• Title/Summary/Keyword: Risk of diagnostic errors

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Concept of an intelligent operator support system for initial emergency responses in nuclear power plants

  • Kang, Jung Sung;Lee, Seung Jun
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.54 no.7
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    • pp.2453-2466
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    • 2022
  • Nuclear power plant operators in the main control room are exposed to stressful conditions in emergency situations as immediate and appropriate mitigations are required. While emergency operating procedures (EOPs) provide operators with the appropriate tasks and diagnostic guidelines, EOPs have static properties that make it difficult to reflect the dynamic changes of the plant. Due to this static nature, operator workloads increase because unrelated information must be screened out and numerous displays must be checked to obtain the plant status. Generally, excessive workloads should be reduced because they can lead to human errors that may adversely affect nuclear power plant safety. This paper presents a framework for an operator support system that can substitute the initial responses of the EOPs, or in other words the immediate actions and diagnostic procedures, in the early stages of an emergency. The system assists operators in emergency operations as follows: performing the monitoring tasks in parallel, identifying current risk and latent risk causality, diagnosing the accident, and displaying all information intuitively with a master logic diagram. The risk causalities are analyzed with a functional modeling methodology called multilevel flow modeling. This system is expected to reduce workloads and the time for performing initial emergency response procedures.

The Methodological Review on the Accuracy Study of Questionnaire for Sasang Constitution Diagnosis (체질진단설문지 정확률 연구의 연구방법론 고찰)

  • Kim, Sang-Hyuk;Jang, Eun-Su;Koh, Byung-Hee
    • Journal of Sasang Constitutional Medicine
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    • v.24 no.3
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    • pp.1-16
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    • 2012
  • Objectives For the methodological review on the accuracy study of questionnaire for Sasang constitution diagnosis, we searched the various diagnostic accuracy study of the questionnaires for Sasang constitution. Methods We searched MEDLINE, the Cochrane Library, KISS, and DBPIA. Additionally, We hand-searched the main oriental medical journals. All articles were independently reviewed and selected by two evaluators. And selected articles were assessed by "Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies Tool"(QUADAS Tool) for the methodological review. Results The twenty eight studies initially identified studies were included in the methodological review. The part of "Acceptable reference standard", "Uninterpretable results reported" and "Withdrawals explained" was very weak in the risk of bias. The part of "Representative spectrum", "Acceptable delay between tests", "Incorporation avoided", "Reference standard results blinded", "Index test results blinded" was unclear in the description. Conclusions For the further study on the accuracy study of Sasang constitution diagnosis, we have to improve the aforementioned errors. Additionally, the checklist for the description of study might be needed.

Basal cell carcinoma misdiagnosed as trichoepithelioma

  • Wee, Sung Jae;Park, Myong Chul;Chung, Chan Min
    • Archives of Craniofacial Surgery
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    • v.21 no.3
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    • pp.202-205
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    • 2020
  • Trichoepithelioma is a benign hair follicle tumor that can undergo malignant transformation into basal cell carcinoma in rare cases. Due to the similar clinical and histological features of trichoepithelioma and basal cell carcinoma, distinguishing between these types of tumors can be a diagnostic challenge. Punch biopsy obtains only a small sample of the entire lesion, and thus inherently involves a risk of misdiagnosis between histologically similar diseases. Therefore, if the possibility of misdiagnosis can reasonably be suspected, clinicians should conduct an excisional biopsy or immunohistochemical staining (e.g., CD10 and Bcl-2) to ensure an exact diagnosis. Although trichoepithelioma is benign, the surgical excision of solitary trichoepithelioma should be considered in order to avoid the possibility of malignant transformation, which has occasionally been documented for multiple familial trichoepitheliomas. Herein, we report a case that was initially misdiagnosed as trichoepithelioma before ultimately being diagnosed as basal cell carcinoma through excision and immunohistochemical staining.

