• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to review the literature on Danggwisayeokgaohsuyusaenggang-tang. The classic literature review was carried out using "http://www.theqi.com". The journal search was performed using MEDLINE, EMBASE, National Digital Science Links(NDSL), OASIS, Korean studies Information Service system(KISS), RISS, China National Knowledge Infrastructure(CNKI), Japan Science and Technology information Aggreator, Electronic(J-STAGE) from search engine's opening day to November 2013. Searching key words were the various combination of "Danggwisayeokgaohsuyusaenggang-tang", "Danggwisayeok", "Danggwi", "ohsuyu", "saenggang". The inclusion criteria was all kinds of journals except for review, essay, and experiment study. 40 classic literatures and 37 journals(1 chinese randomized controlled trial, 25 chinese case studies, 1 Korean case study, and 10 japanese case studies) were selected finally. The literatures and journals reported that Danggwisayeokgaohsuyusaenggang - tang was used to treat diverse types of diseases with coldness of hands and feet.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.83 no.2
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• pp.141-146
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• 2020

Background: The burden of nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) pulmonary disease (PD) is increasing globally. To understand the treatment outcomes and prognosis of NTM-PD, a unified registry is needed. In this project, we aim to construct a multicenter prospective observational cohort with NTM-PD in South Korea (NTM-KOREA). Methods: The primary objective of this study is to analyze treatment outcomes according to the species. In addition, recurrence rate, adverse events, the impact of each drug on treatment outcomes as well as the impact of characteristics of mycobacteriology will be analyzed. The inclusion criteria for the study are as follows: fulfilling the criteria for NTM-PD having one of the following etiologic organisms: Mycobacterium avium complex, M. abscessus subspecies abscessus, M. abscessus subspecies massiliense, or M. kansasii; receiving the first treatment for NTM-PD after enrollment; age >20 years; and consenting to participate in the study. Seven institutions will participate in patient enrollment and about 500 patients are expected to be enrolled. Participants will be recruited from 1 March 2020 until 19 March 2024 and will be observed through 19 March 2029. During the follow-up period, participants' clinical course will be tracked and their clinical data as well as NTM isolates will be collected. Conclusion: NTM-KOREA will be the first nationwide observational cohort for NTM-PD in South Korea. It will provide the information to optimize treatment modalities and will contribute to deeper understanding of the treatment outcomes and long-term prognosis of patients with NTM-PD in South Korea.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.151-164
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• 2016

Objectives : The purpose of this study is to review clinical studies about the efficacy of fire needling for the treatment of acne vulgaris. Methods and Results : In this review, Oasis, NDSL, CNKI, PubMed, Cochrane, J STAGE and CINII were used as the main databases for searching for medical journals, using the keywords "acne and fire needling"," acne and fire needle"," acne and fire acupuncture", and" acne and red hot needle". The initial search range included only randomized controlled trials (RCTs), and papers not matching inclusion criteria were excluded. Initially a total of 108 studies were found, with ten being excluded during title and abstract screening. After scanning 98 papers, a total of 31 RCTs were selected and analyzed. In the 31 RCTs, patients with acne were randomized into groups for treatment and control. Specifically, the treatment group received fire needling, while the control group were concurrently given other treatments. The results of the completed studies have shown that the treatment group receiving fire needling demonstrated significant improvement compared to the control group. Conclusion : During our study, it was verified that the efficacy of fire needling for the treatment of acne vulgaris was both significant and meaningful. Therefore, fire needling can be a safe and effective alternative treatment for acne. However, to confirm this result, further investigation in a traditional clinic is required, accompanied by high quality studies including randomized, placebo-controlled double-blind trials.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.69-90
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• 2017

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of healthcare accreditation and to provide empirical evidence to validate positive effectiveness. Methods:Six electronic databases (KERIS, KoreaMed, NDSL, Ovid-medline, Embase, Cochrane library) were accessed in May 2016. Keywords used were 'accreditation' and 'Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization (JCAHO)'. Of the initially identified 3,008 articles, 60 studies on healthcare accreditation were selected based on inclusion criteria that are hospital accreditation, accreditation by disease and clinical center accreditation. These were retrieved and analyzed. Result: The 60 study results were on the impact of healthcare accreditation. Results were classified into four perspectives of Balanced Score Card (Financial, Customer, Internal Process, Learning & Growth). In internal process perspective, results revealed that healthcare accreditation has made a positive impact on "care process and procedure". In learning & growth perspective, healthcare accreditation has made a positive influence on "leadership", "organizational cultures" and "change mechanisms". However, it revealed that healthcare accreditation does not directly affect financial performance. It is also difficult to reach a definitive conclusion that healthcare accreditation programs affect patient satisfaction of customer and clinical outcome of the internal process. Conclusion: Healthcare accreditation programs provide positive impact on change of care process and building communication-oriented hospital culture. However, more rigorous and diverse research is needed on financial effects and clinical outcomes of healthcare accreditation.

