• Korean Journal of Bronchoesophagology
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.57-62
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• 1996

Tracheal stenosis can be classified into intrinsic stenosis secondary to tracheal inflammatory lesion or mass effect and extrinsic stenosis secondary tumors of thyroid, esophagus and mediastinum. Extrinsic stenosis which is frequently encountered in clinical setting could be often overlooked due to mild symptom. Recently, even with the increasing interest in extrinsic tracheal stenosis there are limitation in it's diagnosis and treatment. The purpose of this study is to provide guidance in the diagnosis and treaonent of extrinsic tracheal stenosis. Here, we report the etiology, symptoms, radiologic findings, pulmonary fuction finding, treatment and its results in 26 cases of extrinsic tracheal stenosis. Causes of extrinsic tracheal stenosis included compression of aiway by thyroid benign tumor in 13 cases to be the most common, next by thyroid malignancy in 9 cases, metastatic mediastinal turner in 2 cases, 1 case each for esophageal cancer and parathyroid cancer. In 3 cases simple tracheal resection and end to end anastomosis were done, 1 cases underwent total laryngectomy, and 8 cases were treated by conservative management, where all cases failed in treatment. The remaining 14 cases were successfully treated by removing the causes and maintaining tracheal tube insertion for amount of time. Extrinsic tracheal stenosis due to benign conditions were treated satisfactorily by removing mass, however with the malignant causes there was considerable amount of difficulty in treatment.

• Korean Journal of Head & Neck Oncology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.51-57
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• 1997

A mass appearing in the anterior or lateral side of neck often can be a diagnostic challenge. Differential diagnosis of the neck mass covers a broad spectrum of diseases and the proper evaluation and management of a neck mass requires an impressive amount of anatomic and pathologic information. Because improper diagnosis and management may convert a potentially curable malignant metastasis into incurable disease, a differential diagnosis must be considered in all patients who present with a neck mass. Authors reviewed 2,148 cases of neck mass who were diagnosed by surgical resection, biopsy or aspiration during the period between October 1982 to December 1993, excluding those with thyroid and parathyroid disease. The evaluated characteristics were age, sex, site of lesion, and pathologic diagnosis. The results were as follows: Of 2,148 cases of neck mass, the overall ratio of benign to malignant tumor was 3 : 1. In 1,603 cases of benign mass lesion, the most common disease was lymphadenitis(non-specific and tuberculosis) showing 53% incidence, the second was salivary gland tumor(13%), and the third was congenital lesion(12%). The minor problems such as lipoma and sebaceous cyst were 21 %. In the age distribution of benign lesion, tuberculous lymphadenitis showed peak incidence in second decade, non-specific lymphadenitis was main disease of childhood, salivary gland tumor was peak in fourth decade, and most of congenital lesions were diagnosed at the age below 15. In 545 malignant tumors, the most common lesion was metastatic cancer to cervical lymph nodes yielding 71 % incidence(head and neck primary 52%, infraclavicular primary 42%, unknown primary 5%), the second common disease was lymphoma(19%), and the third was salivary gland cancer(9%). In the age incidence of malignant tumor, 60% of them developed in the fifth and sixth decade, head and neck primary was more common in the fifth decade than sixth, however lymphoma showed higher incidence in sixth decade. In the analysis of mass location according to lymph node level grouping(I - V), lymphadenitis developed mostly in level V nodes, the next common occurring site was level IV in tuberculous lymphadenitis and level II in non-specific lymphadenitis. The majority of metastatic cancers were found in level IV and III, and common occurring site of lymphoma was in level II and IV. Pathologic diagnosis of neck masses were made by fine needle aspiration cytology 80 cases, incisional biopsy 533 cases, excisional surgery 1,399 cases, and neck dissection 116 cases. For the proper management of neck mass, a proper diagnostic modality should be selected from imaging techniques, cytology, biopsy or neck dissection, with the consideration of patient's age, history and clinical findings. The scapel biopsy could be used freely in the inflammatory disease or inoperable metastatic cancer, but it should be reserved in the curable metastatic cancer or clinically possible malignancy.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.34-40
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• 2021

