia

BACKGROUND: Primary cardiac tumors are extremely rare. The most common type are benign myxomas, and these are almost completely curable with early surgery. Malignant tumors, however, such as sarcomas, are difficult to remove surgically, and their prognosis is known to be poor. In this study, data on patients who had undergone surgical treatment of cardiac tumor in the authors' hospital were collected and analyzed. MATERIAL AND METHOD: The subjects included 28 patients who had undergone surgical treatment of cardiac tumor from August 1993 to December 2008. Their medical records were reviewed and retrospectively analyzed. RESULT: The patients were aged from 20 to 76 years (mean age: 54.2+/-15.6), and 11 were male (39%) and 17 female (61%). Fifteen of them (54%) underwent emergency surgery to improve heart failure symptoms. The most common preoperative symptom was dyspnea (15 cases, 54%). Preoperative echocardiography was performed on all the patients. The average size of the tumor as measured during the operation was 7.0+/-6.9 cm (the average length of the long axis was 2~40 cm), and the sites of tumor attachment were the interatrial septum (18 cases, 64%), the left atrium (9 cases, 32%), the mitral valve annulus (2 cases, 7%), and the left ventricle (2 cases, 7%). The operation was performed with an incision through both atria in all the patients, and a complete excision was made in 25 cases (89%). According to the biopsy results, there were 4 cases of sarcoma (14%), 1 case of lipoma (4%), and 23 cases of myxoma (82%). The three cases in which the tumors were not completely excised were sarcomas. No operative deaths occurred after the operations. Outpatient follow-up was possible for 24 cases (86%), with a mean follow-up period of 46.8+/-42.7 months. Late death occurred in 3 of the 24 patients; each of these patients had sarcomas. Of these patients, the first had undergone two repeat surgeries, the second had metastatic sites removed, and the last had only chemotherapy. The average recurrence time was 12.7+/-10.8 months, and the average metastasis time was 20.5+/-16.8 months. CONCLUSION: Most cardiac tumors are benign myxomas. In principle, they should be surgically treated because they can create risks such as embolism, and can be radically treated when surgically removed. In most cases, however, malignant sarcomas are already considerably advanced with severe infiltration into the neighboring tissues at the time of diagnosis. The surgical removal of malignant sarcomas is known to be difficult because of the advanced stage and degree of infiltration. We suggest that excision of the removable portion of the tumor sites to alleviate symptoms such as heart failure can improve quality of life.
Aged ; Axis, Cervical Vertebra ; Biopsy ; Dyspnea ; Echocardiography ; Embolism ; Emergencies ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Heart Atria ; Heart Failure ; Heart Neoplasms ; Heart Ventricles ; Humans ; Lipoma ; Male ; Medical Records ; Mitral Valve ; Myxoma ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Outpatients ; Prognosis ; Quality of Life ; Recurrence ; Retrospective Studies ; Sarcoma

BACKGROUND: Diagnosing chronic pulmonary embolism at an early stage is difficult because of the patient's non-specific symptoms. This condition is not prevalent in Korea, and in fact, there have been only a few case reports on this in the Korean medical literature. We analyzed the surgical outcome of performing pulmonary thromboendarterectomy in patients with chronic pulmonary embolism. MATERIAL AND METHOD: The study subjects included those patients who underwent surgery for chronic pulmonary embolism from 1996 to 2008. For making the diagnosis, echocardiography, chest CT and a pulmonary perfusion scan were performed on the patients who complained of chronic dyspnea. RESULT: Pulmonary endarterectomy was performed as follows: by incision via a mid-sternal approach (7 patients); by incision via a left posterolateral approach (1 patient); using the deep hypothermic circulatory arrest technique (4 patients); under ventricular fibrillation (3 patients); and under cardioplegic arrest (1 patient). The postoperative systolic pulmonary artery blood pressure significantly decreased from a preoperative value of 78.9+/-14.5 mmHg to 45.6+/-17.6 mmHg postoperatively (p=0.000). The degree of tricuspid regurgitation was less than grade II after surgery. Two patients died early on, including one patient who had persistent pulmonary hypertension without improvement and right heart failure. CONCLUSION: Patients who have chronic pulmonary embolism are known to have a poor prognosis. However, we think that early surgical treatment along with making the proper diagnosis before the aggravation of right heart failure can help improve the quality of a patient's life.
Blood Pressure ; Circulatory Arrest, Deep Hypothermia Induced ; Dyspnea ; Echocardiography ; Endarterectomy ; Heart Failure ; Humans ; Hypertension, Pulmonary ; Korea ; Perfusion ; Prognosis ; Pulmonary Artery ; Pulmonary Embolism ; Thorax ; Tricuspid Valve Insufficiency ; Ventricular Fibrillation

Cardiac mesotheliomas are rare. It is difficult to diagnose them at an early stage because the symptoms are nonspecific. Here we report two cases that had been initially diagnosed as constrictive pericarditis but later were definitively diagnosed, after pericardiectomy, as mesothelioma. The two patients complained of dyspnea that lasted 4 months and 10 years. Chest CT showed mild pericardial effusion and thickened pericardium, which was found enveloping the heart without any lumps. Median sternotomy showed that the overall pericardium was thickened by more than 10 mm. Pericardiectomy (phrenic nerve to phrenic nerve) was performed and post-operative histology confirmed malignant mesothelioma. In one patient the disease recurred near the pericardium post-operatively at 7 months and the patient died at 11 months. The other patient received chemotherapy and was still alive at post-operative month 16. Pericardial mesothelioma is an extremely rare disease exhibiting clinical signs similar to those of constrictive pericarditis, and should be diagnosed at an early stage of onset.
Dyspnea ; Heart ; Humans ; Mesothelioma ; Pericardial Effusion ; Pericardiectomy ; Pericarditis, Constrictive ; Pericardium ; Rare Diseases ; Sternotomy ; Thorax