• The Journal of Korea Assosiation for Disability and Oral Health
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.50-54
• /
• 2016

Regular dental visit of disabled patients is an important strategy for maintenance of oral health because of the lack of awareness of oral care. But there is limited information about follow up period in disabled patients after dental treatment. The aim of this study was to investigate the pattern of dental visit and dental management of special care needs patients according to the types of disabilities. A total of 140 patients who received dental treatment at Seoul National University Dental Hospital from 2010 to 2012 were reviewed. Patients were divided 3 groups according to the types of disabilities (disorder of external physical function, disorder of internal organ, psychic disability). Patient's characteristic, dental treatment performed, follow up period and frequency were investigated. The mean follow up period was 28.2 months and average frequency of visit was 3.69 times per year. There was no difference in period and annual visit between 3 groups, but significantly difference in cooperation with medical hospital in affiliation. Regular check-up was the most common dental treatment in all groups. In psychic disorder group, the proportion of sedative treatment was significantly higher than other groups. The results of this study provide information necessary for treatment planning and dental management of disabled patients.

• Korean Journal of Plant Taxonomy
• /
• v.48 no.3
• /
• pp.185-194
• /
• 2018

A comparative floral morphological study of 19 taxa in Persicaria sect. Cephalophilon with four taxa related to Koenigia was conducted to evaluate the taxonomic implications. The flowers of P. sect. Cephalophilon have (four-)five-lobed tepals; five, six, or eight stamens, and one pistil with two or three styles. The size range of each floral characteristic varies according to the taxa; generally P. humilis, P. glacialis var. glacialis and Koenigia taxa have rather small floral sizes. The connate degrees of the tepal lobes and styles also vary. The tepal epidermis consists of elongated rectangular cells with variation of the anticlinal cell walls (ACWs). Two types of glandular trichomes are found. The peltate glandular trichome (PT) was observed in nearly all of the studied taxa. The PT was consistently distributed on the outer tepal of P. sect. Cephalophilon, while Koenigia taxa and P. glacialis var. glacialis had this type of trichome on both sides of the tepal. P. criopolitana had only long-stalked pilate-glandular trichomes (LT) on the outer tepal. The nectary is distributed on the basal part of the inner tepal, with three possible shapes: dome-like, elongated, and disc-like nectary. The nectaries are always accompanied by elongated or spheroidal papillae. Various combinations of floral characters (e.g., the numbers of stamens and styles, the stigma shape, the nectary shape, ACWs, cuticular striation and the trichome type and distribution) of P. sect. Cephalophilon are useful when attempting to recognize the infrasectional levels of P. sect. Cephalophilon recently proposed. Here, we describe the floral characteristics in detail and discuss the taxonomic significance of the floral characters.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
• /
• v.58 no.2
• /
• pp.121-127
• /
• 2020

Pakistan is at intersection of hyperendemic regions for hydatidosis. Current study aimed to determine the prevalence of hydatid cysts and cyst characteristics in different intermediate hosts (sheep, goats, cattle and buffaloes) across the 4 provinces of Pakistan. A total of 991 sheep, 1,478 goats, 1,602 cattle and 1,343 buffaloes were examined for presence of hydatid cysts during 2 years (January 2016-December 2018). Differences in frequency of hydatidosis were observed with highest overall prevalence in buffaloes (11.9%) and sheep (11.5%). Highest prevalence and burden of infection were observed in older age animals (23.8%, 9.78±0.49) and females (26.5%, 12.53±0.67). Data for seasonal prevalence alluded to year-round presence of disease with non-significant statistical difference. Organ predilection indicated liver as the most preferred site of cyst localization followed mainly by lungs. An over-dispersion pattern was observed in all infected animals as majority of cysts belonged <10 cysts per infected host category. Highest percentage of fertile cysts was observed in liver of sheep. Interestingly, solitary form of cysts had higher fertility rate than multiple form. Amid lack of data and wide gap of knowledge, this study would try to fill up the lacunae regarding this neglected tropical disease. Extensive rearing of livestock, unregulated official slaughter and home slaughtering have played role in adaptability of E. granulosus in Pakistan.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.433-439
• /
• 2000

Volume rendering is a powerful tool for visualizing sampled scalar values from 3D data without modeling geometric primitives to the data. The volume rendering can describe the surface-detail of a complex object. Owing to this characteristic. volume rendering has been used to visualize medical data. The size of volume data is usually too big to handle in real time. Recently, various volume rendering algorithms have been proposed in order to reduce the rendering time. However, most of the proposed algorithms are not proper for fast rendering of large non-coded volume data. In this paper, we propose a block-based fast volume rendering algorithm using a shear-warp factorization for non-coded volume data. The algorithm performs volume rendering by using the organ segmentation data as well as block-based 3D volume data, and increases the rendering speed for large non-coded volume data. The proposed algorithm is evaluated by rendering 3D X-ray CT body images and MR head images.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
• /
• v.38 no.4
• /
• pp.318-325
• /
• 2021