Purpose If a new test is introduced or reagents are changed in the laboratory of a medical institution, the characteristics of the test should be analyzed according to the procedure and the assessment of reagents should be made. However, several necessary conditions must be met to perform all required comparative evaluations, first enough samples should be prepared for each test, and secondly, various reagents applicable to the comparative evaluations must be supplied. Even if enough comparative evaluations have been done, there is a limit to the fact that the data variation for the new reagent represents the overall patient data variation, The fact puts a burden on the laboratory to the change the reagent. Due to these various difficulties, reagent changes in the laboratory are limited. In order to introduce a competitive bid, the institute conducted a full investigation of Radioimmunoassay(RIA) reagents for each test and established the range of reagents available in the laboratory through comparative evaluations. We wanted to share this process. Materials and Methods There are 20 items of tests conducted in our laboratory except for consignment tests. For each test, RIA reagents that can be used were fully investigated with the reference to external quality control report. and the manuals for each reagent were obtained. Each reagent was checked for the manual to check the test method, Incubation time, sample volume needed for the test. After that, the primary selection was made according to whether it was available in this laboratory. The primary selected reagents were supplied with 2kits based on 100tests, and the data correlation test, sensitivity measurement, recovery rate measurement, and dilution test were conducted. The secondary selection was performed according to the results of the comparative evaluation. The reagents that passed the primary and secondary selections were submitted to the competitive bidding list. In the case of reagent is designated as a singular, we submitted a explanatory statement with the data obtained during the primary and secondary selection processes. Results Excluded from the primary selection was the case where TAT was expected to be delayed at the moment, and it was impossible to apply to our equipment due to the large volume of reagents used during the test. In the primary selection, there were five items which only one reagent was available.(squamous cell carcinoma Ag(SCC Ag), β-human chorionic gonadotropin(β-HCG), vitamin B12, folate, free testosterone), two reagents were available(CA19-9, CA125, CA72-4, ferritin, thyroglobulin antibody(TG Ab), microsomal antibody(Mic Ab), thyroid stimulating hormone-receptor-antibody(TSH-R-Ab), calcitonin), three reagents were available (triiodothyronine(T3), Tree T3, Free T4, TSH, intact parathyroid hormone(intact PTH)) and four reagents were available are carcinoembryonic antigen(CEA), TG. In the secondary selection, there were eight items which only one reagent was available.(ferritin, TG, CA19-9, SCC, β-HCG, vitaminB12, folate, free testosterone), two reagents were available(TG Ab, Mic Ab, TSH-R-Ab, CA125, CA72-4, intact PTH, calcitonin), three reagents were available(T3, Tree T3, Free T4, TSH, CEA). Reasons excluded from the secondary selection were the lack of reagent supply for comparative evaluations, the problems with data reproducibility, and the inability to accept data variations. The most problematic part of comparative evaluations was sample collection. It didn't matter if the number of samples requested was large and the capacity needed for the test was small. It was difficult to collect various concentration samples in the case of a small number of tests(100 cases per month or less), and it was difficult to conduct a recovery rate test in the case of a relatively large volume of samples required for a single test(more than 100 uL). In addition, the lack of dilution solution or standard zero material for sensitivity measurement or dilution tests was one of the problems. Conclusion Comparative evaluation for changing test reagents require appropriate preparation time to collect diverse and sufficient samples. In addition, setting the total sample volume and reagent volume range required for comparative evaluations, depending on the sample volume and reagent volume required for one test, will reduce the burden of sample collection and planning for each comparative evaluation.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.261-268
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• 2023

[¹⁸F]Fluorocholine is a radiopharmaceutical used non-invasively in positron emission tomography to diagnose parathyroid adenoma, prostate cancer, and hepatocellular carcinoma by evaluating the choline metabolism. In this study, a radiolabeling method for [¹⁸F]fluorocholine was optimized using a solid phase extraction (SPE) cartridge. [¹⁸F]Fluorocholine was labeled in two steps using an automated synthesizer. In the first step, dibromomethane was reacted with [¹⁸F]KF/K2.2.2/K₂CO₃ to obtain the intermediate [¹⁸F]fluorobromomethane. In the second step, [¹⁸F]fluorobromomethane was passed through a Sep-Pak^Ⓡ Silica SPE cartridge to remove the impurities and then reacted with N,N-dimethylaminoethanol (DMAE) in a Sep-Pak^Ⓡ C18 SPE cartridge to label [¹⁸F]fluorocholine. The reaction conditions of [¹⁸F]fluorocholine were optimized. The synthesis yield was confirmed according to the number of silica cartridges and DMAE concentration. No statistically significant difference in the synthesis yield of [¹⁸F]fluorocholine was observed when using four or three silica cartridges (P>0.05). The labeling yield was 11.5±0.5% (N=4) when DMAE was used as its original solution. On the other hand, when diluted to 10% with dimethyl sulfoxide, the radiochemical yield increased significantly to 30.1±5.2% (N=20). In conclusion, [¹⁸F]Fluorocholine for clinical use can be synthesized stably in high yield by applying an optimized synthesis method.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.23 no.10
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• pp.1019-1027
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• 2022

Objective: Thyroidectomy bed lesions frequently show suspicious ultrasound (US) features after thyroid surgery. Fine-needle aspiration (FNA) may not provide definitive pathological information about the lesions. Although core-needle biopsy (CNB) has excellent diagnostic performance in characterizing suspicious thyroid nodules, no published studies have evaluated the performance of CNB specifically for thyroidectomy bed lesions. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the diagnostic performance and safety of CNB for characterizing thyroidectomy bed lesions. Materials and Methods: A total of 124 thyroidectomy bed lesions in 113 patients (79 female and 34 male; age, 23-85 years) who underwent US-guided CNB between December 2008 and December 2020 were included. We reviewed the US imaging features of the target lesions and the histories of previous biopsies. The pathologic results, diagnostic performance for malignancy, and complications of CNB were analyzed. Results: All samples (100%) obtained by CNB were adequate for pathological analysis. Pathological analysis revealed inconclusive results in two lesions (1.6%). According to the reference standard, 50 lesions were ultimately malignant (40.3%), and 72 were benign (58.1%), excluding the two inconclusive lesions. The performance of CNB for diagnosing malignant thyroidectomy bed lesions in the 122 lesions had a sensitivity of 98.0% (49/50), a specificity of 100% (72/72), positive predictive value of 100% (49/49), and negative predictive value of 98.6% (72/73). Eleven lesions were referred for CNB after prior inconclusive FNA results in thyroidectomy bed lesions, for all of which CNB yielded correct conclusive pathologic diagnoses. According to the pathological analysis of CNB, there were various benign lesions (58.9%, 73/124) besides recurrence, including benign postoperative lesions other than suture granuloma (32.3%, 40/124), suture granuloma (15.3%, 19/124), remnant thyroid tissue (5.6%, 7/124), parathyroid lesions (4%, 5/124), and abscesses (1.6%, 2/124). No major or minor complications were associated with the CNB procedure. Conclusion: US-guided CNB is accurate and safe for characterizing thyroidectomy bed lesions.