• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.168-176
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• 2016

Purpose: The purpose of current study is to evaluate the response of the patients with portal vein thrombosis (PVT) or hepatic vein thrombosis (HVT) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treated with three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT). In addition, survival of patients and potential prognostic factors of the survival was evaluated. Materials and Methods: Forty-seven patients with PVT or HVT in HCC, referred to our department for radiotherapy, were retrospectively reviewed. For 3D-CRT plans, a gross tumor volume (GTV) was defined as a hypodense filling defect area in the portal vein (PV) or hepatic vein (HV). Survival of patients, and response to radiation therapy (RT) were analyzed. Potential prognostic factors for survival and response to RT were evaluated. Results: The median survival time of 47 patients was 8 months, with 1-year survival rate of 15% and response rate of 40%. Changes in Child-Pugh score, response to RT, Eastern cooperative oncology group performance status (ECOG PS), hepatitis C antibody (HCVAb) positivity, and additional post RT treatment were statistically significant prognostic factors for survival in univariate analysis (p = 0.000, p = 0.018, p = 0.000, p = 0.013, and p = 0.047, respectively). Of these factors, changes in Child-Pugh score, and response to RT were significant for patients' prognosis in multivariate analysis (p = 0.001 and p = 0.035, respectively). Conclusion: RT could constitute a reasonable treatment option for patients with PVT or HVT in HCC with acceptable toxicity. Changes in Child-Pugh score, and response to RT were statistically significant factors of survival of patients.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.233-238
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• 2008

It has been suspected that various infections, including cytomegalovirus(CMV) infection, are associated with IgA nephropathy. In case of CMV infection, ganciclovir is known to be a treatment of choice for severe CMV infection in general. But ganciclovir has a lot of severe toxicity, so children with normal immunity are seldom treated by ganciclovir when CMV infection is suspected. On the other hand, intravenous immunoglobulin can also be used to treat CMV infection. We report a case of CMV-associated IgA nephrophaty, who was treated with deflazacort and Intravenous immunoglobulin therapy. An 11 years old boy suffered from gross hematuria for 3 days. He had proteinuria, thrombocytopenia(104,000/$mm^3$), antiplatelet antibody(＋), impaired renal function and low serum albumin. His CMV serology was CMV-IgM/IgG(＋/-) and urine CMV-PCR was positive. The renal histological findings revealed IgA nephropathy, WHO class II. His proteinuria persisted despite of deflazacort therapy(2.5 mg/kg/day). Later, intravenous immunoglobulin(1 g/kg) was administered twice. In two years, he showed no gross and microscopic hematuria, and his laboratory findings were also normalized.

• Journal of Medicine and Life Science
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.95-102
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• 2022

This retrospective study aimed to investigate whether there was a difference in the success rate of removal of residual thyroid tissue in patients with the same cutoff serum thyroglobulin (Tg) value-measured 2 weeks after thyroid hormone withdrawal (THW)-for different radioactive iodine (RAI) activities. We identified 132 patients with papillary thyroid cancer who were treated with total thyroidectomy and RAI therapy to evaluate the efficacy of three radioactivities of I-131: 1,110, 3,700, and 5,550 MBq. Serum Tg testing was performed 1 week before RAI treatment and 2 weeks after THW (pre-Tg); the cutoff pre-Tg level was below 10 ng/mL. Stimulated Tg levels were measured on the day of I-131 administration (off-Tg). After 6 months of treatment, we compared the groups for complete ablation, defined as no uptake on a diagnostic I-131 scan, stimulated Tg level of <1.0 ng/mL, and Tg antibody level of <100 ng/mL. Ninety-five patients (72.0%) achieved complete ablation, with 57.1% (8/14), 78.2% (68/87), and 61.3% (19/31) in the 1,110 MBq, 3,700 MBq, and 5,550 MBq groups, respectively. There was no significant difference in the complete ablation rates between the three groups. In the multivariate analysis, the off-Tg level was a significant predictor of complete ablation. RAI therapy with low radioactivity (1,110 MBq) seemed sufficient for ablation in patients with papillary thyroid cancer with a pre-Tg level below 10 ng/mL. The off-Tg level is a promising and useful predictor of complete ablation after initial RAI therapy.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 1999

