• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.655-662
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• 2004

The aim of this work was the validation of a rapid real-time PCR assay based on TaqMan technology for the unequivocal identification of infectious canine hepatitis (ICH) virus, to be used directly on DNA purified from blood specimens. A real-time PCR system targeting at the E3 ORFA gene sequence of canine adenovirus type 1 was optimized and validated through comparative analysis of samples using conventional PCR system. The real-time PCR assay based on TaqMan technology could disclose 23 (37.7%) out of 61 samples as PCR positive. In contrast, 18 (29.5%) samples were found PCR positive when conventional PCR was applied on these samples. The use of the ABI Prism 7700 sequence detection system allowed the efficient determination of the amplified product accumulation through a fluorogenic probe. The entire real-time TaqMan PCR assay, including DNA extraction, amplification, and detection could be completed within 3 hours. The detection method of real-time TaqMan PCR assay was 1,000 times more sensitive than conventional PCR. Real-time TaqMan probe and primer set developed and optimized in this study is a sensitive, rapid and accurate method for detection of ICH virus and can be effective screening tool for the detection of ICH in a diagnostic laboratory routines.

• Journal of Breast Cancer
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.363-370
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• 2018

Purpose: Breast cancer is the most commonly occurring cancer among women worldwide, and therefore, improved approaches for its early detection are urgently needed. As microRNAs (miRNAs) are increasingly recognized as critical regulators in tumorigenesis and possess excellent stability in plasma, this study focused on using miRNAs to develop a method for identifying noninvasive biomarkers. Methods: To discover critical candidates, differential expression analysis was performed on tissue-originated miRNA profiles of 409 early breast cancer patients and 87 healthy controls from The Cancer Genome Atlas database. We selected candidates from the differentially expressed miRNAs and then evaluated every possible molecular signature formed by the candidates. The best signature was validated in independent serum samples from 113 early breast cancer patients and 47 healthy controls using reverse transcription quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Results: The miRNA candidates in our method were revealed to be associated with breast cancer according to previous studies and showed potential as useful biomarkers. When validated in independent serum samples, the area under curve of the final miRNA signature (miR-21-3p, miR-21-5p, and miR-99a-5p) was 0.895. Diagnostic sensitivity and specificity were 97.9% and 73.5%, respectively. Conclusion: The present study established a novel and effective method to identify biomarkers for early breast cancer. And the method, is also suitable for other cancer types. Furthermore, a combination of three miRNAs was identified as a prospective biomarker for breast cancer early detection.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Sensory Integration
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.24-38
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• 2021

Objective : This study aimed to create a Korea translation of the Evaluation in Ayres Sensory Integration (EASI) and to then test the adapted version for construct validity. Methods : The translation and content validation process were conducted in accordance with a four-step process, namely translation, integration, content validity examination, and backward translation. The construct validity of the translated version was evaluated using the EASI for children aged 3~12 years with and without sensory integration problems, comparing the two groups as well as preschool and school-aged groups. The group comparison was analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test in SPSS. Results : In terms of content validity, all 20 items averaged more than 3.17 points. Of the four EASI categories, there was a difference in Sensory Perception (p=0.044) between the typical and sensory integration groups, and there was a statistical difference between tactile and vestibular sensations. Between the preschool and school-aged children, statistical difference was observed in two categories, namely Praxis and Ocular-Postural-Bilateral Motor Integration. Conclusion : Based on its construct validity, the Korean version of EASI is suitable for use in research. The construct validity study highlighted items that explain differences between typical and diagnostic children and items that explain those differences by age. Our findings could therefore be considered when interpreting EASI results.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.139-144
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• 2023

Purpose: Children with incomplete Kawasaki disease (KD) and pyuria may be misdiagnosed with urinary tract infection (UTI) during the early phase of the prodrome. We investigated the percentage of UTI diagnoses preceding a KD diagnosis. Methods: Using the National Health Insurance data of South Korea, we assessed differences in UTI diagnoses made during the week preceding a KD diagnosis, according to demographic and geographic factors from November 2007-October 2019. Results: A total of 53,822 KD cases were identified, including 304 patients (0.56%) diagnosed with a UTI during the week preceding a KD diagnosis. The younger age group (0-11 months) showed the highest percentage of preceding UTI diagnoses (0.95%), with higher odds than 4-year-old children (3.12; 95% confidence interval, 2.05-4.77). Conclusions: These findings suggest a potentially misleading presentation of incomplete KD, a clinical conundrum requiring further investigation and validation, particularly in infants.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.553-563
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• 2023

