• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.3705-3709
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• 2013

Background: To investigate epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene mutations in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and to analyze any relationship with clinicopathological features and prognosis. Materials and Methods: EGFR gene exons 18-21 in 48 specimens of paraffin-embedded tumor tissue from NSCLC patients were amplified by PCR, followed by direct sequencing and analysis of links to clinicopathological features and prognosis. Results: EGFR mutations were detected in 18 of 48 (42.6%) patients with NSCLC. There were 9 cases of mutations in exon 20, 7 in exon 19 and 2 in exon 21. Mutations were more frequently observed in women (5/7 pts, 71.4%) than in men (13/41 pts, 31.7%) (p=0.086) and in non-smokers (5/5 pts, 100%) than smokers (13/43 pts, 30.2%). There was negative correlation of EGFR mutations with smoking status (p=0.005). EGFR mutations were more frequently observed with adenocarcinoma histology (13/32 pts, 40.6%) than in other types (5/16 pts, 31.3%) (p=0.527). The patients with EGFR mutations had better survival than those with wild-type EGFR (p=0.08). There was no association of EGFR mutations with metastatic spread. Conclusions: EGFR mutations in NSCLC were here demonstrated more frequently in females, non-smokers and adenocarcinoma histology in the western region of Turkey. Patients with EGFR mutations have a better prognosis.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.35-46
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• 2013

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the degree of depression cognition and health promoting behaviors of smoking and non-smoking college students. Methods: The research design was a descriptive survey study, and 379 college students were selected by convenience sampling. Measurements were Fagerstrom test for Nicotine Dependence, Depressive cognition and Health Promotion Lifestyle Profile-II. Descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation, and logistic regression were used to analyze the data. Results: 1) Smoking students showed lower scores in depressive cognitions than non-smoking students, which means that the smoker's depression was higher than the non-smokers. 2) Depressive cognition and health promoting behaviors were negatively correlated for the smokers (r=-.30, p<.01), while they were positively correlated for the non-smokers (r=.45, p<.001). 3) The variables predicting the smoker's health promoting behavior were physical activity (OR .24), health responsibility (OR .25), spiritual growth (OR 5.10), stress management (OR 4.41), extrovert personality (OR .25), and depressive cognition (OR 1.81). Conclusions: Depression and health promoting behavior should be considered in the smoking cessation programs for college students.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.64-70
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• 2017

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the raise of cigarette prices by KRW 2,000 at the beginning of 2015 on the change in smoking behavior among male office workers, and to analyze the correlation of various factors including their work behaviors and socio-economic factors with their smoking rate. Methods: In this research, a follow-up observation panel was constituted with 420 smokers as targets from among male office workers at a bank located in Daegu, South Korea. A cross-analysis and ANOVA analysis were carried out in order to examine whether changes in smoking status, amount of smoking, stop-smoking motivation, and reasons for smoking cessation failure after the passage of time since the cigarette price hike were statistically significant. The level of statistical significance was P < 0.05. Results: After the cigarette price hike, among the 420 smokers who were the target of the panel the rate of smoking cessation declined at the time-point of the survey to 15.5%, 12.4%, 8.5%, and 5.7% after one month, three months, six months, and 12 months, respectively. As a result of a follow-up observation of 65 smokers who stopped smoking immediately after the price hike, the actual non-smoking rate declined to 15.5%, 8.3%, 4.4%, and 3.1% after one month, three months, six months, and 12 months, respectively. One (1) year after the cigarette price hike, the non-smoking rate among the 420 smokers reached as low as 3.1% (13 persons). The most important reason for the failure of the attempts to quit smoking was stress for more than 60% of the smokers who attempted to stop. Conclusions: It seems that a powerful anti-smoking policy by the state targeting the nation's workers is necessary. For companies, mediation for workers' job stress can become a strategy for the success of non-smoking attempts. The government seems to require a practical policy to reduce the smoking rate by actively carrying out social, economic, and scientific research to come up with a reduction method for the cigarette hazard, an effective price hike policy, and other non-price policies.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.10
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• pp.4359-4366
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• 2014

