• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.17-21
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• 2010

Dysphonia is a medical terminology for voice disorders characterized by hoarseness, harshness, weakness, or even loss of voice ; any impairment in ability to produce voice sounds using the vocal organs, larynx, The causes of dysphonia can be classified into two groups, organic and functional. Functional dysphonia includes spasmodic dysphonia, muscle tension dysphonia, mutational dysphonia and conversion dysphonia, etc, The findings of laryngoscopy in these dysphonia are almost normal. Therefore, physicians should diagnosis these diseases from careful history taking and abundant understandings about the phonation pattern, Organic dysphonia is caused by anatomical problems in the larynx, especially on the vocal fold, Some lesions, however, are not easily found because these lesions are too small, or located on the lower lip of vibrating vocal fold. Laryngopharyngeal reflux induced laryngitis, vascular lesions, sulcus vocalis, vocal atropy including presbylaryngis, and mucosal tears are common lesions easily missed in laryngoscopy, Therefore, a high index of suspicion is necessary to avoid missing vocal fold mucosal lesions, and the strobovideolaryngoscopy is indispensable in making the diagnosis,

• The Korean Journal of Cytopathology
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.136-143
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• 2008

Urothelial carcinoma accounts for 90% of all the cases of bladder cancer. Although many cases can be easily managed by local excision, urothelial carcinoma rather frequently recurs, tends to progress to muscle invasion, and requires regular follow-ups. Urine cytology is a main approach for the follow-up of bladder tumors. It is noninvasive, but it has low sensitivity of around 50% with using the conventional cytospin preparation. Liquid-based cytology (LBC) has been developed as a replacement for the conventional technique. We compared the cytomorphometric parameters of $ThinPrep^{(R)}$ and cytospin preparation urine cytology to see whether there are definite differences between the two methods and which technique allows malignant cells to be more effectively discriminated from benign cells. The nuclear-to-cytoplasmic ratio value, as measured by digital image analysis, was efficient for differentiating malignant and benign urothelial cells, and this was irrespective of the preparation method and the tumor grade. Neither the $ThinPrep^{(R)}$ nor the conventional preparation cytology was definitely superior for distinguishing malignant cells from benign cells by cytomorphometric analysis of the adequately preserved cells. However, the $ThinPrep^{(R)}$ preparation showed significant advantages when considering the better preservation and cellularity with a clear background.