Background: The diagnosis and prediction of prognosis are important in patients with sepsis, and presepsin is helpful. In this study, we aimed to examine the usefulness of presepsin in predicting the prognosis of sepsis in Korea. Methods: Patients diagnosed with sepsis according to the sepsis-3 criteria were recruited into the study and classified into surviving and non-surviving groups based on in-hospital mortality. A total of 153 patients (32 and 121 patients with sepsis and septic shock, respectively) were included from July 2019 to August 2020. Results: Among the 153 patients with sepsis, 91 and 62 were in the survivor and non-survivor groups, respectively. Presepsin (p=0.004) and lactate (p=0.003) levels and the sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score (p<0.001) were higher in the non-survivor group. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis revealed poor performances of presepsin and lactate in predicting the prognosis of sepsis (presepsin: area under the curve [AUC]=0.656, p=0.001; lactate: AUC=0.646, p=0.003). The SOFA score showed the best performance, with the highest AUC value (AUC=0.751, p<0.001). The prognostic cutoff point for presepsin was 1,176 pg/mL. Presepsin levels higher than 1,176 pg/mL (odds ratio [OR], 3.352; p<0.001), higher lactate levels (OR, 1.203; p=0.003), and higher SOFA score (OR, 1.249; p<0.001) were risk factors for in-hospital mortality. Conclusion: Presepsin levels were higher in non-survivors than in survivors. Thus, presepsin may be a valuable biomarker in predicting the prognosis of sepsis.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
• /
• v.6 no.4
• /
• pp.275-283
• /
• 2018

Cancer show distinct pattern of gene expression when it is compared to normal. This difference results malignant characteristic of cancer. Many cancer drugs are targeting this difference so that it can selectively kill cancer cells. One of the recent demand for personalized treating cancer is retrieving normal tissue from a patient so that the gene expression difference between cancer and normal be assessed. However, in most clinical situation it is hard to retrieve normal tissue from a patient. This is because biopsy of normal tissues may cause damage to the organ function or a risk of infection or side effect what a patient to take. Thus, there is a challenge to estimate normal cell's gene expression where cancers are originated from without taking additional biopsy. In this paper, we propose in-silico based prediction of normal cell's gene expression from gene expression data of a tumor sample. We call this challenge as reverting the cancer into normal. We divided this challenge into two parts. The first part is making a generator that is able to fool a pretrained discriminator. Pretrained discriminator is from the training of public data (9,601 cancers, 7,240 normals) which shows 0.997 of accuracy to discriminate if a given gene expression pattern is cancer or normal. Deceiving this pretrained discriminator means our method is capable of generating very normal-like gene expression data. The second part of the challenge is to address whether generated normal is similar to true reverse form of the input cancer data. We used, cycle-consistent adversarial networks to approach our challenges, since this network is capable of translating one domain to the other while maintaining original domain's feature and at the same time adding the new domain's feature. We evaluated that, if we put cancer data into a cycle-consistent adversarial network, it could retain most of the information from the input (cancer) and at the same time change the data into normal. We also evaluated if this generated gene expression of normal tissue would be the biological reverse form of the gene expression of cancer used as an input.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
• /
• v.60 no.5
• /
• pp.361-365
• /
• 2022

We report a species of diplostomid fluke recovered from 3 carcasses of wild Korean raccoon dog, Nyctereutes procyonoides koreensis, in Korea. A total of 107 diplostomid flukes were recovered from the small intestines of Korean raccoon dogs, which were obtained from the Gangwon Wildlife Medical Rescue Center. Worms fixed with 10% neutral formalin were subjected to microscopic observation and those fixed in 70% ethanol were used for molecular genomic analysis. The worm was divided into 2 separate parts, forebody and hindbody, with a total length of 3,020-4,090 (3,855) ㎛ and a width of 1,210-1,770 (1,562) ㎛. The boat-shaped forebody has a pair of characteristic tentacular appendage, 2 suckers, holdfast organ, and vitelline follicles. The oval to cylindrical hindbody has reproductive organs. The ovary was round or elliptical and located in the anterior of the testes. Two large testes were slightly segmented and tandemly arranged, occupying almost half of hindbody. The short uterus contained a relatively small number of unembryonated eggs sized 130-140×85-96 ㎛. The partial sequence of 18S rRNA of this fluke was consistent with Alaria alata. Based on the morphological and molecular characteristics, the diplostomid flukes recovered from the small intestine of Korean raccoon dogs were identified as A. alata (Digenea: Diplostomidae).

