• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.104-110
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• 2011

Purpose: The object evaluation method about medical institutes of these days increases credibility of consumers about medical services by conducting a certification system about medical institutes. In addition, as nuclear medicine test rooms and diagnosis test medicine room adopt many kinds of international certification systems, the matters regarding safety management of test rooms are being regarded as important. Since the blood test rooms of nuclear medicine are exposed to many harmful factors such as infection from clinical specimen and radioactive isotope reagent, there is a need to pay lots of attention to the safety management of staff and patients. Therefore, this study discusses safety management activities of staff and patients, which are conducted in the blood test rooms of the nuclear medicine department in Asan Medical Center. Materials and Methods: In the blood test rooms of the nuclear medicine department in Asan Medical Center, the matters regarding comprehensive safety management by the person in charge of safety management are offered and all staff members of the test rooms apply them into work. Safety management education is regularly conducted according to established regulations, and infection is prevented through implementation of wearing personal protectors and hand sanitation during test work. In addition, technical safety guides and accident guides for interruption of electric power are provided against emergencies. Through infection management guides, infection prevention and preparation methods for infection are learned and radioactive isotope management, safety management about reagent use and safety guides about harmful chemical substances are being applied to work. Results: The blood test rooms of the nuclear medicine department apply safety management regulations to work. Under the situation where hand sanitation should be conducted, hands are washed to prevent infection between staff and patients, and for preventing infection from clinical specimen, personal protectors are worn. The reagent, which is classified as harmful substance, is separately stored to be easily recognized, radioactive wastes and general medical wastes are also safely managed. Through these lots of safety management activities, safety management awareness of staff members is enhanced, and patients are protected from many dangers. Conclusion: Staff members of the blood test rooms of the nuclear medicine department should be fully aware of safety management regulations and apply them to work. When better safety management suggestions are made, they need to be examined and applied for increasing quality of safety management for staff and patients.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2002.03a
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• pp.619-626
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• 2002

In this study, a correlation among pressure, time and quantity of injection was organized from the laboratory tests, which were executed many times representing in-situ soil conditions carefully and then it would be applied to the in-situ soil injection simulator which will be developed for optimal injection into the ground. The sort of sample soils were both sand(A specimen) and silty sand(B specimen). Injection tests were gone into operation by compaction state, injection velocity and the depth individually. In the ground improved with permeation Infection, the relation among injection pressure of the same depth, the injected quantities and time were systematic by the depth. By defining the limit range of injection pressure and quantity about the variety of a linear equation obtained from lining each of their trend, the application of laboratory injection monitoring program and the data to evaluate its realization were produced. In the ground improved with root type injection, the relation between injection pressure and the injected quantities was irregular because fracture state occurred quickly.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.79-84
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• 2002

Pulmonary nocardiosis is an infrequent but severe infection due to the microorganism, Nocardia spp, which may behave as both an opportunists and as a primary pathogens. Usually nocardiosis is found in patients under immunosuppressive regimens for organ transplans, chemotherapy for a malignancy and corticosteroids. The experience of pulmonary nocardiosis in the medical literature is limited to just case reports, with a few series including extrapulmonary nocardiosis. It is believed that the incidence of this infection has been increasing since 1960. The diagnosis is difficult because of the nonspecific clinical manifestations, the lack of laboratory evidence, and the non-specific radiographic findings. Here, we report a case of pulmonary nocardiasis in a 66 year-old patient with alcoholic liver cirrhosis who has suffered from acutely developed dyspnea and general edema. The nocardia species. was cultured from a specimen obtained by a percutaneous transthoracic needle biopsy.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.296-301
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• 1998

Flavobacterium species are nonfastidious, oxidase-positive gram-negative rods that do not ferment glucose. These organism are widely distributed in nature and in hospital environments. In past, one of flavobacteria, Flavobacterium indologenes, was treated with non-pathogenic organism. Recently, several investigators have demonstrated the infection of this organism in human. Nowadays, the growth of F. indologenes in specimen should be considered a potential pathogen in infectious patients including neonate, especially in the setting of malignancy and with use of invasive procedures. The resistance of this organism to multiple antibiotics and the high incidence of polymicrobial bacteremia make it difficult to determine optimal therapeutic options. We experienced a case of neonatal bacterial meningitis causing by F. indologenes. So we report this case to evoke more concerns about the infections of this organism in human.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.167-170
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• 2009

In November 2007, a 46-year-old male Thai patient presented with chronic abdominal pain for over 3 years. Colonoscopy revealed a small parasite of about $2{\times}1mm$ in size attached to the cecum mucosa. The worm was removed endoscopically, fixed, and stained for morphological observations. The specimen was identified as Anchitrema sanguineum (Digenea: Anchitrematidae), a trematode first reported in a reptile, Chamaeleo vulgaris, from Egypt, and then sporadically found in the intestines of insectivorous bats and other mammals. The patient was treated with praziquantel but no more worms were found in his stool. His symptoms improved slightly but not cured completely. It remains unclear whether the chronic abdominal pain of the patient was caused by this trematode infection. Whatever is the pathogenicity of this trematode, this is the first human case of A. sanguineum infection in the literature.

• Mycobiology
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.340-345
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• 2019

An 82-year-old man with diabetes was admitted to the emergency department with a third-degree burn on his left leg. The deep swab specimen from his left leg was cultured on Sabouraud dextrose agar without cycloheximide and incubated at $25^{\circ}C$ for 5 days. On the basis of morphological characteristics and multigene phylogenetic analyses of the internal transcribed spacer region of ribosomal DNA and partial fragments of beta-tubulin and translation elongation factor 1-alpha, the causal agent of fungal skin infection was identified as Bisifusarium delphinoides, which was newly introduced by accommodating a Fusarium dimerum species complex. Thus, we describe here the first case of skin infection caused by B. delphinoides on a burn patient with diabetes mellitus based on morphological observation and molecular analysis.

