The Usefulness of Capsule Endoscopy in Diagnosis of Small Bowel Diseases (소장질환의 진단에 캡슐내시경 검사의 유용성)
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- Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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- v.23 no.1
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- pp.45-51
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- 2006
Background: This study was conducted to evaluate the usefulness of capsule endoscopy (CE) for the diagnosis of small bowel diseases. Materials and Methods: We reviewed the medical records of 66 patients (mean age: 52.1 years, male/female: 39/27), who underwent CE at Yeungnam University Hospital from August 2003 to March 2006. Results: Suspicious gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding presenting as anemia or history of gross bleeding was the most common reason to perform CE (71.2%). Other indications included GI symptoms (21.2%) such as abdominal pain/discomfort, nausea, diarrhea, and others (7.6%). In studies performed for GI bleeding (n=47), ulcer/erosion was the most common finding (n=22, 46.8%) followed by tumor (n=5, 10.6%), angiodysplasia (n=3, 6.4%), polyp (n=3, 6.4%), active bleeding (n=1, 2.1 %), ulcer with stenosis (n=1, 2.1%), and normal findings (n=12, 25.5%). Of these, a bleeding focus was detected in 32 cases (68.1%) undergoing CE studies. Among 14 patients with GI symptoms, only two patients had typical findings related with symptoms. Surgical resection was performed in five cases with tumor. Of these, four were diagnosed as gastrointestinal stromal tumor and the other one was a lymphangioma. There were no complications associated with the CE procedure. Conclusion: Capsule endoscopy is a safe, noninvasive diagnostic tool for small bowel diseases and may be useful for the diagnosis of small bowel hemorrhage including obscure bleeding. However, further studies are needed to confirm its utility for abdominal symptoms other than hemorrhage because of the low diagnostic yield.
Objective : Cicadae Periostracum (CP), which is the discarded shell of the Cryptotympana atrata (Fabricius, 1775), is a recognized component of oriental medicine for treatment sore throat, itching, shock, sedation, edema. However, the safety and toxicity of CP have not yet been established. It has been reported that symptoms of addiction or side effects may occur in patients who take high doses of CP or who are hypersensitive to it. Therefore, we investigated the acute toxicity of an CP extracts in Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats. Methods : To study acute toxicity, five SD rats of each sex per group were treated with CP extracts at single doses of 0, 500, 1000, or 2000 mg/kg administrated by oral gavage, and body weight, clinical signs, and mortality were observed after dosing. At the end of 14-day observation period, all animals were sacrificed and complete hematological and macroscopic examinations were performed. Results : There were no dead animal and test article-related effects on body weight change or the gross finding. No toxicologically significant results were observed between control and treated groups in hematology. Although salivation related to stress at the highest dose was observed in clinical signs immediately after administration, it is considered to have no toxicological significance. Conclusion : As the results, we did not find any adverse effect at the dose levels of 500, 1000, or 2000 mg/kg in rats. The minimal lethal dose was considered to be over 2000 mg/kg body weight in rats.
Purpose : Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is commonly used to treat cancer patients as adjunct treatment, but if the microvascular tissue transfer is performed simulataneously with cancer resection surgery, the induction chemotherapy might affect the survival rate of vascularized free flap. Our study will focus on the effect of induction chemotherapy on the free flaps which were made on white rat abdomen after injection of 5-FU. Materials and Methods: The experimental rat groups were divided into three groups (total 24 rats) as a normal control group, 24 hrs group after 5-FU injection, 3 days group after 5-FU injection. Inferior abdominal island flaps of 8 Sprague Dawley rats on each group were made and immediately were induced into an ischemic state by clamping the supplying inferior epigastric artery and vein with microvascular clamp for a hour to induce a similiar free flap circumstance, then the inferior abdominal skin flaps were reperfused by releasing the clamps. The flaps on abdomen were repositioned and sutured. The experimental data for flap survival rate was collected by digital photo taking, analysed by computer image program to compare with the flap luminosity. The rats were sacrificed at 3 days, 5 days, 7 days after flap preparation and specimens of the flap were taken and stained with H-E staining. The microscopic finding was made under magnification of 200 and 400. Results: 1. Gross findings on each groups showed the healing condition was good as following sequences; normal, 24 hrs group after chemotherapy, 3 days group after chemotherpy. 2. The values of flap luminosity for evaluation of flap survival rate also showed the same sequences as gross findings of healing state. 3. The microscopic findings of epidermis necrosis, inflammation state, dermis fibrosis, vessel change, fatty tissue layer thinning were compared with each group. The 3 days group after chemotherapy showed remarkably poor healing condition compared to other groups. Conclusion: Chemotherapy agents affected the healing process of free flap, but healing condition was recovered spontaneously as post-injection periods passed out. In opposite to our expectation, 3 days group showed the bad flap condition in comparing with 24 hours group which was considered as immatured body circulation state of chemotherapy agent. It showed that 3 weeks in human being after chemotherapy was not proper as timing of microvascular tissue transfer if 3 days group in rat was considered as same healing period of 3 weeks in human being. More delayed healing timing than 3 weeks might be required in clinical application of free tissue transfer.