• The Korea Journal of Herbology
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.53-58
• /
• 2018

Objectives : Kaempferia parviflora Rhizome is black ginger indigenous to Laos and Thailand. It has been used as a folk medicine to improve blood flow and promote vitality and longevity with good health and well being. For these reasons, Kaempferia parviflora Rhizome has been focused on developing it as a food or food supplement. In addition, Kaempferia parviflora Rhizome could be under consideration of new prescription based on its characteristic compounds, polymethoxyflavonoids. However, it needs to be certified as safe before it can be used. Here, a single-oral toxicity test and safety classification was carried out to identity acute information of the toxicity of Kaempferia parviflora Rhizome powder and to make sure of its safety in clinical applications. Methods : Test substance was orally administered to male and female SD-rat at dose levels of 5000 mg/kg to estimate approximate lethal dose(ALD). Based on the acute information of the toxicity, the safety classification was estimated using the HED(human equivalent dose)-based MOS(margin of safety). Results : At 14 days after treatment with test substance. there were no of test substance related with mortalities and clinical signs. In addition, no changes in the body or organ weights and no gross or histopathological findings were observed. Thus, the ALD of Kaempferia parviflora Rhizome powder was considered over 5,000 mg/kg in both female and male mice. Conclusions : Based on the single oral toxicity test using the highest and limit dose, 5,000 mg/kg and the decision guideline for safety classification based on HED-based MOS, it was estimated that Kaempferia parviflora Rhizome powder is classified as "Specified class B" indicating that clinical dose is not limited to patients as safe as food.

• Annals of Hepato-Biliary-Pancreatic Surgery
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.159-167
• /
• 2022

Backgrounds/Aims: The optimal timing of percutaneous transhepatic gallbladder drainage (PTGBD) and subsequent laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) according to the severity of acute cholecystitis (AC) has not been established yet. Methods: This single-center, retrospective study included 695 patients with grade I or II AC without common bile duct stones who underwent PTGBD and subsequent LC between January 2010 and December 2019. Difficult surgery (DS) (open conversion, subtotal cholecystectomy, adjacent organ injury, transfusion, operation time ≥ 90 minutes, or estimated blood loss ≥ 100 mL) and poor postoperative outcome (PPO) (postoperative hospital stay ≥ 7 days or Clavien-Dindo grade ≥ II postoperative complication) were defined to comprehensively evaluate intraoperative and postoperative outcomes, respectively. Results: Of 695 patients, 403 had grade I AC and 292 had grade II AC. According to the receiver operating characteristic curve and multivariate logistic regression analyses, an interval from symptom onset to PTGBD of > 3.5 days and an interval from PTGBD to LC of > 7.5 days were significant predictors of DS and PPO, respectively, in grade I AC. In grade II AC, the timing of PTGBD and subsequent LC were not statistically related to DS or PPO. Conclusions: In grade I AC, performing PTGBD within 3.5 days after symptom onset can reduce surgical difficulties and subsequently performing LC within 7.5 days after PTGBD can improve postoperative outcomes. In grade II AC, early PTGBD cannot improve the surgical difficulty. In addition, the timing of subsequent LC is not correlated with surgical difficulties or postoperative outcomes.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
• /
• v.46 no.6
• /
• pp.957-966
• /
• 2004

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of BPA on reproductive characteristic and blood hematological and chemical values in mice. The male mice were intraperitoneally injected BPA in native control(no treatment), positive control(corn oil, 3$m\ell$/kg B.W), 0.05, 0.5 and 5.0mg BPA/kg B.W and female mice were injected BPA in control(corn oil, 3$m\ell$/kg B.W), 0.05, 0.5 and 5.0mg BPA/kg B.W with 5 times at 3 days interval for 14 days. The administration of BPA in male mice didn't affect the body and reproductive organ weight such as testis, epididymis, vesicular gland and coagulating gland. We found that the 5.0mg BPA group was significantly reduced the sperm concentration and increased the sperm abnormality compared to native, positive control and 0.05mg BPA groups(P<0.05), but any other effects were not found in sperm viability and motility in BPA treatment groups. The RBC, HB, HT, MCV, MCH, MCHC, albumin, BUN and total protein of blood hematological and chemical values in male were not different in all experimental groups(P>0.05). However, the value of WBC was slightly lower in BPA treatment groups than that of control groups and PLT was slightly higher in BPA groups than that of control groups, but not significantly defference among the experimental groups(P>0.05). In female mice, the effects of BPA on body weight didn’t affect in all experimental groups, but ovary weights in 0.5 and 5.0mg BPA groups were significantly increased compared to those in control and 0.05mg BPA group(P<0.05). The uterine weight in BPA groups was slightly higher than that of control group, but not significantly different in all experimental groups(P>0.05). The RBC, Hb, HT, MCV, MCH, MCHC, albumin and total protein of blood hematological and chemical values in female were not different in all experimental groups(P>0.05). The values of WBC and PLT in BPA groups were slightly higher than that of control, but not significantly different among the experimental groups. The concentration of BUN was the higher in BPA groups than that of control group. The histological evaluation of testis, ovary and uterus were not different in all experimental groups.