• Journal of Medicine and Life Science
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.107-114
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• 2023

Epidemiological control of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is needed to estimate the infection period of confirmed cases and identify potential cases. The present study, targeting confirmed cases for which the time of COVID-19 symptom onset was disclosed, aimed to investigate the relationship between intervals (day) from symptom onset to testing the cycle threshold (CT) values of real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. Of the COVID-19 confirmed cases, those for which the date of suspected symptom onset in the epidemiological investigation was specifically disclosed were included in this study. Interval was defined as the number of days from symptom onset (as disclosed by the patient) to specimen collection for testing. A locally weighted regression smoothing (LOWESS) curve was applied, with intervals as explanatory variables and CT values (CTR for RdRp gene and CTE for E gene) as outcome variables. After finding its non-linear relationship, a polynomial regression model was applied to estimate the 95% confidence interval values of CTR and CTE by interval. The application of LOWESS in 331 patients identified a U-shaped curve relationship between the CTR and CTE values according to the number of interval days, and both CTR and CTE satisfied the quadratic model for interval days. Active application of these results to epidemiological investigations would minimize the chance of failing to identify individuals who are in contact with COVID-19 confirmed cases, thereby reducing the potential transmission of the virus to local communities.

• Journal of fish pathology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.15-21
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• 2020

We found skin flukes in snubnose pompano (Trachinotus blochii) from a public aquarium and attempted clear identification of them to the species level by morphology and molecular analyses. Skin flukes were collected from snubnose pompano showing dyspnea, anorexia and mild hemorrhage on the skin. All the fish samples (n=2) were infected with the flukes on the skin, gill and eyes, covered with excessive mucus. The isolated worms were transferred for making slide specimen and PCR amplification targeting 18S rDNA, 28S rDNA, mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (mt cox1) and cytochrome b (Cytb) genes for further analyses. Morphology and measurements data of our slide specimen coincided with those of Neobenedenia girellae. The sequence data of 2 genes (28S rDNA and Cytb) and the phylogenetic trees revealed that our specimen consistently belonged to the N. girellae clade. For 18S rDNA and mt cox1 genes, there was no sequence of either of these 2 Neobenedenia species from the type host available in GenBank. This is the first record of N. girellae in snubnose pompano, but it is still unclear if the snubnose pompano is a natural host for N. girellae or not because N. girellae is known to have an unusual broad host range and the host-switching can occur particularly in captive conditions such as aquarium or aquaculture facilities.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.630-639
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• 2000

The gastric pathogen Helicobacter pylori(H. pylori) establishes long-term chronic infection that can lead to atrophic gastritis, intestinal metaplasia, and gastric cancer. H. pylori, which express cytotoxic genes is now recohnized as a cause of peptic ulcer and is also a major risk factor for the development of gastric adenocarcinoma. We performed this study 1) to assess the detection rate of H. pylori according to direct investigation of bacteria of gastric biopsy specimen and two serologic tests of GAP test and Helico blot 2.0 system in the symptomatic and non-symptomatic group 2) to evaluate and compare the efficacy of two serologic tests of GAP test and Helico blot 2.0 system for the diagnosis of H. pylori infection. Forty-nine patients were positive for H pylori infection based on direct investigation of bacteria by histology. The detection rates of H. pylori infection based on direct investigation of bacteria by histology. The detection rates of H. phlori were significantly lower in gastric cancer than in other gastroduodenal disease(p<0.05). The concordance of two serologic tests of GAP test and Helico blot 2.0 system is poor. There was no statistically significant difference between the expression rate of CagA and VacA in the symptomatic and non-symptomatic group. Although Helico blot 2.0 system may not displace GAP test, it was a very sensitive serologic test for the diagnosis of H. pylori infection and it was used to detect IgG antibodies to H. pylori-specific antigens, including CagA, VacA and the various urease subunit. Our data suggest that further investigation is needed to determine whether or not the serologic expression of cytotoxic gene may be clinical usefulness of diagnostic methods in the gastroduodenal disease.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.72 no.6
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• pp.475-480
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• 2012

Background: Pyrazinamide (PZA) is an effective antitubercular drug that becomes toxic to Mycobacterium tuberculosis when converted to pyrazinoic acid by pyrazinamidase (PZase), encoded by mycobacterial pncA. A strong association was noted between the loss of PZase activity and PZA resistance. The causative organisms in extrapulmonary tuberculosis are rarely cultured and isolated. To detect pncA mutations in specimens from extrapulmonary tuberculosis as confirmative diagnosis of mycobacterial infection and alternative susceptibility test to PZA. Methods: Specimens were collected from clinically proven extrapulmonary tuberculosis. pncA was sequenced and compared with wild-type pncA. Results: pncA from 30 specimens from 23 donors were successfully amplified (56.6% in specimens, 59% in donors). Six mutations in pncA were detected (20.0% in amplified specimens, 26.1% in specimen donors) at nucleotide positions of 169, 248 and 419. The mutation at position 169 results in substitution of aspartic acid for histidine, a possible allelic variation of M. bovis that have intrinsic PZA resistance. The mutation at position 248 changes proline into arginine and that at position 419, arginine into histidine. Conclusion: DNA-based diagnosis using pncA may be simultaneously useful for the early diagnosis of mycobacterial infection and the rapid susceptibility to PZA in extrapulmonary tuberculosis. A potential implication of pncA allelic variation at 169 might be suggested as a rapid diagnostic test for M. bovis infection or Bacille Calmette-Gu$\acute{e}$rin (BCG) reactivation.