Intention to smoke is a valid and reliable factor for predicting future smoking habits among adolescents. This factor, however, has received inadequate attention in Malaysia. The present paper elaborates the prevalence and factors associated with intent to initiate or to cease smoking, among adolescent nonsmokers and smokers in Kota Tinggi, Johor, Malaysia. A total of 2,300 secondary school students aged 13-16 years were selected through a two-stage stratified sampling method. A set of standardized questionnaires was used to assess the smoking behavior among adolescents and the inter-personal and intra-personal factors associated with smoking intention (intention to initiate smoking or to cease smoking). Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify factors related to smoking intention. The prevalence of intention to smoke in the future or to cease smoking among non-smoking adolescents and current smokers were 10.7% and 61.7% respectively. Having friends who smoke, social influence, and poor knowledge about the ill effects on health due to smoking showed significant relationships with intention to smoke in the future among non-smokers. Conversely, perceived lower prevalence of smoking among peers, weak contributory social influence, and greater awareness of the ill effects of smoking are factors associated with the intention to cease smoking sometime in the future. The study found that prevalence of intention to initiate smoking is low among non-smokers while the majority of current smokers intended to cease smoking in the future. Existing anti-smoking programmes that integrate the factors that have been identified in the current study should be put in motion to reduce the prevalence of intention to initiate smoking and increase the intention to cease smoking among adolescents.

• The Journal of Health Technology Assessment
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.114-122
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• 2018

Objectives: In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of the typical anti-smoking advertisement on smoking cessation intention in citizens of Ulsan Metropolitan City. Methods: A total of 700 citizens (600 adults and 100 high school student) participated in face-to-face interviews survey using paper questionnaire. Three anti-smoking advertisements were used in this study; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patient video advertisement, tobacco hazard information advertisement, and COPD patient voice advertisement. Each participant randomly evaluated only one of the three non-smoking anti-smoking advertisements. Participants were asked whether they had seen or heard anti-smoking advertisements before and asked whether they understood the advertisement well. They also assessed the effectiveness of non-smokers to maintain smoking cessation and how effective it would be to help smokers quit. Results: Among the three anti-smoking advertisements, 54.8% of participants said that they watched COPD patient video advertisement before. More than 95% of participants said they can understood anti-smoking advertisements. Among the three anti-smoking advertisements, tobacco hazard information advertisement was evaluated to be most effective to maintain non-smokers' smoking cessation (234, 92.5%). Tobacco hazard information advertisement was also evaluated to be most effective to make smokers quit smoking (216, 84.7%). Conclusion: Anti-smoking advertisements have a positive effect on non-smoker's willingness to keep smoking and smokers' willingness to quit smoking. In future studies, it would be meaningful to look at the long-term effects of smoking cessation or to evaluate the effectiveness of the more various anti-smoking advertisements.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.297-301
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• 2003

To investigate biomarker-based exposure to phthalates and related factors with demographics, 100 subjects who had participated in comprehensive health check-up were selected. We collected demographics through questionnaires and analyzed urine samples for 5 phthalates. Statistical likelihoods and regression methods were applied for data analysis using censored data. The highest levels of urine phthalates were 216$\mu\textrm{g}$/ml in di-isodecyl phthalate, 29.0$\mu\textrm{g}$/ml in di-butyl phthalate, 5.78$\mu\textrm{g}$/ml in di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate. The median values of di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate were 0.2340 $\mu\textrm{g}$/ml for male smokers, 0.0399 $\mu\textrm{g}$/ml for male non-smokers and 0.0085 $\mu\textrm{g}$/ml for female non-smokers, respectively. Di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, benzyl butyl phthalate and di-isodecyl phthalate were higher in males than in females. In addition, mono-2-ethylhexyl phthalate was decreased with age. Our findings suggest that there might be significant demographic variations in exposure and/or metabolism of phthalates, and that health-risk assessment for phthalate exposure in humans should consider different potential risk groups.

