• Advances in pediatric surgery
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.45-51
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• 2003

A nationwide survey on choledochal cyst was undertaken among 39 members of the Korean Association of Pediatric Surgeons. The members were required to complete a questionnaire and the case registration form for each patient during the five year period of 1997 to 2001. Three hundred and forty eight patients were registered from 32 institutions. The average number of patients per surgeon was one to two every year. The male to female ratio was 1:3.4. The age of patients on diagnosis was $49.0{\pm}44.4$ months. The geographic distribution was 34.8% in Seoul and Kyoungki-do, 33.3% in Kyoungsang-do, 17.9% in Cholla-do, and 8.5% in Choongchung-do, in order of frequency. The three common clinical presentations were abdominal pain (63.8%), vomiting (35.3%), and jaundice (29.1%). Only seven patients (2%) presented with classic triad, and 25 patients were diagnosed by antenatal ultrasonographic examination. According to the Todani Classification, 238 patients (7l.3%) were type 1, 3 (0.9%) type 11, and 93 (27.8%) type IV. At the time of the operation, three important associated conditions were choledocholithiasis in 45 patients (15.1%), liver fibrosis (Grade 1-4) in 35, and previous operative procedure for biliary diseases in 10. Associated anomalies were observed in 13 patients (3.8%). Three hundred thirty nine (98.8%) of 343 lesions were treated by Cyst excision and Roux-Y hepaticoiejunostomy. One hundred seventy-six patients had an anomalous arrangement of the pancreatobiliary ductal system (APBD): APBD was not in 92 patients, biliary duct joined to the pancreatic duct in 51, and pancreatic duct joined to the biliary duct in 26. There were 8.5% early, and 7.7% late phase operative complications. The major complications were bleeding, anastomotic leakage, and acute pancreatitis. The combination of acute abdomen and choledochal cyst may suggest spontaneous rupture. Because of the development of late intrahepatic bile duct stones, long term follow up after cyst excision and hepaticojejunostomy is required. The optimal time of surgical intervention should also be considered in the situation of routine use of antenatal ultrasonographic examination. This is the first review of the choledochal cyst in Korea and provides baseline data for future comparisons.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.60 no.2
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• pp.194-204
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• 2006

Background : Even though tuberculosis (TB) is still a major public concern in Korea, there is little data on the management of TB patients and its outcomes in the private sector. This study evaluated the status of TB treatment in the private sector. Methods : Sixteen-hundred-sixty-six TB patients who were notified in a private university hospital from 2001 to 2002 were enrolled in this study. The patients were divided into pulmonary ($TB_P$), extrapulmonary ($TB_E$), and combined ($TB_{P+E}$) groups, and were also divided into initial and retreatment groups. The clinical characteristics, diagnostic methods, treatment regimens, and outcomes were analyzed and compared. Results : The mean age of the 1,666 patients was 48.9 years and the male-to-female ratio was 1.3:1. The number of patients in the initial and retreatment groups of $TB_P$, and those of ($TB_E+TB_{P+E}$) were 809, 276, 480, 101, respectively. A bacteriological study was performed in 92.0% of cases, and a positive culture was confirmed in 58.1% and 31.7% of patients with TBP and ($TB_E+TB_{P+E}$), respectively (p<0.05). The AFB smear was positive in 45.4 % of the $TB_P$ patients. PCR was carried out in 60.4% of the ($TB_E+TB_{P+E}$) group. The MDR was detected in 14.0% of isolates. Overall, the treatment completion, default, and death rates were 70.2%, 13.5% and 1.9%, respectively. Conclusion : Even though the management of TB patients in a private hospital was satisfactory in terms of the national guidelines, the high default rate was is still a problem. Efforts to decrease the default rate either independently or in cooperation with the public sector will be needed.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.4-17
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• 2000