Objective: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging-derived tractography (DTI-t) contribute to the localization of language areas, but their accuracy remains controversial. This study aimed to investigate the diagnostic performance of preoperative fMRI and DTI-t obtained with a simultaneous multi-slice technique using intraoperative direct cortical stimulation (DCS) or corticocortical evoked potential (CCEP) as reference standards. Materials and Methods: This prospective study included 26 patients (23-74 years; male:female, 13:13) with tumors in the vicinity of Broca's area who underwent preoperative fMRI and DTI-t. A site-by-site comparison between preoperative (fMRI and DTI-t) and intraoperative language mapping (DCS or CCEP) was performed for 226 cortical sites to calculate the sensitivity and specificity of fMRI and DTI-t for mapping Broca's areas. For sites with positive signals on fMRI or DTI-t, the true-positive rate (TPR) was calculated based on the concordance and discordance between fMRI and DTI-t. Results: Among 226 cortical sites, DCS was performed in 100 sites and CCEP was performed in 166 sites. The specificities of fMRI and DTI-t ranged from 72.4% (63/87) to 96.8% (122/126), respectively. The sensitivities of fMRI (except for verb generation) and DTI-t were 69.2% (9/13) to 92.3% (12/13) with DCS as the reference standard, and 40.0% (16/40) or lower with CCEP as the reference standard. For sites with preoperative fMRI or DTI-t positivity (n = 82), the TPR was high when fMRI and DTI-t were concordant (81.2% and 100% using DCS and CCEP, respectively, as the reference standards) and low when fMRI and DTI-t were discordant (≤ 24.2%). Conclusion: fMRI and DTI-t are sensitive and specific for mapping Broca's area compared with DCS and specific but insensitive compared with CCEP. A site with a positive signal on both fMRI and DTI-t represents a high probability of being an essential language area.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.24 no.9
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• pp.912-923
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• 2023

Objective: This study aimed to validate the risk stratification system (RSS) and biopsy criteria for cervical lymph nodes (LNs) proposed by the Korean Society of Thyroid Radiology (KSThR). Materials and Methods: This retrospective study included a consecutive series of preoperative patients with thyroid cancer who underwent LN biopsy, ultrasound (US), and computed tomography (CT) between December 2006 and June 2015. LNs were categorized as probably benign, indeterminate, or suspicious according to the current US- and CT-based RSS and the size thresholds for cervical LN biopsy as suggested by the KSThR. The diagnostic performance and unnecessary biopsy rates were calculated. Results: A total of 277 LNs (53.1% metastatic) in 228 patients (mean age ± standard deviation, 47.4 years ± 14) were analyzed. In US, the malignancy risks were significantly different among the three categories (all P < 0.001); however, CT-detected probably benign and indeterminate LNs showed similarly low malignancy risks (P = 0.468). The combined US + CT criteria stratified the malignancy risks among the three categories (all P < 0.001) and reduced the proportion of indeterminate LNs (from 20.6% to 14.4%) and the malignancy risk in the indeterminate LNs (from 31.6% to 12.5%) compared with US alone. In all image-based classifications, nodal size did not affect the malignancy risks (short diameter [SD] ≤ 5 mm LNs vs. SD > 5 mm LNs, P ≥ 0.177). The criteria covering only suspicious LNs showed higher specificity and lower unnecessary biopsy rates than the current criteria, while maintaining sensitivity in all imaging modalities. Conclusion: Integrative evaluation of US and CT helps in reducing the proportion of indeterminate LNs and the malignancy risk among them. Nodal size did not affect the malignancy risk of LNs, and the addition of indeterminate LNs to biopsy candidates did not have an advantage in detecting LN metastases in all imaging modalities.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.671-682
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• 2019

Objective: To investigate whether computed tomography (CT) and fluorine-18-labeled fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) may be applied to distinguish thymic epithelial tumors (TETs) from benign cysts in the anterior mediastinum. Materials and Methods: We included 262 consecutive patients with pathologically proven TETs and benign cysts 5 cm or smaller who underwent preoperative CT scans. In addition to conventional morphological and ancillary CT findings, the relationship between the lesion and the adjacent mediastinal pleura was evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively. Mean lesion attenuation was measured on CT images. The maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) was obtained with FDG-PET scans in 40 patients. CT predictors for TETs were identified with multivariate logistic regression analysis. For validation, we assessed the diagnostic accuracy and inter-observer agreement between four radiologists in a size-matched set of 24 cysts and 24 TETs using a receiver operating characteristic curve before and after being informed of the study findings. Results: The multivariate analysis showed that post-contrast attenuation of 60 Hounsfield unit or higher (odds ratio [OR], 12.734; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.506-64.705; p = 0.002) and the presence of protrusion from the mediastinal pleura (OR, 9.855; 95% CI, 1.749-55.535; p = 0.009) were the strongest CT predictors for TETs. SUVmax was significantly higher in TETs than in cysts (5.3 ± 2.4 vs. 1.1 ± 0.3; p < 0.001). After being informed of the study findings, the readers' area under the curve improved from 0.872-0.955 to 0.949-0.999 (p = 0.066-0.149). Inter-observer kappa values for protrusion were 0.630-0.941. Conclusion: Post-contrast CT attenuation, protrusion from the mediastinal pleura, and SUVmax were useful imaging features for distinguishing TETs from cysts in the anterior mediastinum.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.773-780
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• 2020