Purpose : Experimental studies have implicated the wild type p53 In cellular response to radiation. Whether altered p53 function can lead to changes in clinical radiocurability remains an area of ongoing study. This study was performed to investigate whether any correlation between change of p53 and outcome of curative radiation therapy in patients with head and neck cancels. Methods : Immunohistochemical analysis with a mouse monoclonal antibody (DO-7) specific for human p53 was used to detect to overexpression of protein in formalin fixed, paraffin-embedded tumor sample from 55 head and neck cancer patients treated with curative radiation therapy (median dose of 7020 cGy) from February 1988 to March 1996 at 51. Mary's Hospital. Overexpression of p53 was correlated with locoregional control and survival using Kaplan-Meier method. A Cox regression multi-variate analysis was peformed that included all clinical variables and status of p53 expression. Results : Thirty-seven (67.2$\%$) patients showed overexpression of p53 by immunohistochemical staining in their tumor. One hundred percent of oral cavity, 70$\%$ of laryngeal, 66.7$\%$ of oropharyngeal, 66.7$\%$ of hypopharyngeal cancer showed p53 overexpression (P=0.05). The status of p53 had significant relationship with stage of disease (P=0.03) and history of smoking (P=0.001). The overexpression of p53 was not predictive of response rate to radiation therapy. The locoregional control was not significantly affected by p53 status. Overexpression of p53 didn't have any prognostic implication for disease free survival and overall survival. Primary site and stage of disease were significant prognostic factors for survival. Conclusions : The p53 overexpression as detected by immunohistochemical staining had significant correlation with stage, primary site of disease and smoking habit of patients. The p53 overexpression didn't have any predictive value for outcome of curative radiation therapy in a group of head and neck cancers.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.431-436
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• 2007

Stem cell-based therapy is being considered as an alternative treatment for cardiomyopathy. Hence understanding the basic molecular mechanisms of cardiomyocyte differentiation is important. Besides BMP or Wnt family proteins, $TGF-{\beta}$ family members are thought to play a role in cardiac development and differentiation. Although $TGF-{\beta}$ has been reported to induce cardiac differentiation in embryonic stem cells, the differential role of $TGF-{\beta}$ isoforms has not been elucidated. In this study, employing the DMSO-induced cardiomyocyte differentiation system using P19CL6 mouse embryonic teratocarcinoma stem cells, we investigated the $TGF-{\beta}$-induced signaling pathway in cardiomyocyte differentiation. $TGF-{\beta}1$, but not the other two isoforms of $TGF-{\beta}$, was induced at the mRNA and protein level at an early stage of differentiation, and Smad2 phosphorylation increased in parallel with $TGF-{\beta}1$ induction. Inhibition of $TGF-{\beta}1$ activity with $TGF-{\beta}1$-specific neutralizing antibody reduced cell cycle arrest as well as expression of the CDK inhibitor $p21^{WAF1}$. The antibody also inhibited induction of the cardiac transcription factor Nkx2.5. Taken together, these results suggest that $TGF-{\beta}1$ is involved in cardiomyocyte differentiation by regulating cell cycle progression and cardiac gene expression in an autocrine or paracrine manner.

• The Journal of the Korean Society for Microbiology
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.115-125
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• 1985

Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) is a debilitating disease of humans caused by Hantaan virus (HV), the prototype member of a newly proposed genus of Bunyaviridae. Studies of HV pathogenesis have been limited by the absence of a well defined model for a virus-induced disease state. In an attempt to devise a model for HV pathogenesis in laboratory rodents, newborn outbred suckling ICR mice were shown to be uniformly susceptible to lethal infection with non- mouse adapted HV by intracerebral (IC), intraperitoneal (IP), intramuscular (IM), and subcutaneous (SC) inoculation routes. Clinical coures, mean time to death, and fatal outcome were age-dependent. With an inoculum of 10 $LD_{50}$, mortality was 100% in mice infected within 72h of birth, but declined to 50% by 7 days. By 2-2.5 weeks, animals developed complete resistance to clinical disease. Virus was consistently detected in serum by day 6 post-infection in IC- and IP- inoculated animals, and reached peak levels of $10^5\;PFU/ml$ by day 8 Mice infected IM and SC showed delays in onset of viremia, but achieved similar titers. Immunofluorescent antibody appeared by 17-18 days, and neutralizing antibody by 15 days, in all experimental groups. Two of 8 inbred mouse strains were identified as resistant to clinical disease : SJL/J and A/J. Manipulation of this model will allow investigation of natural rodent pathogenesis with HV, as well as offer insight into disease mechanisms and therapy of HFRS.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.143-149
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• 2014