Purpose : This study aimed to investigate and to evaluate the present conditions of hospice programs in Korea for supplying data useful in making policy in hospice, which is not institutionalized yet. Method : For this purpose we surveyed 59 hospice programs regarding the general characteristics, manpower, patients, services, financial conditions, and facilities. Thirty-seven hospice programs answered the questionnaires. Result : They were 11 tertiary hospitals, 11 other hospitals, 3 clinics, 12 home care hospice, and 1 freestanding hospice. Only 9 hospice programs have all of the essential professionals: physicians, nurses, social workers, clergies, and volunteers. In some hospice programs, volunteers who had not been trained for hospice provided services to terminal patients. More than half of the hospice said they provided services to the patients who lost their consciousness and were not suitable for hospice care. 16% of the hospice said they did not keep the patients' record. Some hospitals including tertiary hospitals provided such intensive care as radiotherapy, TPN, injections to hospice patients. Many hospice programs other than hospitals didn't charge patients for hospice care. 60% of the hospice said they suffered from financial problems. Most of the hospice wards were not built for hospice use at first. So they did not have such supplementary facilities as dayroom, waiting room, special bathing facilities etc. Conclusion : For improving the quality of terminal patients and promoting the cost effective use of health care resources, it is necessary to consider the institutionalization of hospice. The institutionalization of hospice programs can improve the quality of hospice care and the standardization of the hospice program can hasten its institutionalization.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.314-322
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• 2010

Purpose : Through a clinical and retrospective analysis of pediatric patients who visited the Regional Emergency Medical Center of Masan Samsung Hospital from January 2007 to December 2008, we characterized pediatric and adolescent emergency patients to improve emergency care in future. Methods : We reviewed the medical records of 14,065 pediatric patients below 19 years of age. Results : The male to female ratio was 1.5:1, and the most common age group was less than 3 years (49.6%). The peak month was May (10.0%), the peak day of the week was Sunday (24.7%), and the peak time of day was 20:00-0:59 (8.5%). There was no difference in the number of visits per day based on weather (sunny, rain [below 10 mm per day], snow, and fog) or daily temperature difference; however, visits increased on sandy, dusty days and decreased on rainy days with more than 10 mm of rain per day. Based on the international classification of disease (ICD)-10 system, the most common disease code was code R (symptoms, sign, and abnormal clinical laboratory finding) (31.5%), and the most common symptom was fever (13.1%). Final outcomes were discharged (73.8%), admitted (25.7%), transferred (0.4%), and expired (0.1%). In adolescent patients aged 15-9 years, the most common disease code was Injury & Poisoning (code S&T, 36.9%); the most common symptom was abdominal pain (9.6%). Conclusion : Pediatric patients visiting the emergency center were most likely to be male and under 3 years of age and to visit between 20:00 and 21:00 on Sundays and in May, and the most common symptom was fever. Differences between adolescents and pediatric patients showed that adolescents had a higher visiting rate with abdominal pain and a larger temperature difference.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.89-99
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• 2023

Objectives : In this study, elderly hospitalized patients aged 65 years or older who were admitted to a university hospital and referred to the department of psychiatry were classified into youngest-old, middle-old, and oldest-old. It was conducted to find out what factors contribute to the agitation pattern by age group, whether there is a difference in the factors, and whether there is a difference in the severity of the agitation pattern. Methods : From July 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021, the medical records of patients aged 65 years or older who were referred to the department of psychiatry were retrospectively reviewed. Age, gender, route of hospitalization, department of referral, reason for referral, treatment method, presence of internal and surgical diseases, and hematological test data were investigated. Results : There was a significant correlation with the RASS score in cases of surgery referral and high CRP levels for youngest-old aged 65 to 74 years, in cases of surgery referral, dementia and hyponatremia for middle-old aged 75 to 84 years, in case of dementia for oldest-old aged 85 years old or older. In addition, there were differences in the severity of agitation patterns between age groups. Conclusions : As the age group increases, the agitation of delirium patients becomes more severe, and various factors contributing to the agitation pattern also differ by age group. Therefore, when treating elderly patients with delirium, attention should be paid to factors that may affect agitation depending on age.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.111-124
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• 2002