• Korean Journal of Acupuncture
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.1-12
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• 2011

Objectives : The purpose of this study is to review laser acupuncture studies to find possibility for applying high intensity laser to acupuncture and moxibustion treatment. Methods : Searching papers was performed using search engines of five electronic databases, including Pubmed, Thomson ISI, EMBASE, Sciencedirect, and EBSCO, from inception to May 2011 without language limitation. Inclusion criteria were clinical studies with human, randomized controlled trials (RCTs), case-control studies, and case reports. Selecting papers was performed with titles and abstracts in first step, scrutinize full text in second step, and then the extrated data was analyzed by two authors independently. The methodological quality for RCTs was evaluated using Jadad's scale. Results : Total 8 papers, (3 RCTs, 5 controlld studies, and 1 case reports), were finally selected. The study dealt with surgical laser, argon and $CO_2$ laser was one for each, with GaAs laser was two, and with new semiconductor laser, GaN, were four. The output range was from 110 mW to 15 W. The study diseases were alcohol addiction, knee osteoarthritis, bronchopneumonia and asthma for children, and circulation. All studies reported positive effect. The methodological quality in all RCTs was low because of below 3 points and all studies had few subject numbers. Conclusions : We suggest that high intensity laser can be applied to acupuncture and moxibustion. Further rigorous and well-designed study will be needed for various disease. The oriental medical society needs to take active measures to study and clinical application of acupuncture and moxibustion treatment with high intensity laser.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.93-111
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• 2017

Objectives: The aim of this study is to make evidence-based data for developing a traditional Korean medicine clinical practice guideline for acute bronchitis. Methods: We searched 3 international databases(PubMed, EMBASE, CENTRAL) and 7 domestic databases (KoreaMed, Kmbase, NDSL, KISS, KISTI, OASIS, KoreaTK) to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of acute bronchitis using medicine in recent 10 years. The chosen trials were analyzed by their study design, age range, intervention group, control group, primary and second outcome measure, inclusion and exclusion of participants and adverse events. Results: 15 RCTs are finally included in this study and most of their medications are herbal medicine. For diagnosis and outcome measure of acute bronchitis, Bronchitis Severity Score(BSS) was mostly used. Other measurements eligible are coughing fits, quality of life scale, sputum viscosity, change of individual symptoms and patient's satisfaction. Test duration was for average 7days and safety assessment was held by recording adverse events. Except for anti-inflammatory and antibiotic trials, all medications are found to be effective and well-tolerated. General risk of bias of chosen trials is evaluated low. Conclusions: A well designed clinical trials for traditional Korean medicine of acute bronchitis is needed and this study is expected to make it available.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.1101-1111
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• 2019

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate quality of reporting acupuncture intervention for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) based on the STRICTA and CONSORT guidelines Methods: We searched for randomized controlled trial studies of acupuncture treatment for MCI in the MEDLINE (PubMed) database. Once the online search was completed, studies were selected manually by the inclusion criteria, and the selected studies were evaluated by STRICTA and CONSORT guidelines. Results: Five studies were included. The most frequently selected points for acupuncture treatment of MCI were on the head, such as GV20, EX-HN1, GV24, and GB20. By STRICTA guidelines, all items from STRICTA were reported except three items on the checklist. By CONSORT guidelines, apart from six items which were not available, quality assessment was performed with 31 items. Eighteen items were reported by 80% of the studies. Four items were reported by 40% of the studies and another four items were reported by 20% of the studies. One item was not reported in all studies. Conclusion: Most items were reported by STRICTA guidelines, whereas many items were insufficiently reported based on CONSORT guidelines. This needs to be considered in future RCTs of acupuncture treatment for MCI.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.112-117
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• 2009