• Journal of International Academy of Physical Therapy Research
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.1596-1601
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• 2018

Smoking can be a significant cause of lung diseases and reduced respiratory functions. Among soldiers, smoking may have a negative impact on their health (physical strength) and well being. Information on differences in the respiratory functions of smokers and nonsmokers in the military services and the effects of the smoking duration and amount (i.e., the number of cigarettes smoked per day) would be useful. This study investigated smoking durations and smoking amounts among young male soldiers (N = 61). The forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 sec (FEV1), and forced expiratory volume in 1 sec/forced vital capacities (FEV1/FEC) were measured FVC, FEV1, or FEV1/FEC of smokers and nonsmokers were not significantly different, and FVC and FEV1 were inversely proportional to smoking duration. Besides, the number of cigarettes smoked per day was not correlated with respiratory functions. These findings may be attributed to the effect of the strenuous physical activity (e.g., military drills) undertaken by soldiers on their respiratory functions. Despite the lack of evidence for a difference in the respiratory functions of smokers and nonsmokers, this study recommends ongoing respiratory function management through smoking cessation programs and respiratory physiotherapy to manage the respiratory functions of Korean smoking soldiers.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.523-532
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• 2004

The spontaneous frequency of genetic damage and the possible relationship of this damage to dietary and nutritional variables were investigated in peripheral blood lymphocytes from 45 elderly people using sister chromatid exchange (SCE). The relationship of dietary and nutritional factors on SCE was assessed by different degrees of smoking status such as smokers (n=14), ex-smokers (n=16) and non-smokers (n=15). Significant relationship of the SCE frequency to nutrient intake of the combined subjects (n=45) was found. When cigarette smoking status was taken into account, there were negative linear relationships between SCE and fat, phosphorus or vitamin A intakes of the non-smokers as well as SCE and the dietary quality scores. There was a positive linear relationship between SCE and food frequency of meat and fish among the smokers. Use of artificial sweetners in ex-smokers of the elderly people produced a significant increase of SCE in comparison with the mean SCE for those not using sweetners. Other dietary parameters, including intake of coffee, green tea and ginseng tea, alcohol consumption, use of processed foods, and administration of vitamin pills did not show any correlation with SCE. These results suggested that dietary fat, phosphorus or vitamin A status are the major determinants of spontaneous DNA damage in lymphocytes of the elderly people.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Tobacco Science
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.40-45
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• 1997

This study was conducted to evaluate the personal effects of tobacco smoke and environmental tobacco smoke(ETS) by measuring the concentration of nicotine and cotinine in the urine. While 129 urine samples were being collected, Personal characteristics such as sex, age, number of years since a Person has been a smoker, average consumption number of cigarettes per day, and number of smoker in family were also surveyed. Collected urine samples were used for analysis of nicotine and cotinine by GC/NPD after Passing the extrelut column. In the urine of the smoker, the average contents of nicotine and cotinine were 5.38$\mu\textrm{g}$/ml and 3.14 $\mu\textrm{g}$/ml, respectively. The average contents of nicotine and cotinine were 0.18$\mu\textrm{g}$/ml and 0.07$\mu\textrm{g}$/ml in the urine of male non-smoker, respectively. The contents of nicotine and cotinine in the non-smoker's urine were dependent on sex and age. On the other hand, the contents of nicotine and cotinine in smoker's urine were dependent on average consumption amount of cigarettes per day. Also, there was a direct relation between nicotine levels in the smoker's urine and the average consumption number of cigarettes Per day of smoker. The Possible sources of nicotine and cotinine in the non-smoker's urine seemed to be caused by food, beverage and En, Our results indicate that the number of smoker in family had no effect on increasing nicotine and cotinine contents in the urine of non-smoker.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.55-70
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• 2009

Purpose: This study was done to investigate the effect of non-smoking campaign for subway workers on their health behavior such as smoking, drinking, and exercise. Method: The study was done on the subjects of 112 male employees for 3 years from 2003 to 2005 working at the Seoul Metropolitan Rapid Transit Corporation. However, the subjects decreased to 105 in 2004 and 111 in 2005 due to work transfer. The data were obtained through administering questionnaires. The non-smoking campaign was done with health education using various strategies and methods by an administrator-in-charge assisted by the community health center. Results: Smoking rate and cigarette consumption decreased but there was no statistical significance. Smokers' frequency of drinking and exercise were higher than that of non-smokers, but there was no statistical significance. Conclusion: The result indicated the program was not effective to change the subjects' health behavior; therefore, tailored program considering the subjects is recommended.