Purpose : Although the average life expectancy has increased due to advances in medicine, mortality due to cancer is on an increasing trend. Consequently, the number of terminally ill cancer patients is also on the rise. Predicting the survival period is an important issue in the treatment of terminally ill cancer patients since the choice of treatment would vary significantly by the patents, their families, and physicians according to the expected survival. Therefore, we investigated the prognostic factors for increased mortality risk in terminally ill cancer patients to help treat these patients by predicting the survival period. Methods : We investigated 31 clinical parameters in 157 terminally ill cancer patients admitted to in the Department of Family Medicine, National Health Insurance Corporation Ilsan Hospital between July 1, 2000 and August 31, 2001. We confirmed the patients' survival as of October 31, 2001 based on medical records and personal data. The survival rates and median survival times were estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method and Log-rank test was used to compare the differences between the survival rates according to each clinical parameter. Cox's proportional hazard model was used to determine the most predictive subset from the prognostic factors among many clinical parameters which affect the risk of death. We predicted the mean, median, the first quartile value and third quartile value of the expected lifetimes by Weibull proportional hazard regression model. Results : Out of 157 patients, 79 were male (50.3%). The mean age was $65.1{\pm}13.0$ years in males and was $64.3{\pm}13.7$ years in females. The most prevalent cancer was gastric cancer (36 patients, 22.9%), followed by lung cancer (27, 17.2%), and cervical cancer (20, 12.7%). The survival time decreased with to the following factors; mental change, anorexia, hypotension, poor performance status, leukocytosis, neutrophilia, elevated serum creatinine level, hypoalbuminemia, hyperbilirubinemia, elevated SGPT, prolonged prothrombin time (PT), prolonged activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT), hyponatremia, and hyperkalemia. Among these factors, poor performance status, neutrophilia, prolonged PT and aPTT were significant prognostic factors of death risk in these patients according to the results of Cox's proportional hazard model. We predicted that the median life expectancy was 3.0 days when all of the above 4 factors were present, $5.7{\sim}8.2$ days when 3 of these 4 factors were present, $11.4{\sim}20.0$ days when 2 of the 4 were present, and $27.9{\sim}40.0$ when 1 of the 4 was present, and 77 days when none of these 4 factors were present. Conclusions : In terminally ill cancer patients, we found that the prognostic factors related to reduced survival time were poor performance status, neutrophilia, prolonged PT and prolonged am. The four prognostic factors enabled the prediction of life expectancy in terminally ill cancer patients.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.417-424
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• 1992

Background: There were many reports about the clinical aspect and outcomes of pulmonary tuberculosis in health center but few in a medium sized general hospital. The purposes of this study were to find any characteristic differencies in the patients and the general outcomes of the treatments and also to give some suggestive points for the insurance policy making. Methods: We made a retrograde analysis of the medical records of 1981 patients (male 992 female 1,059) who attended our clinics of the 4th internal department, Daedong general hospital during two years from January 1989 to December 1990. Result: 1) Of 1981 patients, 96 were diagnosed as pulmonary tuberculosis taking relatively large proportion in the prevalence. The ratio of prevalence between male and female was 7.81% to 2.27%. The 61.46% were the first diagnosis & initial treatment cases and the remaining 38.54% were the retreatment cases with no statistical significance between sex. 2) The most prevalent age group was between 21~40 years old and the prevalence rate was 45.45% of male and 76.76% of female. The lowest age group in male patient was above 61 showed 3.03%, and there was no female patients above age 60 years old. This phenomena could be thought as the negligence for the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis in the old age groups rather than true tuberculosis prevalence and it could be proved by the higher rates towards old age groups in the national tuberculosis prevalence survey. 3) There were 57.07% of the minimal case, 48.96% of the moderate, 18.75% of the far advanced. The sputum examination showed 37.07% were culture positive, 46.88% were the negative, and 15.63% of the patients had no stutum examination. Moreover, uncoperatives among the far advanced cases were notable showing 22.22% of the stutum examination, where 16.13% in the minimal cases. The stutum positive rate among the initial treatment cases were 41.07% and 55.00% for the retreatment cases. The sputum no examination rates were 17.86% and 12.50% respectively. 4) The classfication of the mode of disease onset showed 68.75% with gradual onset, 9.38% hemoptic, 3.13% acute pneumonic and 18.75% was found through the radiologic examination in various occasions. 5) The percentages of patients who continued their treatment for more than 8 month were 35.71% (for initial treatment), 25.00% (for retrement), 16.13% (for the minimal), 27.78% (for the far advanced). 6) The group of patients who were treated more than 8 months showed the negative conversion rate of 80% on sputum and marked improvement on chest x-ray in 56.67%. However, in far advanced or retreatment cases, the rate of negative conversion on sputum and the rate of improvement on chest x-ray were low being 60% and 20% for the former and 60% and 10% for the latter, each respectively. Conclusion: It would be strongly emphasized that the improvement of National medical insurance system and social welfare system in Korea must be definite to improve overall treatment and control of tuberculosis diseases as well as physician's devotious National tuberculosis control policy.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.488-494
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• 2016