Lindera obtusiloba Blume (LO), which is widely distributed in Korea, Japan and China, has traditionally been used as a popular folk medicine for the treatment of fever, abdominal pain, bruise and extravation. The purpose of this study was to examine the toxicities of the single and 14-day repeated doses in Sprague-Dawley rats orally administrated with LO at doses of 0, 500, 1000, 2000 (14-day repeated toxicity test) and 5000 (single toxicity test) mg (dry weight)/kg of body weight/day. The results showed that there was no difference in body weight change, food intake, water consumption, or organ weight among different dose groups. Also we observed no death and abnormal clinical signs during the experimental period. Between the groups orally administered LO and the control group, there was no statistical significance in hematological test or serum biochemical values. There were no evidences of histopathological alteration as well as abnormal gross finding mediated by single and 14 days treatments with LO. These results suggest that no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) of the oral application of LO was considered to be more than 2000 mg/kg in rats under the conditions employed in this study.
This paper, a sequel to Yoo and Lee (1990), attempts to investigate the interindustry determinants of technical efficiency in Korea's manufacturing industries, and also to conduct an exploratory analysis on the stability of technical efficiency over time. The hypotheses set forth in this paper are most found in the existing literature on technical efficiency. They are, however, revised and shed a new light upon, whenever possible, to accommodate any Korea-specific conditions. The set of regressors used in the cross-sectional analysis are chosen and the hypotheses are posed in such a way that our result can be made comparable to those of similar studies conducted for the U.S. and Japan by Caves and Barton (1990) and Uekusa and Torii (1987), respectively. It is interesting to observe a certain degree of similarity as well as differentiation between the cross-section evidence on Korea's manufacturing industries and that on the U.S. and Japanese industries. As for the similarities, we can find positive and significant effects on technical efficiency of relative size of production and the extent of specialization in production, and negative and significant effect of the variations in capital-labor ratio within industries. The curvature influence of concentration ratio on technical efficiency is also confirmed in the Korean case. There are differences, too. We cannot find any significant effects of capital vintage, R&D and foreign competition on technical efficiency, all of which were shown to be robust determinants of technical efficiency in the U.S. case. We note, however, that the variables measuring capital vintage effect, R&D and the degree of foreign competition in Korean markets are suspected to suffer from serious measurement errors incurred in data collection and/or conversion of industrial classification system into the KSIC (Korea Standard Industrial Classification) system. Thus, we are reluctant to accept the findings on the effects of these variables as definitive conclusions on Korea's industrial organization. Another finding that interests us is that the cross-industry evidence becomes consistently strong when we use the efficiency estimates based on gross output instead of value added, which provides us with an ex post empirical criterion to choose an output measure between the two in estimating the production frontier. We also conduct exploratory analyses on the stability of the estimates of technical efficiency in Korea's manufacturing industries. Though the method of testing stability employed in this paper is never a complete one, we cannot find strong evidence that our efficiency estimates are stable over time. The outcome is both surprising and disappointing. We can also show that the instability of technical efficiency over time is partly explained by the way we constructed our measures of technical efficiency. To the extent that our efficiency estimates depend on the shape of the empirical distribution of plants in the input-output space, any movements of the production frontier over time are not reflected in the estimates, and possibilities exist of associating a higher level of technical efficiency with a downward movement of the production frontier over time, and so on. Thus, we find that efficiency measures that take into account not only the distributional changes, but also the shifts of the production frontier over time, increase the extent of stability, and are more appropriate for use in a dynamic context. The remaining portion of the instability of technical efficiency over time is not explained satisfactorily in this paper, and future research should address this question.