To evaluate the seroprevalence against circumsporozoite protein (CSP) of Plasmodium vivax in sera of Korean patients, the central repeating domain (CRD) of CSP was cloned and analyzed. From the genomic DNA of patient's blood, 2 kinds of CSPs were identified to belong to a VK210 type, which is the dominant repeating of GDRA(D/A)GQPA, and named as PvCSPA and PvCSPB. Recombinantly expressed his-tagged PvCSPA or PvCSPB in Escherichia coli reacted well against sera of patients in western blot, with the detecting rate of 47.9% (58/121), which included 15 cases positive for PvCSPA, 6 cases positive for PvCSPB, and 37 cases for both. The mixture of PvCSPA and PvCSPB was loaded to a rapid diagnostic test kit (RDT) and applied with the same set of patient sera, which resulted in detection rates of 57.0% (69/121). When the protein sequences of PvCSPA were compared with those of P. vivax in endemic regions of India and Uganda, they were compatibly homologous to PvCSPA with minor mutations. These results suggested that the recombinant PvCSPA and PvCSPB loaded RDT may be a milestone in latent diagnosis which has been a hot issue of domestic malaria and important for radical therapy in overlapped infections with P. falciparum in tropical and subtropical areas. During the biological process of malarial infection, exposure of CSP to antigen-antibody reaction up to 57.0% is the first report in Korea.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1771-1779
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• 2015

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Presently, targeted therapy via monoclonal antibodies to specific tumor-associated antigens is being continuously developed. Hep88 mAb has proven to exert tumoricidal effects on the HepG2 cell via a paraptosis-like morphology. To verify the pathway, we then demonstrated downstream up-regulation of caspase-3, caspase-8 and caspase-9, assessingmRNA expression by real-time PCR and associated enzyme activity by colorimetric assay. Active caspase-3 determination was also accomplished by flow cytometry. Active caspase-3 expression was increased by Hep88 mAb treatment in a dose-and time-dependent manner. All of the results indicated that Hep88 mAb induced programmed cell death in the HepG2 cell line from paraptosis-like to apoptosis by downstream induction of caspases. These conclusions imply that Hep88mAb might be a promising tool for the effective treatment of HCC in the future.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.306-312
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• 2002

Systemic Lupus Erythematosus(SLE) is a autoimmune disease characterized by combined symtoms of malar rash, discoid rash, neuropsychiatric disorder, renal disorder, hematologic disorder, photosensitivity immunologic disorder, oral ulcer, anti-nuclear antibody, arthritis, pleuritis and pericarditis, etc. Multiple genetic or environmental causes are supposed to facilitate antiboby production to autoantigen such as ds-DNA, histone, phospholipid, red blood cell, platelet, etc. And defective complementary system fail to remove autoantigen-antibody complex, which deposit in multiple organs and result in inflammatory damages. SLE does not correctly correspond to any specific category of oriental medicine. But, accoring to previous reports, it can be controlled by herb medications used differently patients-to-patients. So we are to report this one SLE case being successfully controlled by classic corticosteroids with herb medications based on oriental diffrential diagnosis of symptoms and signs.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.176-179
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• 2015

Rituximab (RTX), a monoclonal antibody against the B-cell marker CD20, is commonly used as a treatment for antibody-mediated diseases or B-lymphocyte-mediated diseases. Destruction of B cells may reverse the disease course in many conditions; however, patients who are treated with RTX cannot respond appropriately to de novo infection due to lack of B lymphocytes. Here, we report one such case. A 7-year-old renal allograft recipient presented with severe anemia due to parvovirus infection after RTX treatment. The patient had focal segmental glomerulosclerosis and had received cadaveric kidney transplantation 6 months previously. She was treated with high-dose steroid for acute rejection and RTX for Epstein Barr Virus infection 3 months previously. At presentation, her hemoglobin level was 5.4 g/dL and leukocyte and platelet counts were normal. She had microcytic normochromic anemia and high viral load of parvovirus B19(70,578 copies/mL). Intravenous immunoglobulin ($200mg/kg{\cdot}d$) treatment controlled the progression of anemia and parvovirus infection. De novo parvovirus infection during the B lymphocyte-depletion period may have precipitated the severe anemia in this case. Close monitoring of infection is required after RTX therapy.