The purpose of the present study was to examine dental hygienists' perception of the current national practical examination. This research was performed using 199 self-reported surveys answered by professors of dental hygiene studies and clinical dental hygienist. Frequency analysis, chi-square tests, and analysis of variance were performed by using IBM SPSS Statistics ver. 20.0. The results revealed that many of the respondents consider the current national practical examination to be neutral. They did not think that the current national practical examination questions are useful for assessing occupation-centric integrated clinical practice ability and counseling techniques for patient intervention. The professors of dental hygiene studies believed that among the research tasks required as mentioned in the national practical examination questions, dental polishing and tooth brushing education are of paramount importance, whereas clinical dental hygienists believed that ultrasonic scaling is the most important (p<0.05). Most of the professors of dental hygiene studies reported that they conducted skills education for dental polishing and tooth brushing education, while most of the clinical dental hygienists reported that tasks actually performed in the clinic included impression taking, model fabrication, ultrasonic scaling, and explaining treatment precautions (p<0.05). Therefore, these tasks can be effectively carried out with the improvement of the national dental hygienist practical examination.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.60 no.5
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• pp.510-515
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• 2006

Background : Although 17% of Korean adults over the age of 45 years have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), there is only limited data on the cause of death in COPD patients in Korea. Therefore, this retrospective study was performed to examine the cause of death in COPD patients at a referral hospital in Korea. Methods : The medical records of 28 deceased patients diagnosed as COPD in Asan Medical Center from January to December 2003 were reviewed patients had died in Asan Medical Center and 16 patients had died outside the hospital. The Korean National Statistical Office confirmed 88 deceased patients out of 1,078 patients diagnosed as COPD in Asan Medical Center in 2003. After excluding those with tuberculous destroyed lung, bronchiectasis, and lung cancer, 28 COPD patients were evaluated. Results : The causes of death were pulmonary disease including pneumonia in 16 patients (57%), cardiac disease in 5 patients (18%), sudden death in 3 patients (11%), and other causes in 4 patients (14%). The cause of death was pulmonary disease in 83% (10 out of 12 patients) and 38% (6 out of 16 patients) of patients who died in Asan Medical Center and outside the center, respectively (P=0.05). The cause of death was pulmonary disease in 43% of patients with $FEV_1$ more than 50 % of the predicted value and in 55% of patients with $FEV_1$ less than 50 % of the predicted value (P=0.89). Conclusion : Pulmonary disease is the leading cause of death in COPD patients in Korea.

• The Journal of the Korean bone and joint tumor society
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.18-23
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• 2003

Purpose: Delay in the diagnosis of the primary malignant bone tumors may critically influence the chance of the patients' survival and the limb sparing, but the primary malignant bone tumors are so rare that most doctors have little experience in these challenging diseases. The purpose of the current study is to examine the initial symptoms of osteosarcoma and chondrosarcoma, and to shorten the delay of diagnosis. Materials and Methods: The data was based on the questionnaires and the medical records from 139 patients whose histological diagnoses were confirmed in the authors' institution. There were 108 patients of osteosarcoma and 31 patients of chondrosarcoma. Eighty-six were male and fifty-three were female. The mean age of the patients was 20.2 years in osteosarcoma, and 42.4 years in chondrosarcoma. Results: The most common symptom that the patient consult the doctor was pain (93.5% of osteosarcoma patients and 61.3% of chondrosarcoma patients). Among them, 76.2% of osteosarcoma and 57.8% of chondrosarcoma patients complained the night pain. The history of trauma was evident in 48.5% of osteosarcoma patients and one patient of chondrosarcoma. At the first medical visit, the malignant bone tumor was suspected in 61.1% of osteosarcoma and 64.5% of chondrosarcoma patients. Fracture was the most common misdiagnosis in osteosarcoma (16.7%), and the osteomyelitis in chondrosarcoma (19.4%). Initial radiographic examination and the adult age were shown to increase the rate of correct diagnosis of both diseases (p<0.05). Patient's delay and doctor's delay were significantly longer in chondrosarcoma patients than in osteosarcoma. Initial radiography led to shorten the doctor's delay, and the axial location of the tumor lengthened the doctor's delay. Trauma and the young age were believed to shorten the patient's delay. Conclusion: Careful history taking, including the night pain and trauma, would be mandatory for the early diagnosis of the primary malignant bone tumors, and the initial radiographic examination and periodic follow-up can increase the rate of correct diagnosis.