Metabolic evaluation of children with global developmental delay

  • Eun, So-Hee;Hahn, Si Houn
    • Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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    • v.58 no.4
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    • pp.117-122
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    • 2015
  • Global developmental delay (GDD) is a relatively common early-onset chronic neurological condition, which may have prenatal, perinatal, postnatal, or undetermined causes. Family history, physical and neurological examinations, and detailed history of environmental risk factors might suggest a specific disease. However, diagnostic laboratory tests, brain imaging, and other evidence-based evaluations are necessary in most cases to elucidate the causes. Diagnosis of GDD has recently improved because of remarkable advances in genetic technology, but this is an exhaustive and expensive evaluation that may not lead to therapeutic benefits in the majority of GDD patients. Inborn metabolic errors are one of the main targets for the treatment of GDD, although only a small proportion of GDD patients have this type of error. Nevertheless, diagnosis is often challenging because the phenotypes of many genetic or metabolic diseases often overlap, and their clinical spectra are much broader than currently known. Appropriate and cost-effective strategies including up-to-date information for the early identification of the "treatable" causes of GDD are needed for the development of well-timed therapeutic applications with the potential to improve neurodevelopmental outcomes.

Association Study of ANK3 Polymorphism and Risk of Schizophrenia (ANK3 유전자 다형성과 조현병의 연관성에 대한 연합연구)

  • Yang, So Yung;Huh, Ik-Soo;Cho, Eun Young;Choi, Mi Ji;Park, Taesung;Lee, Yu-Sang;Hong, Kyung Sue
    • Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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    • v.22 no.4
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    • pp.173-178
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    • 2015
  • Objectives Previous genome-wide association studies have indicated the association between ankyrin 3 (ANK3) and the vulnerability of schizophrenia. We investigated the association between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) covering the whole ANK3 locus and schizophrenia in the Korean population. Methods The study subjects were 582 patients with schizophrenia and 502 healthy controls. Thirty-eight tag SNPs on ANK3 and five additional SNPs showing significant association with schizophrenia in previous studies were genotyped. Results Three (rs10994181, rs16914791, rs1938526) of 43 SNPs showed a nominally significant association (p < 0.05) with at least one genotype model. But none of these associations remained significant after adjusting for multiple testing errors with Bonferroni's correction. Conclusions We could not identify a significant association between ANK3 and schizophrenia in the Korean population. However, three SNPs showing an association signal with nominal significance need to be investigated in future studies with higher statistical power and more specific phenotype crossing the current diagnostic categories.

The Research to Correct Overestimation in TOF-MRA for Severity of Cerebrovascular Stenosis (3D-SPACE T2 기법에 의한 TOF-MRA검사 시 발생하는 혈관 내 협착 정도의 측정 오류 개선에 관한 연구)

  • Han, Yong Su;Kim, Ho Chul;Lee, Dong Young;Lee, Su Cheol;Ha, Seung Han;Kim, Min Gi
    • Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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    • v.51 no.12
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    • pp.180-188
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    • 2014
  • It is very important accurate diagnosis and quick treatment in cerebrovascular disease, i.e. stenosis or occlusion that could be caused by risk factors such as poor dietary habits, insufficient exercise, and obesity. Time-of-flight magnetic resonance angiography (TOF-MRA), it is well known as diagnostic method without using contrast agent for cerebrovascular disease, is the most representative and reliable technique. Nevertheless, it still has measurement errors (also known as overestimation) for length of stenosis and area of occlusion in celebral infarction that is built by accumulation and rupture of plaques generated by hemodynamic turbulence. The purpose of this study is to show clinical trial feasibility for 3D-SPACE T2, which is improved by using signal attenuation effects of fluid velocity, in diagnosis of cerebrovascular disease. To model angiostenosis, strictures of different proportions (40%, 50%, 60%, and 70%) and virtual blood stream (normal saline) of different velocities (0.19 ml/sec, 1.5 ml/sec, 2.1 ml/sec, and 2.6 ml/sec) by using dialysis were made. Cross-examinations were performed for 3D-SPACE T2 and TOF-MRA (16 times each). The accuracy of measurement for length of stenosis was compared in all experimental conditions. 3D-SPACE 2T has superiority in terms of accuracy for measurements of the length of stenosis, compared with TOF-MRA. Also, it is robust in fast blood stream and large stenosis than TOF-MRA. 3D-SPACE 2T will be promising technique to increase diagnosis accuracy in narrow complex lesions as like two cerebral small vessels with stenosis, created by hemodynamic turbulence.