Objective: Rhus verniciflua Stokes (RVS) has anticancer effect confirmed by preclinical studies and historical records. We thus tried to evaluate retrospectively the effect of RVS as a complementary medicine for patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) showing refractory to conventional chemotherapy. Patients and Methods: From June 1, 2006 to June 30, 2007, patients with advanced NSCLC who received both the standardized RVS extract and a standard course of second or more line therapy such as pemetrexed ($Alimta^{(R)}$), erlotinib ($Tarceva^{(R)}$), and gefitinib ($Iressa^{(R)}$) were checked. A total of 13 patients were eligible for the final analysis after fulfilling inclusion/exclusion criteria. Time to progression (TTP) of these patients treated with the standardized RVS extract was checked in the aftercare period. Results: Patients received RVS treatment for a median period of 296 (range 84-698) days. The median TTP was 220.5 (range 36-489) days, and three patients (23.1%) had TTP values of 15 more months. No significant side effects from RVS treatment have been observed. Conclusion: The standardized RVS extract might have synergetic effects by assisting apoptosis in advanced NSCLC with concurrent standard therapy agents, since it prolonged TTP without significant adverse effects. This study suggests that the standardized RVS extract is beneficial to patients with chemotherapy-refractory NSCLC. Further clinical trials and preclinical studies are necessary to determine the efficacy and safety of the standardized RVS extract in NSCLC.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.28 no.1 s.69
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• pp.1-10
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• 2007

Background : There has been renewed interest in complementary alternative medicine around the world far a decade. On the other hand, the issue of safety of herbal medicine in Korea has been continuously questioned. Issues raised have included not only chemical residue or heavy metals caused by pollution, but also the toxicity of herbal medicine itself. Objectives : The purpose of this study was to review some herbal medicines subject to controversy of toxicity and figure out what kind of problems they evidence. Methods : In this review, PubMed was used to search medical journals. Keywords such as 'herb, or herbal medicine', 'safety, or adverse events, or adverse effect, or toxicity, or liver injury' were applied. Journals were selected by four inclusion criteria, as objectives should be human, researchers should be medical doctors, literature written in the English language, and types of journals should be meta-analysis or practice guideline or reviews. Finally, 9 cases from 60 journals were included in this review. Results : We reviewed 13 herbal medicines for controversy of toxicity such as ephedra(Mahuang), Arisolochia fangchi, Aristolochia manshuriensis, licorice, skullcap , germander, Syo-saiko-to(Xiao-chai-hu-tang), Chelidonium majus, mistletoe, Dictamnus dasycarpus and madder. Conclusions : It suggested that 'who it is prescribed for' is one of the most important factors to identify the causes of toxicity in herbal medicine and dietary supplements, under specific conditions in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.62 no.2
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• pp.201-208
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• 2019

Objective : In patients with internal carotid artery (ICA) occlusion, collateral middle cerebral artery (MCA) flow has a protective role against ischemia. However, some of these patients may experience initial major neurological deficits and major worsening on following days. Thus, we investigated the safety and efficacy of endovascular treatment (EVT) for ICA occlusion with collateral MCA flow by comparing clinical outcomes of medical treatment versus EVT. Methods : The inclusion criteria were as follows : 1) acute ischemic stroke with ICA occlusion and presence of collateral MCA flow on transfemoral cerebral angiography (TFCA) and 2) hospital arrival within 12 hours from symptom onset. The treatment strategy was made by the attending physician based on the patient's clinical status and results of TFCA. Results : Eighty-one patients were included (30 medical treatment, 51 EVT). The EVT group revealed a high incidence of intracranial ICA occlusion, longer ipsilesional MCA contrast filling time, and a similar rate of favorable clinical outcome despite a higher mean baseline the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score. By binary logistic regression analysis, intravenous recombinant tissue plasminogen activator and EVT were independent predictors of favorable clinical outcome. In subgroup analysis based on stroke etiology, the non-atherosclerotic group showed a higher baseline NIHSS score, higher incidence of EVT, and a higher rate of distal embolization during EVT in comparison with the atherosclerotic group. Conclusion : In patients with ICA occlusion and collateral MCA flow, decisions regarding treatment strategy based on TFCA can help achieve favorable clinical outcomes. EVT strategy with respect to etiology of ICA occlusion might help achieve better angiographic outcomes.