Purpose:
As an accempt to increase thc efficiency of land use and the food production to achieve the national goal in the food self-sufficiency, nine cropping systems on the upper-land were examined in pure-stand and in mixtures of soybean, corn, potato and radish. The important conclusions of this study were summarized as follows; 1. The flowering date of soybean was two or three days earlier in pure-stand than in the mixture with corn. The maturing date two days earlier in the pure-stand than in the mixture with corn. The flowering and maturing dates were not different among various cropping systems in corn. 2. The stem length of soybean was significantly different among various cropping systems. Soybean in pure-stand was shorter in stem length than with corn. 3. The number of pods per soybean plant did not give any significant differences among various cultivation methods. 4. The length of internode and the number of nodes per soybean plant in the mixture with corn were greater than in the pure-stand. In the number of branches per plant this was reversed. 5. The average stem dry weight of soybean per 10a was not significantly different among various cultivation methods. 6. The soybean yield per 10a in the pure-stand was obviously greater than the mixture and there were significant differences among cultivation method within the mixture with corn in soybean yield. 7. The 1,000-grain weight of soybean was significantly different and those in the pure-stand was heavier than those in the mixture with corn. 8. Grain weight per soybean plant and the stem diameter in the pure-stand were significantly lesser than those in the mixture with corn. 9. In the comparisons of corn in the pure-stand and in the mixture with soybean, plant height, number of ear per 10a, mean ear weight and remember of grain per plant, 100-grain weight, ear length, ear girth and number of ear pel plant were not significantly different among various cultivation methods except for the grain yield per 10a. 10. In the economic analysis, the mixture with soybean and corn gave the greatest gross income. The combination 7 was the best which was 47.6% increase income comparing with the soybean pure-stand. 11. As it can be assumed, soybean plant was influenced greatly than corn by various cropping system. It is necessary to study more complex cropping system finding and giving more desirable multiple cropping system for the farmer.
The wall shear stress in the vicinity of end-to end anastomoses under steady flow conditions was measured using a flush-mounted hot-film anemometer(FMHFA) probe. The experimental measurements were in good agreement with numerical results except in flow with low Reynolds numbers. The wall shear stress increased proximal to the anastomosis in flow from the Penrose tubing (simulating an artery) to the PTFE: graft. In flow from the PTFE graft to the Penrose tubing, low wall shear stress was observed distal to the anastomosis. Abnormal distributions of wall shear stress in the vicinity of the anastomosis, resulting from the compliance mismatch between the graft and the host artery, might be an important factor of ANFH formation and the graft failure. The present study suggests a correlation between regions of the low wall shear stress and the development of anastomotic neointimal fibrous hyperplasia(ANPH) in end-to-end anastomoses. 30523 T00401030523 ^x Air pressure decay(APD) rate and ultrafiltration rate(UFR) tests were performed on new and saline rinsed dialyzers as well as those roused in patients several times. C-DAK 4000 (Cordis Dow) and CF IS-11 (Baxter Travenol) reused dialyzers obtained from the dialysis clinic were used in the present study. The new dialyzers exhibited a relatively flat APD, whereas saline rinsed and reused dialyzers showed considerable amount of decay. C-DAH dialyzers had a larger APD(11.70
The wall shear stress in the vicinity of end-to end anastomoses under steady flow conditions was measured using a flush-mounted hot-film anemometer(FMHFA) probe. The experimental measurements were in good agreement with numerical results except in flow with low Reynolds numbers. The wall shear stress increased proximal to the anastomosis in flow from the Penrose tubing (simulating an artery) to the PTFE: graft. In flow from the PTFE graft to the Penrose tubing, low wall shear stress was observed distal to the anastomosis. Abnormal distributions of wall shear stress in the vicinity of the anastomosis, resulting from the compliance mismatch between the graft and the host artery, might be an important factor of ANFH formation and the graft failure. The present study suggests a correlation between regions of the low wall shear stress and the development of anastomotic neointimal fibrous hyperplasia(ANPH) in end-to-end anastomoses. 30523 T00401030523 ^x Air pressure decay(APD) rate and ultrafiltration rate(UFR) tests were performed on new and saline rinsed dialyzers as well as those roused in patients several times. C-DAK 4000 (Cordis Dow) and CF IS-11 (Baxter Travenol) reused dialyzers obtained from the dialysis clinic were used in the present study. The new dialyzers exhibited a relatively flat APD, whereas saline rinsed and reused dialyzers showed considerable amount of decay. C-DAH dialyzers had a larger APD(11.70