With the development of the 4th industrial, research is being conducted to prevent diseases and reduce damage in various fields of science and technology such as medicine, health, and bio. As a result, artificial intelligence technology has been introduced and researched for image analysis of radiological examinations. In this paper, we will directly apply a deep learning model for classification and detection of pneumonia using chest X-ray images, and evaluate whether the deep learning model of the Inception series is a useful model for detecting pneumonia. As the experimental material, a chest X-ray image data set provided and shared free of charge by Kaggle was used, and out of the total 3,470 chest X-ray image data, it was classified into 1,870 training data sets, 1,100 validation data sets, and 500 test data sets. I did. As a result of the experiment, the result of metric evaluation of the Inception V3 deep learning model was 94.80% for accuracy, 97.24% for precision, 94.00% for recall, and 95.59 for F1 score. In addition, the accuracy of the final epoch for Inception V3 deep learning modeling was 94.91% for learning modeling and 89.68% for verification modeling for pneumonia detection and classification of chest X-ray images. For the evaluation of the loss function value, the learning modeling was 1.127% and the validation modeling was 4.603%. As a result, it was evaluated that the Inception V3 deep learning model is a very excellent deep learning model in extracting and classifying features of chest image data, and its learning state is also very good. As a result of matrix accuracy evaluation for test modeling, the accuracy of 96% for normal chest X-ray image data and 97% for pneumonia chest X-ray image data was proven. The deep learning model of the Inception series is considered to be a useful deep learning model for classification of chest diseases, and it is expected that it can also play an auxiliary role of human resources, so it is considered that it will be a solution to the problem of insufficient medical personnel. In the future, this study is expected to be presented as basic data for similar studies in the case of similar studies on the diagnosis of pneumonia using deep learning.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.83-93
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• 2016

Objectives : The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale-Revised is a recently revised scale which has been reported as a valid tool for the assessment of depressive symptoms. It encompasses cardinal symptoms of depression described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental disorders, fourth edition. In this study, we assessed the reliability, validity and psychometric properties of the Korean version of the CESD-R(K-CESD-R). Methods : Forty-eight patients diagnosed as major depressive disorder, dysthymia, depressive disorder NOS according to the DSM-IV criteria using Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview and 48 healthy controls were enrolled in this study. They were assessed with K-CESD-R, K-MADRS, PHQ-9, KQIDS-SR, STAI to check cross-validation. Statistical analyses were performed using calculation of Cronbach's alpha, Pearson correlation coefficient, Principal Component Analysis, ROC curve and optimal cut-off value. Results : The Cronbach's alpha of K-CESD-R was 0.98. The total score of K-CESD-R revealed significantly high correlations with those of K-MADRS, PHQ-9, KQIDS-SR(r=0.910, 0.966 and 0.920, p<0.001, respectively). Factor analysis showed two factors account for 76.29% of total variance. We suggested the optimal cut-off value of K-CESD-R as 13 according to analysis of the ROC curve which value sensitivity and specificity both equally. Conclusions : These Results showed that the K-CESD-R could be a reliable and valid scale to assess depressive symptoms. The K-CESD-R is expected as a useful and effective tool for screening and measuring depressive symptoms not only in outpatient clinic but also epidemiologic studies.

• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.153-162
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• 2004

Purpose: The Helicobacter pylori stool antigen (HpSA) enzyme immunoassay is a non-invasive test for the diagnosis and monitoring of H. pylori infection. But, there are few validation studies on the HpSA test after eradication in children. The aim of this study was to assess the diagnostic accuracy of HpSA enzyme immunoassay for the detection of H. pylori to confirm eradication in children. Methods: From January 2001 to October 2003, 164 tests were performed in 146 children aged 1 to 17.5 years (mean $9.3{\pm}4.3$ years). H. pylori infection was confirmed by endoscopy-based tests (rapid urease test, histology, and culture). All H. pylori infected children were treated with quadruple regimens (Omeprazole, amoxicillin, metronidazole and bismuth subcitrate for 7 days). Stool specimens were collected from all patients for the HpSA enzyme immunoassay (Primier platinum HpSA). The results of HpSA tests were interpreted as positive for $OD{\geq}0.160$, unresolved for $$0.140{\leq_-}OD$$<0.160, and negative for OD<0.140 at 450 nm on spectrophotometer. Results: 1) One hundred thirty-one HpSA tests were performed before treatment. The result of HpSA enzyme immunoassay showed three false positive cases and one false negative case. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of HpSA enzyme immunoassay before treatment were 96.4%, 97.1%, 90%, and 99%, respectively. 2) Thirty-three HpSA enzyme immunoassay were performed at least 4 weeks after eradication therapy. The results of HpSA enzyme immunoassay showed two false positive cases and one false negative case. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value after treatment were 88.9%, 91.7%, 80%, and 95.7%, respectively. Conclusion: Diagnostic accuracy of the HpSA enzyme immunoassay after eradication therapy was as high as that of the HpSA test before eradication therapy. The HpSA enzyme immunoassay was found to be a useful non-invasive method to confirm H. pylori eradication in children.